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Post by Trouserdog on Aug 23, 2023 21:00:29 GMT
This. Let's be honest, literally anybody with a copy of FM23 could identify a bunch of players from random places and tell the manager to sign them. The time to judge whether he's been a revelation will be in a few months time when we see whether these signings are actually any good. That's what will separate him from some randomer setting the player filter to 'Korea' and going for the bloke with the highest rating. He had a good record at Sheffield United, so fingers-crossed that continues. I think it'll be success even if only 1 in 3 signing is succesful. That's the plus side of this approach. You only need a fairly lowish hit rate to be successful. No-one could get it right every time when signing from these sorts of markets- there are too many variables involved. |
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Post by middleoftheboothen on Aug 23, 2023 21:18:34 GMT
Let's wait until the signings prove to be decent before we start thinking he's the second coming of Jesus Christ. Vidigal looks to be a really good signing but we can't judge his record yet, the others could all turn out to be duds. I think everyone is a touch excited because we are not just signing sixty year old championship plodders on stupid wages who are here for their last payday mate to be fair. You are totally correct about waiting to see if the players he has helped bring in work out ofcourse you are mate but for the first time in literally years I'm optimistic about the way the club is going. If he gets one in every three signings right then it's a hell of a lot better than we've been doing for a long long time but as you say time will tell. It's going to be exciting times if Vidigal is anything to go by. |
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Post by independent on Aug 24, 2023 1:02:57 GMT
You are setting your sights far too low. 1 in 3 would be terrible. we need between 50% and 60% to work out, especially those we have signed for undisclosed fees on 3 and 4 year contracts.
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Post by foster on Aug 24, 2023 4:44:36 GMT
Among all the other positives I'm also liking the value for money we're getting.
With the pedigree of players we're signing and the relatively low transfer fees (known or rumoured), I can't see us losing any money on anyone that may be sold down the line. Regardless of how our performances on the pitch pan out.
Indeed, most look like they'll net a tidy profit.
It's also not as easy as FM23. You need to convince these players to join a 'project', so it's a brilliant club effort and something that's clearly been in the making for some time.
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Post by cobhamstokey on Aug 24, 2023 6:50:49 GMT
A big plus was not signing Alex Pritchard which I thought was a gimme this Summer There's still time and he's leaving Sunderland.. Pritchard’s a good player. I was checking there board the other day and the vast majority of fans are very complimentary about him and don’t want him to leave. I’d say they’re the best source re him as a player. We could do a lot worse if he joined us. I’m sure if he does sign it’ll be a Neil signing but at least we know what we have with him. We need some solid, reliable, trusted players as some of the foreign lads may take time to settle so we need players in the squad who don’t need time. |
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Post by peterthornesboots on Aug 24, 2023 7:26:45 GMT
I think that our new approach (which he seems to have driven) has been a breath of fresh air.
It is a little too early to describe him as a 'revelation' until we actually see how these new signings bed in.
It is great to see us utilising the foreign market. Myself and other posters have long advocated that there is value in looking outside of the UK (which is where we have restricted ourselves for most of the last five years). However, that only works if there is someone with knowledge of foreign markets (which JD seems to have).
Strap in for the ride I guess!
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Post by devondumpling on Aug 24, 2023 7:41:18 GMT
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Post by Trouserdog on Aug 24, 2023 7:54:08 GMT
I'm being a bit facetious, but the point is that we shouldn't all proclaim his genius until we have some evidence on the pitch, here at Stoke, that what he's doing works. I'm not saying he hasn't put a lot of work into these signings and done his research, I'd imagine he has, but fans getting overly excited because the players have foreign names is a bit silly to me. It's refreshing that we are now looking for players further afield than Burnley's reserves etc, but the time for gushing praise will be when we see it all come together on the pitch. Too early to judge that yet, but the signs do look promising, so fingers crossed. |
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Post by nottinghamstokie on Aug 24, 2023 8:12:40 GMT
I just hope we don't end up like Forest last season, trying to fit too many players in.
