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

[Bozza]

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."

 

[Lush]

This is why it's never just about the data. It's how you interpret it and recognise the opportunities for your team and the way you play. That's where the real skill is.

 

[trueblue]

Sounds like he did a bit of a shit job to be honest All that talent that passed them by. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

[Milano]

Sounds like he did a bit of a shit job to be honest All that talent that passed them by. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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.

 

[Weststander]

I received the book as a 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.

 

[Brian Fantana]

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.

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.

 

[Change at Barnham]

Thanks for sharing the information about this book, I hadn't heard of it previously.

FYI, I've just found that it available free of charge to listen to as an audiobook on Spotify if you have an account.

 

[Brian Fantana]

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."

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]

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.

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.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Lambert at Liverpool? Lambert....? Lambert...? Nope .....couldn't remember him, had to use Google...

 

[Doonhamer7]

Added book to my Xmas wish list

 

[Robdinho]

Sounds like he did a bit of a shit job to be honest All that talent that passed them by. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Let's not forget though, they did discover Alexis Mac Allister

 

[trueblue]

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.

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.

 

[portlock seagull]

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.

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

 

[Weststander]

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

The book was released in August, @El Presidente mentioned it here at the time.

 

[dazzer6666]

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.

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)