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Not sure I agree with that Nick. remember the Manc team containing Becks, Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Neville & Butt etc ? Not exactly man mountains are they?.
You are right, Pat. Ours is very much the Moneyball style of recruitment. Players are often overvalued because of their physical appearance. Lovren is a classic example. While others, like Reed and Isgrove, may be undervalued, for the same reason.
I reckon "too small" is the "it's me & not you" of youth development. I think the Tyrone Mings year was pretty much bang into our administration & we also missed out on Danny Ings as well from that group so perhaps its fair to say we were understandably a bit off the pace.
As far as money ball goes, that's not really the same thing. I've not seen anything yet that makes me believe that money ball really fits football, but would be quality to get a tour of the tech in the new Pavilion. The issue with Moneyball is that it's based on Baseball which is a less fluid sport & as such, it lends itself much more to having a strong pattern between statistics which correlate to critical success factors. In soccer things are a lot more complicated. For example, you could calculate a threshold which indicates what your average conceded p/m & goals scored p/m would need to be to qualify for 4th. The issue is, understanding how the value of an individual player relates to that value.
So for example. If you have a center back, you might be judging him individually by interceptions, clearances, tackles, key or otherwise. If you take a top line of a defender and rate him alongside somebody else, statistics can tell lies about a player's worth. If he plays for a team that averages 58% possession then he'll have less to do than a player who's team averages 52% possession. If he plays for a team that has identical possession, but plays with a double pivot in front of the defence, then he'll still have less to do. Ok, so what about judging by missed tackles? Well that depends again on whether they play a high line, or a low block & what part of the pitch tackles are being missed in. A center half in a MoPo team will make way more inceptions on average, because of the pressure being put on the player making the pass.
My point is, that statistics in soccer it seems for the most part just help management by exception. You set your thresholds into a database, it throws you the outliers and then you send a human to scout them. It just helps to make your human resources more efficient. I'd be really shocked if how we do stats is any different to any other forward thinking club. I'm pretty sure that how we use the data is different to almost everyone though, as we have a different strategy.
The principle of youth development & size isn't a new thing, it's been at La Masia for 30 years. Barca often lose at youth level, even to local sides, because they focus purely on developing technical skills irrespective of results. You can win as a nine year old by exploiting some temporary advantage you may not have at thirteen. If you have technique & focus on honing and improving it, then eventually you have a sustainable advantage.
As far as Nick's point goes, needs to be some sort of compromise. I don't want to see us back to the days where Terry Cooper was scouting and we'd not sign a player shorter than 6"3. Equally though this isn't La Liga and you cant build a team with an obvious exploitable weakness. You need to have 5 or 6 players capable of marking at set pieces.
The last paragraph was my point, in a football team you have to have balance plus in todays modern game it is more about athleticism than ever before certainly far more than even 10 years ago, a side might get away with one short player but not much more
Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime
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Latest Crop Of Youngsters on 15:49 - Jan 5 with 818 views
Personally, I am less worried about their size. I just would like them to look older than my paper boy. On a serious note, the "German Model" is often mooted as being the template for youth development. It being roughly that from every intake (year group) of academy scholars: One or two make the first team and continue to be Premier League standard, of which one may be sold for decent money to fund the academy at some point One or two will make the first team but ultimately be Championship players, and the club will get a smaller return on that investment One or two will make the fringes but end up being L1 or L2 players Of the rest one will get injured and not be a pro footballer, a few will lose interest and go off and work for a living, maybe play semi pro. Year on year this provides a number of home grown players in the Saints first team squad (JWP, Reed, Targett et al for the next year or so) , a number at other PL clubs (Shaw and Chambers of the current regime), and several at Football League clubs (Simon Gillett played for Yeovil yesterday for example. Tidy player but his size perhaps prevented him from making it a higher level) where there is no return on the investment financially but it promotes the academy as a route to being a pro footballer (the lad that went to Villa in the summer but I cannot remember his name, left back but behind Targett in the pecking order as a player), I understand that the club works hard to ensure all the scholars find a club if they are released by Saints with on going support
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Latest Crop Of Youngsters on 16:06 - Jan 5 with 802 views
Diego Maradona 5' 5" Lionel Messi 5' 6" Billy Bremner 5' 5" Alan Ball 5' 6" And so on.... So, I wouldn't worry too much, Nick. From what I've seen, Reed and Isgrove can take care of themselves.
My niece's fella is a journalist and writes for the Liverpool FC match day programme plus websites etc. As such he watches every reserve, youth game, behind closed doors etc. Anyway I was in the pub with him the other week and he reckons Isgrove is the best player he has seen at that level in the last couple of years.
I have absolutely no idea how tall/big he is etc.
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Latest Crop Of Youngsters on 16:55 - Jan 5 with 734 views
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