@JoeH Comparisons to other sides only confuse the matter, because as you say, each side is different. I've already stated my point here and in other threads like the one I linked you to, but I'll reiterate. Our current style with a hyper focus on possession doesn't work for us. We do better with less of the ball, because we are a better counter-attacking side than we are a tiki-taka side. We have plenty of pace up top to catch out teams who overcommit to breaking us down. Our central defenders are also not the quickest, so are vulnerable themselves to counter attacks if we over commit our fullbacks. It's not so much that I'm saying possession intrinsically sucks so aim for 40%, more that our counter-attack is our best weapon and we don't get to use it enough because we have the ball most of the time. If we invite teams on a bit more, sitting with enough depth to give them the same problem they've been giving us, then spring the trap with a rapid front three, I think it would bring more dividends. Looking at how other sides do with possession and points is just a side curiosity, because there are many variables at play from side to side. It does however emphasise how ill-suited we in particular are to it, because only one other side (Huddersfield) had possession in the same ballpark as us and yet finished worse. I thought that was where you were going with it at first, but (and sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're driving at) at the end you seem to suggest possession makes no difference. I don't think that's true, the approach to it and personnel used in that approach make a difference. Not the possession stat itself. When we so consistently do worse with more possession, contrary to past conventional wisdom and the manager's 'wisdom', I don't think the correlation can be overlooked. One big caveat in my suggesting more counter-attacking though - if we lose Arma, which is likely, our main threat in that approach is gone. I can't say how effective it would be without him.

I think what the data more suggests is that when we absolutely and utterly control possession, yes it tends to work. If teams can barely get out of their half it's hard to score on the counter attack, and the pressure eventually tells. You can't expect to do this very often though. It may also more be a symptom of the teams that we are able to achieve that against being poorer teams. Even then, DE's figures showed that even when we absolutely hog the ball in the high 60's, it's still far less of a points return than when we actually see less of the ball than the opposition. It just keeps backing up what we see with our own eyes, that we are a better counter-attack side and we don't get results when allowed to retain the ball. Last season's data showed it too, or it did up to the point I was tracking it. That's a long time to maintain a trend like this, especially backed up by what we see - I more than expected the numbers were going to say what they said. I know you were being facetious but obviously nobody is suggesting we aim for a specific percentage, and it's not realistic to aim for the high 60s every week even if that was the better approach, which it isn't. A different manager and players and maybe it could work, but this has always been more of a blood and thunder league anyway.

One of the craziest things I've heard. Maybe they were still high off sticking to their guns over Jones etc. They accepted less than that, many years later when the market prices had gone up, for Raya, who was and is a far better keeper and prospect. Madness. Kean has gone on to move clubs 4 times since, and as far as I can see has never commanded a fee for doing so.

I think it was a mad tackle more than it was a mad ban. Regardless of which part he ended up connecting with, the whole technique of how he flew in was highly dangerous. It isn't just 'unlucky' he got injured badly, it was made likely by him flying in like a loon. Tackles like that are why the high foot got banned in the first place. Rather be missing six games than what the lad on the other end got.

Yep that's more or less exactly what I did, if you look. The only differences (apart from that mine needs updating) are the layout, the source for the possession stats, and the percentile segments selected. Interesting that both you and Joe talk about 55-65, whereas I went with 50-60 etc. I mostly picked that because I wanted to be able to delineate cleanly between when we do have more possession and when we don't, so I could also show a 51+ and a 50- section for direct contrast. Although I do get that there's not really any material difference between having 49% possession or 51% possession. Despite picking slightly different sections of percentage, we both found very similar things. The main weakness in the data, however you collect it, is that the sample size of games where we didn't control possession is relatively very small, largely due to our hyper-focus on it this season, whilst opponents who figured us out soon began letting us have as much of it as we wanted. But the fact our season was very disappointing in general only emphasises that this isn't the right approach for this squad under this manager. I do wonder what could have been if the manager had listened to this data and switched to a counter-attacking style, with through balls and balls over the top to run onto, or at least mixed it up a bit. We have the pace to frighten teams on the break, it's blindingly obvious.

I'm guessing now from that post that you didn't see the thread I made, Joe. I had been expecting you to comment in it considering your focus on data, but if you didn't see it then you wouldn't. If you're interested, there it is. I will finish it off at some point by updating to include the final 7 games that hadn't been played yet when I did my last update at the bottom of that thread, when I can be arsed. I'd be curious to know what you think (and yes I appreciate there is probably a more accurate source of the possession stats than the match stats that show in Google, but I wouldn't know which is best and that was a convenient one for me to work off...I'm sure it was close enough). I imagine you might have a tool that can just fart this data out at will without the legwork I had to do.

