NBTTT The discussion yesterday about analysis and football

And whether it gets to much on the side of being data driven, analyst driven, players turning into robots.

I don't think it does, I love this stuff. I also think it adds to my appreciation of the game and the players when someone unpicks, for example, the change of tactics since Wagner came in our in yesterday's example, the specific ways in which he tweaked it at half time. Having played terrible level 11 aside and felt completely lost as to where I should be on the pitch, the capability of players to actually implement some of this stuff, to a degree, after a short bit of coaching or even some clips at half time is incredible.

Secondly though I like this article on the bbc today which is an interview with head of performance analyst at Liverpool

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For those that fear football being driven by algorithms, he argues that football remains a very chaotic game and his role as an analyst is to try to find tiny gains that might make a difference amidst the chaos, rather than believing he can implement a robotic style of football that will just work as if in a vacuum. Eg, when at Liverpool his team spotted how Barcelona were slow paced at breaks in play at took their eye off the ball so they got all the ball boys to make sure they were alive to this and pick their moments to get the ball in quickly (which may have possibly been one tiny factor on making the alexander-arnold to Origi corner possible).

I don't think the chaos, the cut and thrust of responding and counter responding to other teams, and the imperfect reality of how tactics will play out on the pitch compared to the tactics board or post.mll match tactics blog will ever be rid from the game.

Posted By: jAC, Jan 24, 11:39:02