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Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

theguardian.com

41–50 of 51 posts

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#41
post #40
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.

Wow - Had to mention Harry Kane on here huh? He is a real star, did you see his wunder(own)goal the other day? Took his tally up to 2 goals on the year! Our carl jenkinson has more than him! (ef the spuds). In all seriousness, I don't think arsene's ability to unearth hidden gems and turn them into 10/20/30 million $ players has completely gone. I mean FFS hector bellerin (not really unearthed from some hidden contin…

> not really unearthed from some hidden continent in Africa, he was bought as teenager from Barcalona

This is HN, can we have some geographical accuracy and keep the casual stereotyping to a minimum? First of all Africa is itself a continent, second of all it is not exactly unknown.

Just because some soccer-watching people don't know much about it doesn't mean that comments about "some hidden place in Africa" are particularly appropriate for a more general audience.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#42
post #39
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Couching is not all scouting... no one's denying that Wenger is always on the look out for young prospects. But Wenger is a sort of 'old fashioned' coach. He prefers focusing on how his players can do better, rather than trying to focus on the weaknesses of the opponent, which is definitely not 'modern'. This has been slowly changing the past few seasons however. That being said, I'm definitely no #WOB just in…

Gotta disagree there. Take the game against Bayern a couple of days ago - he knew that Guardiola prefers to play possession football so he let him do that. Arsenal defended deep in response, hitting Bayern on the counter and reaped a 2-0 result. He certainly exploited the flaws in Bayern's game.

There were no big flaws in Bayern's game that day. Arsenal sat deep specifically to shut down what muller and lewandowski could do, but I wouldn't call that exploiting. In fact Arsenal didn't really 'exploit' or target any aspect of Bayern's game (it's hard to find flaws against "top top class" teams anyway), they were just really well disciplined and played some really good high tempo counter attacks. The lay-low and counter attack was just a good gameplan, not really an 'exploit'.

But Bayern still mostly dominated and played really well. Arsenal's goal was mainly due a horror error by Neuer, he really should have caught or punched that. (Yes it's a set piece so anything can happen, but other than Walcott's header, Sanchez's chance and Giroud's late header from a corner, I don't really remember many more threatening set pieces, so Neuer should have really dealt with that, especially after the Walcott save.)

The only 'flaws' that Bayern had were that they didn't finish. Costa should have scored. Lewandowski should have scored maybe twice even though it was a quiet game for him by his standards. (Sanchez's mistake was what lead to Costa's chance on goal too.)

That last goal by Ozil was really just more of a case of Bellerin being a freak surprisingly right at the end of the match rather than Arsenal specifically exploiting anything. Arsenal was not high pressing (as a team) on that play, it was just a mistake (slow pass) combined with the incredible anticipation and speed from Bellerin (not to mention the desire to bolt into the box rather than jog to the corner flag).

In fact, you could clearly see throughout most of the match that Bayern was the one that kept wanting to target Nacho. Which was pretty weird because if they did their homework, they should have known how massively impressive Nacho has been recently.

> This has been slowly changing the past few seasons however.

And despite all of what I just said, I am acknowledging that Arsene isn't as 'old-fashioned' as he was maybe 5 years ago. Because that comment was more of an observation in general of the post-Highbury era, not literally the past few days when it's obvious that there's more to Arsene's game nowadays.

If you wanted to use a recent example anyway, the game against United would have been a much better example imo (league games is generally when you should be 'exploting' anyway, not in the cl, because you should be expecting anything in cl games, just because of the occasion). You could clearly see that Arsenal specifically targetted United's slow midfield by high pressing on them (Walcott's and Ozil's workrate was impressive). And they were basically one-twoing their way past Bastian "cannot run no more" Schweinsteiger the whole match.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#43
post #7

Arsenal news on this page. Wow. "StatDNA’s database is now Arsenal’s database, so if Wenger wants to sign a defender, who is, say, 6ft 4in, an excellent reader of the game and an accurate passer, one push of a button will bring up the best options in world football." Interesting and Arsenal need a few.

> Interesting and Arsenal need a few.

between per, kos, gabriel and chambers, arsenal has a good number of defenders. the three main guys (per, kos and gabriel) are interchangeable and play quite well with each other.

now, arsenal 100% needs a defensive midfielder. only coquelin is not enough (arteta and flamini are not good enough).

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.

To your point, I'd say two of his best signings in recent memory were Cech and Özil -- both mature players who were already recognized as hugely talented on the international level. However in fairness to Wegner, I think Danny Welbeck was identified to be a potential "hidden gem" but unfortunately he has been plauged by injuries. And it's hard to criticize one for being unable to find the likes of Henry.

I don't think you can class a 15 million pound Welbeck, who was playing for Manchester United and the England senior team as a "hidden gem" when compared against Shinji Kagawa who was playing for Cerezo Osaka in the J League and signed for €350,000...

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#45
post #37
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.

I think those players all have the potential to achieve legend status at Arsenal (maybe not Monreal so much, and maybe not Giroud though for the latter I'd argue because he's under-rated by many) if they a.) Keep going the way they're hoped to for a few years (improving for youngsters like Bellerin, staying the same quality for Cazorla) and b.) are instrumental in bringing a few more trophies to the club. It needs a…

I would argue they are typical, perhaps good signings for a club such as Arsenal. They were all however known, and already playing at big European clubs.

None were say playing for say Halmstads BK or unknown to everyone in the top tear other than vai some obscure stats system...

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#48
This is an example of a good movement by an attacking player (Munir, player from Barcelona starting at the top) that helps create the goal and still won't be traditionally credited as anything (didn't score or assist or even touched the ball in this play): http://gfycat.com/TotalEmbellishedDesertpupfish

At some level soccer is about creating space for yourself or for your teammates, this is what this player does (following Suarez' clue) and hopefully the new data companies are capturing this (versus silly stats like possession).

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#49
post #17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

Semi-unknown players from mid-tier clubs simply cost far less in transfer fees than established high-profile players. A classic Arsene Wenger signing was Freddie Ljungberg ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Ljungberg ). He was signed from a team called Halmstads in the Swedish league. While Halmstads were doing pretty well in the Swedish league at this time, they were unknowns on the world scene. Since Arsenal h…

Very well put. This is exactly what I was talking to.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#50
post #7

Arsenal news on this page. Wow. "StatDNA’s database is now Arsenal’s database, so if Wenger wants to sign a defender, who is, say, 6ft 4in, an excellent reader of the game and an accurate passer, one push of a button will bring up the best options in world football." Interesting and Arsenal need a few.

I wouldn't say that. Our defenders are pretty damned good. Between Per, Kos, Gabriel, Bellerin, and Monreal, I think we're in a pretty good position there.
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