Tottenham Talk on Tuesday 14th Sept
Tottenham Talk on Tuesday 14th Sept
Good morning once again positive Spurs folk.
The very brief Crystal Palace assessment was we had 4 defending midfielders and still lost the midfield battle so keen were we not to concede.
Too frightened to attack.
Still, Palace never looked like scoring until Japhet Tanganga got himself sent off and Winks was substituted off for a replacement centre-back, then they scored three.
Dier had already come off injured after being dropped in it by Lloris with Romero and Sánchez unavailable.
So we played missing 4 centre-backs.
Should Gil have been playing for Winks?
I listed my candidates, listed their price, mileage, mpg.
I checked their tax cost and noted it.
I went to a comparison site and did an insurance quote on each one and noted it.
I calculated the travel costs to each vehicle, they weren't all local and the travelling time to the car and back home.
I calculated the cost of driving the car home.
I sent messages backwards and forwards asking questions about each vehicle, finding the faults and the good points.
I did checks on previous MOT's, plus the current one, noting when it was going to run out and taking note of any advisories that might have deteriorated so involving further possible cost.
Any issues raised I did an Internet search for others with that problem, solutions they found and the added cost of such solutions.
I looked up reviews of each car, manufacturer specifications too.
I also looked at Mercedes in the same way.
All in all, I did as many checks as I could and narrowed my list down to three, then negotiated and secured a deal on one of them.
In other words, I did everything Tottenham should be doing when searching for new players.
I even assessed the responses to my questions, were they hiding something, did they sound genuine, honest?
I maximised the information at my disposal, leaving as little to chance as possible.
At the end of the day I had to make my best guess, just as Spurs have to after their scouting efforts.
But the point is, you leave no stone unturned.
Unfortunately, Spurs don't do enough work assessing players mentally before we buy them, it's an area a coach is not qualified to assess a player in, unless he has undergone years of specialist training.
So today, let's take a look at scouting.
To do this I'll use an interview by Victor Orta, the Sporting Director of Leeds United.
He states, in an interview on the Training Ground Guru Podcast, that finding players is 70% human eyes and 30% data.
Orta speaks to the manager, Marcelo Bielsa, two or three times every day in the summer to fully understand the coaches requirements.
Some of our fans don't believe Paratici should be at games understanding what the coach needs and how those requirements are put into operation, when in fact it is essential.
A new head coach and a new Managing Director of Football have got to form a relationship, they have to bond to be on the same wavelength and that means spending time in each others company.
Perhaps that has been the missing element in our scouting, which I think we can all agree could have been better in the past.
In Italy, Paratici as a Sporting Director would sit with the dug out team to see things the way they see them and to get a greater understanding of their requirements.
That must enable you to appreciate better the type of players needed and the skill set required.
It is fine receiving a list of requirements while you are sat in an office, but your perception of how they are applied may be different from a coaches opinion of how he applies them.
To discuss them after a game you have both watched from the same level, in the same area, helps you see things from another's perspective. It just aids understanding.
The Kaisen approach, every little detail matters in improving the whole.
Orta has two algorithms he has developed containing around 80 graded data sets which he puts players through that have been identified and then provides a report to Bielsa.
Paul Mitchell, as we know, uses data to find players, rather than find players to put through the data.
Statistics are becoming more and more important in scouting and it makes sense to find players from data to visually analyse than the other way around.
If I were running a scouting section, I would bring in a body language expert and have them assess these players both on and off the pitch, in interviews for instance.
I would have a sports psychologist assess each player also, so I was armed with as much information as I could get about a players mentality.
This of course you add to with a scouts visual report over a string of games.
There are programmes like Wyscout and most games are televised so there is always plenty of scouting that can be done without even leaving your room.
All of this narrows down your list to a core of players you are interested in.
It sounds obvious, but you don't buy a number 10 if your head coach wants a winger, which is the situation we find ourselves in.
The head coach wants a winger, the fans want a number 10, even though we don't play a midfield system compatible with it. We need creative passing midfielders on the left and right.
That is a different skill set to a central attacking midfielder.
There is a huge amount of cheap data available today, but the key is turning that into relevant knowledge for your individual situation.
Data is meaningless if you don't understand how it fits into actual play, which makes that conversion of great importance.
It isn't a role just anyone could do.
Once you have converted the data into knowledge of a football playing perspective, you then run your algorithms to see how they fit your specific need and who fits better than others.
This is something Monchi at Sevilla uses and he is rather successful in his role, one of the best in the world in fact.
You do not buy a good player just because he is a good player, he has to fit what you specifically need as well and if he doesn't then you pass him by, however good he is.
Just because you can perform in one team doesn't mean you can perform in a different team, a different league, a different country.
We have seen that many times in the past so have we taken enough notice of that previously, has that been a missing element?
Orta tells the story of Leeds going to scout a 16-year-old winger playing for Bodo Glimt in the Norwegian Eliteserien who was making his third start.
There were 15 scouts from all the big clubs watching him, simply because they all had access to data to identify his potential.
If a team wants to take one of our youngsters on loan then they have to put forward a loan proposal, in one form or another.
They have to explain why a loan move to their club is in the players best interests and in Spurs best interests, not just their own club.
They have to appreciate what we want and formulate a plan that corresponds with that and their requirements.
Fans complain a striker isn't bought, a poor midfield performance against Palace, although they didn't look like scoring until Tanganga was sent off and Winks subbed off, and they complain midfield wasn't strengthened.
Forgetting we couldn't shift Ndomebele who hasn't wanted to play while the transfer window was open.
Every issue can't be resolved in one window and if say, Franck Kessié has agreed to join us next summer, we wouldn't look to buy someone in his position now.
If we did and couldn't move them on, we'd be stuck again.
So while fans think this season only, clubs think this season, next season and beyond.
Both are using different criteria to assess.
Fans criteria is irrelevant, fans opinion is irrelevant, really it's only the clubs aims that matter.
Have a great day folks.
Well that's it folks.
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COYS
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