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Post by Billy the kid on Aug 24, 2023 8:36:50 GMT
I just hope we don't end up like Forest last season, trying to fit too many players in. In the grand scheme of things that didn't work out too badly for them? I live amongst them and on the whole they seem satisfied with staying in the premier, especially with Leicester dropping. EDIT just seen you are a notts stokie too. |
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Post by foxysgloves on Aug 24, 2023 8:46:04 GMT
I'm being a bit facetious, but the point is that we shouldn't all proclaim his genius until we have some evidence on the pitch, here at Stoke, that what he's doing works. I'm not saying he hasn't put a lot of work into these signings and done his research, I'd imagine he has, but fans getting overly excited because the players have foreign names is a bit silly to me. It's refreshing that we are now looking for players further afield than Burnley's reserves etc, but the time for gushing praise will be when we see it all come together on the pitch. Too early to judge that yet, but the signs do look promising, so fingers crossed. Time will tell. It’s undeniably exciting but the variables and complexities are immense. Will the players settle? Will they gel? Will all the egos clash? Our unprecedented signing spree is very impressive but the signing of the players is arguably the easy part. Turning them into a successful team is the bigger challenge. |
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Post by jesusmcmuffin on Aug 24, 2023 8:48:12 GMT
Very much AN's turn now to do his bit. He has the players, he has to make to make it happen on the pitch now.
We had the...not his team excuse after every defeat last season from many and it's totally his bunch of players now and then give them time to gel can only be used for so long. He knew what he was getting with every player and will be judged on results. If it goes horribly wrong then what ? 😧. Millwall will be interesting after the horror show at Ipswich and a similar opponent
Personally think will be a good season but let's see 👍
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Post by nottinghamstokie on Aug 24, 2023 8:54:15 GMT
I just hope we don't end up like Forest last season, trying to fit too many players in. In the grand scheme of things that didn't work out too badly for them? I live amongst them and on the whole they seem satisfied with staying in the premier, especially with Leicester dropping. EDIT just seen you are a notts stokie too. You're totally correct that they were eventually OK, but that took a long time to sort out, I just hope we don't have the same issue |
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Post by stokecitytalke on Aug 24, 2023 9:06:11 GMT
In the grand scheme of things that didn't work out too badly for them? I live amongst them and on the whole they seem satisfied with staying in the premier, especially with Leicester dropping. EDIT just seen you are a notts stokie too. You're totally correct that they were eventually OK, but that took a long time to sort out, I just hope we don't have the same issue It's obviously going to take time for them all to gel, but as long as they do gel in the end, all will be fine hopefully. |
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Post by J-Roar on Aug 24, 2023 9:08:11 GMT
Wasn't there a thread earlier basically saying he was a Yank chancer? I'm sure the usual suspects contributed to it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 9:21:30 GMT
Let's wait until the signings prove to be decent before we start thinking he's the second coming of Jesus Christ. Vidigal looks to be a really good signing but we can't judge his record yet, the others could all turn out to be duds. This. Let's be honest, literally anybody with a copy of FM23 could identify a bunch of players from random places and tell the manager to sign them. The time to judge whether he's been a revelation will be in a few months time when we see whether these signings are actually any good. That's what will separate him from some randomer setting the player filter to 'Korea' and going for the bloke with the highest rating. Is that really what he's doing or.how it's done these days? Sound fucking ridiculous to me. |
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Post by Vadiation_Ribe on Aug 24, 2023 9:25:19 GMT
You are setting your sights far too low. 1 in 3 would be terrible. we need between 50% and 60% to work out, especially those we have signed for undisclosed fees on 3 and 4 year contracts. Taking out the already proven Championship or higher players, Pearson, Stevens, Rose, Johnson, and Wesley, of the permanent signings so far, that leaves: Vidigal Mmaee Jojić Léris Bae Burger Assuming those last two go ahead, 2 out of 6 being successful will be a success IMO, and that doesn't necessarily mean the others fail. More will be expected of Burger given the proposed fee. Say we get promoted largely because of Vidigal's goals or we don't but sell him for £7m, and at least one other is a regular starter, that's not bad at all. One or two others could still be more squad players than starters, which wouldn't be a failure given the fees and the fact we desperately needed numbers. It doesn't seem like we'll lose a load of money with this approach. |
