How Statistics and Data are Changing the Face of Football

Football has changed almost unrecognisably, and data is pushing those changes ever further

Football has changed and evolved over time in all manner of ways. Many of those changes have been for the best while others will perhaps forever be a contentious subject. It has benefited from a wide range of new technologies and extensive tips and predictions from sites like oddschecker with all the statistics that are available in real-time. The introduction of the back pass law, as far back as 1992 is an example of the former, while VAR is the prime example of the latter.

There have however, been other changes, less dramatic ones that have been drip fed into our psyche, that have had even greater impacts on the beautiful game. These started out as evolutionary, but ended up becoming revolutionary. Sports psychology as well as improvements in diet and fitness have both had very real and tangible benefits on players’ performances, which in turn provides a better spectacle and product for the fans. The changes that will end up having the greatest impact however, if only because it effects so many different parts of the game, is likely to be the increasing use and reliance on statistics and data.

Expected goals or xG is perhaps the most famous of the new breed of stats that are regularly thrown at us. XG assigns a score to each chance created. That score represents the likelihood of that chance resulting in a goal, or in old money, how good a chance it was. Useful though xG can sometimes be, it is maybe a good example of where they are deemed superfluous to requirements. That is certainly not the case with much of the data that is so prevalent in today’s game, at least at the elite level.

There are three areas where it has had an increasing influence at the top levels of the game but more and more in the lower tiers of English football, as the technology becomes both cheaper and more easily available.

More and more decisions are being made because of what the numbers say

Fitness

It was not that long ago when a player’s fitness level would have been judged on his time to complete a lap of the pitch, perhaps combined with his absence from the physio table. Today every single aspect of a footballer’s fitness, recovery (from both injury and a match) and strength is continually monitored for his entire stay at a club. Instead of a stick to beat an underperforming player with, it can be an essential tool to diagnose and prevent injury, as well as a very useful tool for the health and fitness coaches to know which areas each player needs to work on.

Recruitment

We will get onto recruitment of players in a second, but the actual recruitment of data experts at top clubs is becoming almost as keenly contested as the normal transfer market. Manchester City for example have more than 10 full time data analysts on their books. Any recruitment that uses data is inevitably going to have Moneyball accusations thrown at it, but any club not using it to some extent (and very few if any won’t be to a certain extent at least) are swimming against the tide. It is used in many ways, and it would take several articles to even scratch the surface, but for simplicity reasons you can think of their being two ways it can be used.

First of all, data and statistics will tell you what aspects of the game your team or squad is lacking in. That same data will rank every player, no matter where he is plying his trade. If the latter fits into the hole of the former, then you have a perfect solution to your team’s deficiencies. Of course it is not that simple in reality, but that is the very basic principle.

Secondly, it is used to find young players who are on the verge of making it into their first Championship or League 1 club for example, and to assess their chances of them growing into an asset that will either improve your team or your bank balance when they improve.

Tactics

The more you understand both your own side’s strengths and weaknesses and crucially your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, the better chance you have of building a plan, and selecting a team to overcome them. Today a manager will have data on where every player on the pitch at every instant. What they do with and without the ball, how the team works together, when they press, when they don’t and so on. What is more, you can bet your bottom dollar that the man in the opposition dugout will be doing exactly the same on your team.