I had a fascinating conversation at Dens Park recently with a scout from a big English club.
He talked about the growing trend towards analytics in measuring and assessing players.
While not dismissing the statistical analysis approach increasingly used by clubs, he was fairly old school in his view that the physical act of using his eyeballs and years of experience in assessing players always topped a statistics-based approach.
Modern players’ movement and heart rate – amongst countless other things – are monitored in training and in matches. Image: Ewan Bootman/SNS
He didn’t denigrate the increasing role clubs give to analysts and algorithms, but felt over-reliance on statistics like passes completed, assists, blocks and interceptions is no substitute for sitting in the stand on a cold December night assessing character, commitment and courage of the players he was scouting.
He’s worked for some top managers, including Sven-Goran Eriksson.
While I think clubs should use every tool available to improve squads, someone with that scout’s pedigree is worth listening to, especially when he winked and told me that, using certain statistical analyses, it could be shown that Kris Boyd was superior to Henrik Larsson.
That claim alone would surely prove analysis-based performance inferior to his eyeball method.
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JIM SPENCE: Does BIG Dens Park claim by EFL scout prove old school methods superior to statistics?
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