jerryatricjanner":3kqmvgo0 said:
It's surprising how some are so reluctant to embrace change, new innovatives and progress in the game and like to hark back to the distant past when in their minds things were so much better.
Footballers these days are born with no more talent than they were in the 1960s but playing standards have improved noticeably. Of course they benefit from vastly superior pitches to play on, lighter balls, boots etc but also from great strides that have been made in diet, sports science and training regimes amongst other things that have made them generally bigger, stronger and faster athletes just as in any sport in the past 60 years. Skilful players also get much more protection from referees now and more opportunity to express their talent.Also in recent years since the Bosman ruling players have so much more power. No manager would get away with some of the verbal abuse, throwing of tea cups in the dressing room and strict discipline that the old school managers like Cullis, Nicholson, Clough and Saunders used to name just a few. They have to manage very differently in this day and age whether you feel that is a good or a bad thing.
Likewise in very recent years data analysis is another tool that clubs are using to gain a slight edge. It isn't fool proof of course but it is something else to help try and gain a small advantage. It surprises me to hear people dismissing it out of hand when it is relatively new and when in all honesty they know very little about it.
I had a chat one day with Newcastle's 1st team data man Billy Coulston, a Tavistock lad who played in the youth ranks at Argyle. It was extremely interesting and enlightning and helped me as someone with a bit of a dinosaur outlook see things differently and with a much more open mind.
The significant difference for Argyle is our location. Data analytics may well be helpful for clubs less remote but I don't believe it works for us.
Say Ryan Lowe consults a computer and it gives him a list of candidates that meet his parameters for a certain position. He obviously wants the one at the top of the list but unfortunately the guy doesnt want to move down here so Lowe looks at the next one. The thing is, he finds he gets the same response from everyone else so we end up with someone toward the bottom of the list unless of course we get the very big cheque book out. Or we get someone with a history of injuries, or an untried youngster, or a veteran looking for a final pay check.
As far as I'm concerned, it's nothing to do with not embracing change. I would much rather we used the time and money in a much better way and accept it doesn't work for us. Lowe himself has said that they got the recruitment badly wrong. I suggest that is because they place too much reliance on a useless tool. Not all change is good and/or necessary. The chairman has said he is happy with people when they are underperforming as long as they can show that they're learning. Hopefully Lowe will ditch data analytics as that would go a long way to showing me that he's learning.