In terms of Rovers' use of data, I think this is nail on the head - that the problem is, yet again, the man in charge. Feed him all the data you like, but I think that ultimately, he picks and chooses. For instance, I've painstakingly demonstrated that statistically we do far worse when we control the possession than we do when the opposition control it, even if they only control it by a bit. This was also borne out in last season's data. Despite this, the twat-whistle keeps insisting that the key to our future is in controlling the possession. I find it hard, at best, to believe that none of the professional data analysts at the club have noticed this basic piece of data that took me no more than an hour to put together on my own, including the write up, with nothing more than google at my fingertips. It's very unlikely this data has never reached his eyes. He is just choosing to ignore it. Meanwhile he loves to bang on about the amount of possession we have, so he is clearly paying attention to that part of this data and saying 'ooh look how well we are doing' whilst ignoring the data that shows this possession is counterproductive. And he goes on about data in general, but surely the data isn't saying that Bennett/Gallagher make for a better RB than Nyambe, or that as you say, Gally is a good RW. To justify the latter he probably bums the data about how many headers he wins out wide (I think he has mentioned that before) whilst ignoring the fact the man can't cross effectively, which again I doubt the data shows anything contrary to that. As I've said before, data is only as valuable as the skills of the person interpreting it. And Mogga doesn't have the first clue about something as modern as this. But the stubborn old goat thinks he does and wants others to believe it, so he openly embraces it, but tosses out anything that doesn't confirm his bizarre biases. As I've also said before, my suspicion is Harvey left because his data-supported recruitment suggestions were being ignored by Tony in favour of the 'connection to Teeside parameter'.

You mean turn the network onto the UK? I assume we already (think we) have a perfectly fine UK scouting system. The whole point of the European one was to have a wider range of players and, moreover, better value for money ones than the UK market offers. It also took us years to set up (because we are expert dawdlers) and is designed to operate in Europe. I doubt it can be easily turned to the UK without another year of fannying around by the tools in charge. They've banged on about it for so long they'd lose face too. "Derp, yeh, we didn't really uh, think about the consequences of Brexit, which was voted for a couple of years before we embarked on this odyssey, really took us by surprise." I don't know exactly what they've put in place, but I have to assume part of the reason for the delays (beyond general bungling) was establishing contacts with clubs and scouts across Europe. If that's the case then a link with say, Salzburg, isn't going to help us in the UK market. Nor is some Turkish scout, say, going to up sticks. Surely it can't have taken us about 2 years just to hire a few scouts to go around Europe. Surely, even for us...

It might be worth doing just to show that the data supports the assessment of nearly everyone on here - that he was a very willing and able runner with no technical nor even ball-winning skills. But I'd pop it in the other thread to avoid any more tedious exchanges in here.

I'm pretty sure we have all given it a rest and moved on, please don't reinitiate it.

We shouldn't have sold either player for what we sold them for, we had our trousers pulled down, but the Brentford promotion is reputed to have earned us an extra 2 million, not a 'few hundred grand'.

I mentioned continental competition a few times, I just put title winning under that without referring to it explicitly because I was already talking a lot and it shows under the same table as qualifying for continental competition. I didn't know there was something about promoted sides, didn't see that. I saw mention of domestic cup minutes in the preamble, but didn't see the specifics of how it works (it's a large document) nor a table for it like the other scoring. Since I was just trying to present which are the most reliable markets - ones where most regular starters for all teams in that league will qualify - I tried to leave all that other stuff out for the most part. Yes regulars from top sides in Band 4 leagues will also qualify if their team finished as expected etc, but often those players would also be beyond our likely grasp. I don't think we could shop for a Galatasaray regular anymore, generally. I don't know quite how international scouting is structured to know whether it's worth keeping tabs on a handful of clubs in each Band 4 and below league, versus watching a whole league. The calculator is handy though, I was thinking whilst writing that, for the sake of scouts, a database of eligibility is something someone should do. A calculator is the next best thing, and cheaper.