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Post by mtrstudent on Aug 24, 2023 10:35:02 GMT
You are setting your sights far too low. 1 in 3 would be terrible. we need between 50% and 60% to work out, especially those we have signed for undisclosed fees on 3 and 4 year contracts. Taking out the already proven Championship or higher players, Pearson, Stevens, Rose, Johnson, and Wesley, of the permanent signings so far, that leaves: Vidigal Mmaee Jojić Léris Bae Burger Assuming those last two go ahead, 2 out of 6 being successful will be a success IMO, and that doesn't necessarily mean the others fail. If you can manage 2 top quality signings per year (maybe a third in Jan) then your club's on the up IMO. Sell one and keep one and you're improving the team and funding the project. It'll be a bit disappointing if they all end up a bit meh though. |
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Post by theonlooker on Aug 24, 2023 10:47:19 GMT
This. Let's be honest, literally anybody with a copy of FM23 could identify a bunch of players from random places and tell the manager to sign them. The time to judge whether he's been a revelation will be in a few months time when we see whether these signings are actually any good. That's what will separate him from some randomer setting the player filter to 'Korea' and going for the bloke with the highest rating. Is that really what he's doing or.how it's done these days? Sound fucking ridiculous to me. Not quite, but the Football Manager database is a lot more extensive than what is shown in the game. Going as far back as Moyes at Everton professional clubs have used their database for initial player searches. Their scouting network across the globe is far more extensive than any club could afford or in reality control. Each club will have a researcher that has to to rate players and give them ratings. They have checks and balances (algorithms) to make sure people aren't overly rating players. With that in mind it's a sensible tool to use to roughly knock up a transfer hit list. The coders have regular sit down meetings with professionals in the game who have tech talks with them to show how professional football works, so they can go away and try and make the game as realistic as possible. Alex Neil was one manager who sat down with them a few years ago, out of interest. |
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Post by tuum on Aug 24, 2023 10:56:07 GMT
Looks like he has done the job he was brought in for - getting a new squad of players through the door. So, maybe it is now time to get rid of him? We can't have him sitting on his arse just to sign 1-2 players every 6mths... that would be an expensive overhead. 😉
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Post by coldtuesdaynight on Aug 24, 2023 10:58:54 GMT
To be fair most people don’t really understand the work required to simply build and maintain a database big enough to contain reliable info on such a wide range of leagues, and to manipulate that data in various ways. It’s not like there’s a nice clean database of the K league that already exists and will tell you all to need that you can just buy someone who has a good rating on it. (unless you’re daft enough to trust football manager to the tune of millions of pounds.) Sure any of us could probably find who the top scorer is, but that does really give us anything reliable? (just look at the Gayle and Tom Ince signings, presumably made on past goal and assist totals) Never mind the skills in data analysis and presumably some machine learning to process it all in a useful way and make predictions on which players are ‘on the up’. The industry knowledge of where to source footage so that the player can be watched before sending someone over to view them in real life isn’t to be sniffed at either, even if it’s much easier. I was a bit surprised by all the ‘Mr Google’ comments before (hence my earlier post about the John Rudge phonebook days being a thing of the past). But now I’ve reflected on it, it’s just that the vast majority of people haven’t worked in a tech company and don’t have the first clue how much knowledge is needed to bed a system as big as what is being used at Brighton and Brentford (and now hopefully here) in from scratch. Quite frankly if it wasn’t someone with experience at one of the major tech companies taking over the head of recruitment job, I’d be a bit worried. We’d just be continuing the ‘Well he’s been decent in this league before.’ or ‘he’s at such and such an academy, he must be close to a breakout season’ style that has been an absolute disaster for the previous 5 years in this league. If all he does is get the bare bones in place, for someone else to come in and improve, he’s probably earned many times his salary. |
