[Football] StarLizard and... Ipswich?! (Tony Bloom makes showbiz gossip email Popbitch)

[Wozza]

>> Hot data <<​

Trading places ​

"Data-driven" has been the watchword in football of recent months. With the success of Brighton and Brentford overachieving in the Premier League thanks to the clubs' clever analytics and transfer policies, a lot of their rivals have started to revamp their own internal processes to copy them. The brains behind Brighton's success (betting impresario Tony Bloom) realised two things. 1/ There was a limit to the amount of additional uplift his traders could give the team; and 2/ there weren't enough good analytics teams out there to go round. So the club quietly put the word out that their trading nouse was for hire. To trial, they agreed to start working with Ipswich Town. Ipswich's rise to the top division has been meteoric. But now they're in the same division as Brighton, football insiders are starting to wonder who gets the best analytics when the two clubs play each other.​

 

[Wozza]

And, yes, I know it's weird. Don't shoot the messenger.

 

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

My hovercraft is full of eels

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Would you like a cup or tea, dear.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm a schizophrenia
And so am I.....

 

[Eric the meek]

I'm trying to get my head round this.

TB is doing the vertical integration thing - researching the world's best wonder kids, and buying them up low.

Then he's doing the horizontal integration thing, by buying a second feeder/nursery club USG. Rules have meant he has had to scale down his holding.

But hang on a minute. Now he's outsourcing his data-driven hiring thingy to rival PL teams? Surely that's the singular advantage he has over all the rest?

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

I'm trying to get my head round this.

TB is doing the vertical integration thing - researching the world's best wonder kids, and buying them up low.

Then he's doing the horizontal integration thing, by buying a second feeder/nursery club USG. Rules have meant he has had to scale down his holding.

But hang on a minute. Now he's outsourcing his data-driven hiring thingy to rival PL teams? Surely that's the singular advantage he has over all the rest?

No. This suggests he 'outsourced' to get them out of the Football League. They were League 1 just two years ago. The Starlizard impact.

Suspect someone broke an NDA for this to be leaked

 

[Justice]

I wonder if part of the deal was to get MCkenna in and they backtracked?

 

[Han Solo]

Sounds odd but I guess maybe it was interesting to see how the model works in a less controlled environment.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm a schizophrenia
And so am I.....

Schizophrenia is very common, at least 5 out of every 3 people have it.

 

[Albion my Albion]

Schizophrenia is very common, at least 5 out of every 3 people have it.

First AMA: I must be the 5th one of the 3.

Other AMA: No, you do have it.

 

[Eric the meek]

No. This suggests he 'outsourced' to get them out of the Football League. They were League 1 just two years ago. The Starlizard impact.

Suspect someone broke an NDA for this to be leaked

I wasn't suggesting anything other than I find it difficult to reconcile.

My layman's guess would be that he has found a way to outsource the expertise without compromising his trade secrets.

 

[Nobby]

Hello, Mr Chairman

A rival Premier League football Club has offered to sell us their analytics software to help us improve on recruitment and tactical awareness of opposition

Oh that’s great news. Hopefully you negotiated a good price. Do you trust them?

Yes, yes I really do.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

The fact they are paying Kalvin Philips £150,000 wages for a season suggests this is bollocks

 

[dazzer6666]

Might be as simple as Ipswich paying Starlizard for a shortlist of players to suit specific positions…….that doesn’t compromise the model or the algo, or necessarily impact our targets

 

[Withdean South Stand]

Might be as simple as Ipswich paying Starlizard for a shortlist of players to suit specific positions…….that doesn’t compromise the model or the algo, or necessarily impact our targets

That would be my assumption too - none of the logic, but we'll give them player recommendations. Maybe there will be players we also want to sign, but we're never too bothered about one player over another. As mentioned above, I don't think that Kalvin Phillips was a Starlizard recommended signing but it might have been - he does have Premier League experience which they're lacking and has a skillset they didn't already have. He also has a fair amount of weight their other players don't but that's the sort of thing that's easily fixed!

 

[Barham's tash]

Might be as simple as Ipswich paying Starlizard for a shortlist of players to suit specific positions…….that doesn’t compromise the model or the algo, or necessarily impact our targets

It's interesting. You have to wonder because presumably there is a blatant conflict of interest here given TBs involvement in both and presumably it's unlikely that Club 'N' pays retainer £X to Starlizard and receives a list of players with Brighton targets filtered out....

Just seems incredibly odd given there exists no financial need for Starlizard to do this and would only seem to weaken our hand against the "Other 14".

 

[Gwylan]

The real question is why nous keeps on being spelled as nouse. It's a word that's been in existence for centuries but, for some reason, it seems that suddenly no-one can spell it.

 

[Bakero]

The real question is why nous keeps on being spelled as nouse. It's a word that's been in existence for centuries but, for some reason, it seems that suddenly no-one can spell it.

Maybe they're referring to a nose-controlled mouse

(These are actually a thing and are indeed call nouses. Or is it nice?)

 

[CheeseRolls]

Might be as simple as Ipswich paying Starlizard for a shortlist of players to suit specific positions…….that doesn’t compromise the model or the algo, or necessarily impact our targets

I think It is in our clubs interest for Star Lizard to take on as many other clubs as clients as it can service. First mover advantage exists for a very short time and every club is now alert to the benefits of applying advanced analytics to player recruitment. If this were to remain as some form of secret sauce known only to Tony Bloom and Colonel Saunders, the model would quickly be overtaken by bigger and better solutions, built with deep pockets and staff poached from Star Lizard.

Every club works within its own model and its own budget. There is no conflict of interest in highlighting one player to more than one club. There is a conflict if club A is informed that club B is tracking a certain player, but keeping this client confidential should be a simple enough task.

Identification of targets against a set of criteria is only a starting point for recruitment and every club will be looking for something slightly different. You get players who don't want to play in the premier league, agent/club relationships and players who would rather join a club higher up in the league, better payers and personal preferences. Sander Berge is a good example. He chose Sheffied United over us, as at the time they were higher up in the Premier League.

We have also seen players join us due to better career pathway opportunities Amario Cozier-Duberry and Kamari Doyle are examples. Conrad Harder clearly didn't agree.