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[Albion] Liverpool's Mitoma regret, also: Gross, Mwepu, Cucurella and Estupinan



Bozza

Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
57,088
Back in Sussex
Some interesting Albion insights in the book "How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football's Data Revolution", Ian Graham, Liverpool's former Director of Research...

"At Liverpool we admired both Brentford and Brighton’s signings, though we never told them that. Me and my colleague Daf Steele used to keep lists of players who looked outstanding in their domestic leagues but were either not quite good enough for Liverpool or played in a style that didn’t fit ours.

"Brighton also signed players on our radar. Pascal Gross performed at an above-average Premier League level while playing in the second division of the Bundesliga, and has played at that level for years for Brighton. Enock Mwepu was the best young midfielder in Austria.

"Marc Cucurella was easily a Premier League level player while playing in Spain, and when Chelsea paid a barely credible £62 million to sign him, Brighton immediately replaced him with the only young full-back in Spain who rated at a similar level, Pervis Estupinan.

"Kaoru Mitoma was the best player in Japan, rating above the Premier League average. It was very rare for us to rate a player in Japan anywhere near Premier League level. It’s still a source of regret to me that I didn’t insist that Mitoma be more seriously considered as a potential Liverpool signing."
 








M

Milano

Well-known member
Aug 15, 2012
3,855
Sussex but not by the sea
trueblue said:
Sounds like he did a bit of a shit job to be honest :LOL: All that talent that passed them by. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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Nah, I've said it for a while that clubs like Liverpool can't take the same sort of risks as we can. They need close to the finished article for 95% of their squad or else their fan bases throw toys.
They can't wait for someone like Alexis to develop and adjust, they need a Brighton to that bit for them. The downside is they then need to pay more but these clubs have deep pockets.
The best trend which seems to be developing is more young players don't appear to want to jump straight in at these big clubs, preferring the Brighton type stepping stone, which is great for us on the pitch and in the bank. The BIG downside is that we can never achieve the stability to really challenge for a trophy, we get so close then it's disrupted again.
 






B

Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,517
In the field
Milano said:
Nah, I've said it for a while that clubs like Liverpool can't take the same sort of risks as we can. They need close to the finished article for 95% of their squad or else their fan bases throw toys.
They can't wait for someone like Alexis to develop and adjust, they need a Brighton to that bit for them. The downside is they then need to pay more but these clubs have deep pockets.
The best trend which seems to be developing is more young players don't appear to want to jump straight in at these big clubs, preferring the Brighton type stepping stone, which is great for us on the pitch and in the bank. The BIG downside is that we can never achieve the stability to really challenge for a trophy, we get so close then it's disrupted again.
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This.

Establishing ourselves as the first 'middle club' in terms of player progression to a bigger PL move has worked wonders for us in recent times. Whether we can continue that in the face of other clubs trying to do the same thing will be interesting.
 




B

Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,517
In the field
Bozza said:
Some interesting Albion insights in the book "How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football's Data Revolution", Ian Graham, Liverpool's former Director of Research...

"At Liverpool we admired both Brentford and Brighton’s signings, though we never told them that. Me and my colleague Daf Steele used to keep lists of players who looked outstanding in their domestic leagues but were either not quite good enough for Liverpool or played in a style that didn’t fit ours.

"Brighton also signed players on our radar. Pascal Gross performed at an above-average Premier League level while playing in the second division of the Bundesliga, and has played at that level for years for Brighton. Enock Mwepu was the best young midfielder in Austria.

"Marc Cucurella was easily a Premier League level player while playing in Spain, and when Chelsea paid a barely credible £62 million to sign him, Brighton immediately replaced him with the only young full-back in Spain who rated at a similar level, Pervis Estupinan.

"Kaoru Mitoma was the best player in Japan, rating above the Premier League average. It was very rare for us to rate a player in Japan anywhere near Premier League level. It’s still a source of regret to me that I didn’t insist that Mitoma be more seriously considered as a potential Liverpool signing."
Click to expand...

What is really interesting for me is how/what metrics they're using to determine 'PL level/average'. I'm presuming it is position-specific attributes/outputs?
 




WhingForPresident

WhingForPresident

.
NSC Patron
Feb 23, 2009
17,201
Marlborough
Weststander said:
I got that book as b'day present, look forward to reading it.

Apparently Rodgers comes out as insecure ... didn't like ceding any 'power' to data men by working collaboratively with them.
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There's a funny bit in there about him insisting they buy Benteke, despite the analysts telling him he was wrong for the system, hence why they signed Lambert as a cheap trial to see if they could make a target man work in his system. It obviously failed, but Rodgers carried on insisting he wanted him until he got his way, despite the fact all the data said it would be a disaster as well as their failed experiment. Worked out well for him.

It's a good read.
 










trueblue

trueblue

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
10,926
Hove
Milano said:
Nah, I've said it for a while that clubs like Liverpool can't take the same sort of risks as we can. They need close to the finished article for 95% of their squad or else their fan bases throw toys.
They can't wait for someone like Alexis to develop and adjust, they need a Brighton to that bit for them. The downside is they then need to pay more but these clubs have deep pockets.
The best trend which seems to be developing is more young players don't appear to want to jump straight in at these big clubs, preferring the Brighton type stepping stone, which is great for us on the pitch and in the bank. The BIG downside is that we can never achieve the stability to really challenge for a trophy, we get so close then it's disrupted again.
Click to expand...
That's the usual excuse but what's to stop them getting in some of these youngsters very cheap - like we do - and loan them out, first abroad and then to a Premier League club? In the third year, if all goes well, they are good enough for clubs like Liverpool.

Glad they don't bother, of course. I was being slightly facetious about the guy's book but, let's face it, it's pretty easy to say now that he knew about all these brilliant prospects without actually signing any of them.
 


P

portlock seagull

Well-known member
Jul 28, 2003
17,684
trueblue said:
That's the usual excuse but what's to stop them getting in some of these youngsters very cheap - like we do - and loan them out, first abroad and then to a Premier League club? In the third year, if all goes well, they are good enough for clubs like Liverpool.

Glad they don't bother, of course. I was being slightly facetious about the guy's book but, let's face it, it's pretty easy to say now that he knew about all these brilliant prospects without actually signing any of them.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Strange an author comes out with this in the run up to Xmas too?
 






dazzer6666

dazzer6666

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Mar 27, 2013
55,249
Burgess Hill
trueblue said:
That's the usual excuse but what's to stop them getting in some of these youngsters very cheap - like we do - and loan them out, first abroad and then to a Premier League club? In the third year, if all goes well, they are good enough for clubs like Liverpool.

Glad they don't bother, of course. I was being slightly facetious about the guy's book but, let's face it, it's pretty easy to say now that he knew about all these brilliant prospects without actually signing any of them.
Click to expand...

They don't have the means to identify them to the extent we do (Starlizard)

They won't put the effort in to make deals work (SA players in particular)

They can't offer players the same pathway...... jumping from foreign loan to Liverpool first team would be seen as too big a stretch and they have no record to speak of of doing this. We've got a cast-iron case to put to any youngster (and his agent)
 


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