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Post by jesusmcmuffin on Aug 24, 2023 11:30:56 GMT
This week we've almost seen out squad Dublin in size
Someone did say no more burger puns
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Post by Vadiation_Ribe on Aug 24, 2023 11:56:21 GMT
To be fair most people don’t really understand the work required to simply build and maintain a database big enough to contain reliable info on such a wide range of leagues, and to manipulate that data in various ways. It’s not like there’s a nice clean database of the K league that already exists and will tell you all to need that you can just buy someone who has a good rating on it. (unless you’re daft enough to trust football manager to the tune of millions of pounds.) Sure any of us could probably find who the top scorer is, but that does really give us anything reliable? (just look at the Gayle and Tom Ince signings, presumably made on past goal and assist totals) Never mind the skills in data analysis and presumably some machine learning to process it all in a useful way and make predictions on which players are ‘on the up’. The industry knowledge of where to source footage so that the player can be watched before sending someone over to view them in real life isn’t to be sniffed at either, even if it’s much easier. I was a bit surprised by all the ‘Mr Google’ comments before (hence my earlier post about the John Rudge phonebook days being a thing of the past). But now I’ve reflected on it, it’s just that the vast majority of people haven’t worked in a tech company and don’t have the first clue how much knowledge is needed to bed a system as big as what is being used at Brighton and Brentford (and now hopefully here) in from scratch. Quite frankly if it wasn’t someone with experience at one of the major tech companies taking over the head of recruitment job, I’d be a bit worried. We’d just be continuing the ‘Well he’s been decent in this league before.’ or ‘he’s at such and such an academy, he must be close to a breakout season’ style that has been an absolute disaster for the previous 5 years in this league. If all he does is get the bare bones in place, for someone else to come in and improve, he’s probably earned many times his salary. The information about footballers that can be found online now if you know where/how to look is ridiculous. There's a lot from free sources, but paid databases include video clips (or even full matches depending on league) of players from all over the place. Football has it easier than any other sport in terms of finding talent, but in a way that makes it much harder, as everyone (at least in the top leagues, and I'm including the Championship in that) has access to the same data and resources. So there's a lot more to just finding players with good stats, and more and more it's about finding the players who will hopefully be the exact fit for the team. Like many, I thought Virgil van Dijk's fee to Liverpool was way overpriced, but they went all out for him because they thought he was the perfect fit for what they needed. I think he more than repaid that fee given how key he was in the Premier League title. |
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Post by GeneralFaye on Aug 24, 2023 11:57:42 GMT
If this leads to a Brighton like model, then this hopefully means that when we lose a player we'll already have their replacement lined up.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 12:07:42 GMT
Is that really what he's doing or.how it's done these days? Sound fucking ridiculous to me. Not quite, but the Football Manager database is a lot more extensive than what is shown in the game. Going as far back as Moyes at Everton professional clubs have used their database for initial player searches. Their scouting network across the globe is far more extensive than any club could afford or in reality control. Each club will have a researcher that has to to rate players and give them ratings. They have checks and balances (algorithms) to make sure people aren't overly rating players. With that in mind it's a sensible tool to use to roughly knock up a transfer hit list. The coders have regular sit down meetings with professionals in the game who have tech talks with them to show how professional football works, so they can go away and try and make the game as realistic as possible. Alex Neil was one manager who sat down with them a few years ago, out of interest. I get all that mate, I'm not a gamer and never have been so don't have a clue how technically advanced these things are but surely to God, we and other clubs have these players watched and do some more diligence on them as people before signing  |
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Post by coldtuesdaynight on Aug 24, 2023 12:17:15 GMT
To be fair most people don’t really understand the work required to simply build and maintain a database big enough to contain reliable info on such a wide range of leagues, and to manipulate that data in various ways. It’s not like there’s a nice clean database of the K league that already exists and will tell you all to need that you can just buy someone who has a good rating on it. (unless you’re daft enough to trust football manager to the tune of millions of pounds.) Sure any of us could probably find who the top scorer is, but that does really give us anything reliable? (just look at the Gayle and Tom Ince signings, presumably made on past goal and assist totals) Never mind the skills in data analysis and presumably some machine learning to process it all in a useful way and make predictions on which players are ‘on the up’. The industry knowledge of where to source footage so that the player can be watched before sending someone over to view them in real life isn’t to be sniffed at either, even if it’s much easier. I was a bit surprised by all the ‘Mr Google’ comments before (hence my earlier post about the John Rudge phonebook days being a thing of the past). But now I’ve reflected on it, it’s just that the vast majority of people haven’t worked in a tech company and don’t have the first clue how much knowledge is needed to bed a system as big as what is being used at Brighton and Brentford (and now hopefully here) in from scratch. Quite frankly if it wasn’t someone with experience at one of the major tech companies taking over the head of recruitment job, I’d be a bit worried. We’d just be continuing the ‘Well he’s been decent in this league before.’ or ‘he’s at such and such an academy, he must be close to a breakout season’ style that has been an absolute disaster for the previous 5 years in this league. If all he does is get the bare bones in place, for someone else to come in and improve, he’s probably earned many times his salary. The information about footballers that can be found online now if you know where/how to look is ridiculous. There's a lot from free sources, but paid databases include video clips (or even full matches depending on league) of players from all over the place. Football has it easier than any other sport in terms of finding talent, but in a way that makes it much harder, as everyone (at least in the top leagues, and I'm including the Championship in that) has access to the same data and resources. So there's a lot more to just finding players with good stats, and more and more it's about finding the players who will hopefully be the exact fit for the team. Like many, I thought Virgil van Dijk's fee to Liverpool was way overpriced, but they went all out for him because they thought he was the perfect fit for what they needed. I think he more than repaid that fee given how key he was in the Premier League title. There’s a massive difference between raw data, and even nicely presented bought data, and having something usuable stored in a in-house database. And as you say, doing anything with it after that point is where the real skill comes in. I would imagine that in the long run you want a model that has been trained on spotting what players data ‘looks like’ before a breakout season. And then, you have to know how to act on that information etc. My main point is, plenty of people seem to think that his role is ‘look at a database and suggest a player who has nice numbers’. But in reality he’ll be heading up a big team, comprised of people handing the tech side, scouting side, legal side etc etc. At the end of the day it’s a zero sum game, every team outside the top few mega rich clubs is playing catch up with the likes of Brentford and Brighton. Any club who thinks they can just buy access to a database for a few thousand and keep up with teams doing this kind of stuff in-house is in for a shock. The availability of data for football is vastly superior to most (non American) sports, but that’s the main reason we have to do all this kind of stuff to not get left behind. To be quite honest there probably are clubs who will just buy the football manager data and be shocked when they see a downward crash for 6-7 years (hang on, that sounds familiar… ) |
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Post by theonlooker on Aug 24, 2023 12:28:37 GMT
Not quite, but the Football Manager database is a lot more extensive than what is shown in the game. Going as far back as Moyes at Everton professional clubs have used their database for initial player searches. Their scouting network across the globe is far more extensive than any club could afford or in reality control. Each club will have a researcher that has to to rate players and give them ratings. They have checks and balances (algorithms) to make sure people aren't overly rating players. With that in mind it's a sensible tool to use to roughly knock up a transfer hit list. The coders have regular sit down meetings with professionals in the game who have tech talks with them to show how professional football works, so they can go away and try and make the game as realistic as possible. Alex Neil was one manager who sat down with them a few years ago, out of interest. I get all that mate, I'm not a gamer and never have been so don't have a clue how technically advanced these things are but surely to God, we and other clubs have these players watched and do some more diligence on them as people before signing Of course they do. FM is probably used as nothing more than a quick check and an initial list creator when clubs move into new areas and markets. |
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Post by miggo on Aug 24, 2023 12:40:30 GMT
If this leads to a Brighton like model, then this hopefully means that when we lose a player we'll already have their replacement lined up. This is what we should be aiming for. I think it was Football Focus that did a piece on Brentford when they signed Toney. They had a team of a dozen or so tactical analysts that scour world football in search of players that fit the managers style of play that they believe could come straight in and play without too much bedding in. They had a list of half a dozen or so players who they could go after and realistically sign due to being lower profile to replace every member of the current squad. A few teams have started to adopt this approah rather than a calculated gamble on a known quantity, Brighton as you mention being the other who have seen massive success and profit. Amazed that the supposed 'big 6' still just seem to have no tactical approach and just slap 50-120m buying these players from the likes of Brighton without doing the same process to ensure they fit into their own squads. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2023 12:42:16 GMT
I get all that mate, I'm not a gamer and never have been so don't have a clue how technically advanced these things are but surely to God, we and other clubs have these players watched and do some more diligence on them as people before signing Of course they do. FM is probably used as nothing more than a quick check and an initial list creator when clubs move into new areas and markets. Mark Hughes didn't seem to, especially where Imbula was concerned, our record signing 🤔 |
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Post by Vadiation_Ribe on Aug 24, 2023 13:02:35 GMT
The information about footballers that can be found online now if you know where/how to look is ridiculous. There's a lot from free sources, but paid databases include video clips (or even full matches depending on league) of players from all over the place. Football has it easier than any other sport in terms of finding talent, but in a way that makes it much harder, as everyone (at least in the top leagues, and I'm including the Championship in that) has access to the same data and resources. So there's a lot more to just finding players with good stats, and more and more it's about finding the players who will hopefully be the exact fit for the team. Like many, I thought Virgil van Dijk's fee to Liverpool was way overpriced, but they went all out for him because they thought he was the perfect fit for what they needed. I think he more than repaid that fee given how key he was in the Premier League title. There’s a massive difference between raw data, and even nicely presented bought data, and having something usuable stored in a in-house database. And as you say, doing anything with it after that point is where the real skill comes in. I would imagine that in the long run you want a model that has been trained on spotting what players data ‘looks like’ before a breakout season. And then, you have to know how to act on that information etc. My main point is, plenty of people seem to think that his role is ‘look at a database and suggest a player who has nice numbers’. But in reality he’ll be heading up a big team, comprised of people handing the tech side, scouting side, legal side etc etc. At the end of the day it’s a zero sum game, every team outside the top few mega rich clubs is playing catch up with the likes of Brentford and Brighton. Any club who thinks they can just buy access to a database for a few thousand and keep up with teams doing this kind of stuff in-house is in for a shock. The availability of data for football is vastly superior to most (non American) sports, but that’s the main reason we have to do all this kind of stuff to not get left behind. To be quite honest there probably are clubs who will just buy the football manager data and be shocked when they see a downward crash for 6-7 years (hang on, that sounds familiar… ) I'm not even sure an in-house database is necessary given the third-party software and data available now. It's way more than raw and nicely presented data, though I don't like to trust third-parties and would always keep a local backup! But yeah, I agree on your main point(s), that it's not as simple as looking at data, and also there's much more data available than what the likes of Football Manager provides. I do think we've tried to do this for a few years, but it didn't work out for whatever reason. Alex Aldridge for example, who's still at and highly thought of at a Championship rival. Millwall have only signed one overseas player so far this summer though! Maybe Rowett is still less open to the overseas market than Neil. |
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