Agree, I think he went there for that reason too. I've just had a proper look through the full regs on the FA site. I was writing a detailed explanation of the system as I went, but as I've gone further down I've noticed more ways to get points that contradicted what I was writing. It's a complicated system, and I do think Kaminski would have qualified comfortably after all (I make it 10 points for being in a Band 2 club and playing at all, another 10 points for playing 90-100% of the minutes for a Band 2 club, plus some other points for European qualification and playing in Europe etc, and you need 15, so he's more than 5 points over...if I'm understanding it right), so I retract my earlier comment on that and how difficult it would be overall. It's the added points earned for playing at least one game that I had missed. The regs are complicated enough that I think it's why the reports I've read on it haven't explained it clearly, and this in itself might cause issues for our scouts at times, checking the detailed criteria for whether the player even qualifies in order to know if it's worth scouting him, or not being sure a player will qualify until the season is over (waiting on their club's league position, how many games they play etc) which could waste some scouting time. On reflection I think it isn't as bad as I thought before (again, depending on if I'm interpreting these regs correctly), but it will certainly make some lesser leagues virtually worthless to scout, and I think the regulation complications may cause our network to be a bit less efficient than it would otherwise be, for reasons stated above. Band 1 - Germany, Italy, Spain, France, England (top tiers only) Band 2 - Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey (top tiers only) England (second tier, including England just for completeness) Band 3 - Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Scotland (lol) (top tiers only) Band 4 - Czech, Croatia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Greece, Columbia, USA, Australia (top tiers only) Germany, Spain, France (second tiers only...not sure where Serie B ranks, can't see it so it might be Band 6) Band 5 - Serbia, Denmark, Poland, Slovenia, Chile, Uruguay, China (top tiers only) Band 6 - everything else If you play 90-100% of minutes (not games, minutes) for a team in the bands, before anything else is met you earn: Band 1 - 24 points Band 2 - 20 points Band 3 - 16 points Band 4 - 12 points Band 5 - 8 points Band 6 - 4 points As you can see it's impossible to qualify in Band 4 unless you also have continental minutes, your club qualifies for continental competition or you have decent international game time (would have to be in a top 50 nation if that last one is the only extra you have). With the budget we have, we need bargains. Players who qualify easily from Band 1 are probably beyond us. Band 1 squad players who qualify probably are too, mostly. Players from Band 1 clubs who aren't named on a team sheet for them (youth players or loaned out) will struggle to qualify. Looking at all this it seems our best scouting markets (Europe only for now anyway) would be Bands 2 and 3: Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, Russia. Some of the clubs in those leagues might not really be worth trying to sign from, but regulars in most of the teams in them would hopefully be within budget and likely to meet the criteria if not injured or dropped. If you're looking at anyone from Band 4 or below, they're going to need to be an international (and the lower the club band the higher rank the international side would need to be, and/or more international minutes played) or from a club currently in or qualifying next season for European competitions. Or have a British passport. There are also points that can be earned in youth football, that looks complicated too and I won't go into it or read it all, but it looks possible to earn enough points that way (maybe with senior games added in), so we could do with someone keeping tabs on youth internationals and in youth continental competitions. So it's still a vastly reduced pool (5 nations and some top sides in the other leagues, and the occasional affordable international), but probably not 90% smaller as I initially thought. I do feel more relaxed about our chances of still landing the odd player through it after giving a thorough read, as long as we organise our efforts well. It is a problem though Chaddy, it's still harder than before and a smaller pool with more intense competition. I'd say you were about half right with the leagues we should scout, but Austria is Band 4 so probably not worth it. German top tier a bit beyond us, some of French top tier might be in range. Their second tiers are Band 4 and have no possibility of European qualification, won't be packing any top 50 regular internationals, so pretty much no point. (And yes everyone, I wrote a lot, I'm detail-oriented and type fast, spare me your pithy mockery)

I didn't say it did, did I? They generally have a pretty good grasp on what staff roles are though. Harvey was head of Player Analysis. That's not from the game, that's from news reports when he left. FM clearly decided the closest role they have to that is Chief Data Analyst. Whichever way you slice it, either role very likely relies on analysing data, my point being, we already had someone who was data focused enough as head of recruitment that they gave him a secondary role that appears to have included data analysis. The more I hear the more I suspect Harvey left because Mowbray ignored a lot of his best suggestions, but likely has an NDA preventing him talking about it. It will be interesting to see how Sunderland's recruitment goes compared to ours in the next couple years. Define 'plenty of players'. We can sign players with British passports, not many of those on the continent. We can sign players who have played a bit in the top 4 leagues, or played once but are internationals at a reasonable level or for a crap international side but play a lot (I think those would sometimes qualify anyway). Most of those will be out of reach. We can possibly sign some ever-present players from the second tier of leagues (Belgium, Holland top flight etc) but I think they'll need to be in European competition and/or internationals at a better level than the top tier leagues. And some of those will be out of reach. After that we are struggling I think. Certain leagues are no longer worth scouting at all really, other than possibly for regular internationals when it's a country in the fifa top 50. As one example, a player who played every game for Greece and every game for a club in the Greek top league, but a club who didn't qualify for Europe, would NOT meet the criteria. You keep acting like it's not a problem, but it is. Our realistic European pool just got a LOT smaller. To pull a figure entirely out of my arse, I'd guess it's about 10% of what it was before. Premiership teams, as ever, are barely affected. But even then, if you think of when we signed Nzonzi, or Samba, back when we had a real European scouting network, I'm pretty sure neither of them would have come close to qualifying.

When are we expecting Tony to first use the excuse of 'there won't be much movement in the market until the Euros are over' ? I'm gonna go for in the next 1-2 weeks.

It's not harsh at all. Whether intentional or not it was reckless beyond belief and he ended someone's season. His foot was very high. He absolutely clattered him.

🤣🤣 so, you wouldn't recommend him as next Rovers boss then?

Tbh it's grossly unfair to accuse Joe and Andy of derailing the thread (derailing the thread being a BRFCS summer transfer window tradition anyway, as discussions naturally flow to other semi-related topics). The thread was derailed by another Buckley discussion. Joe and Andy contributed to that discussion in their own way (whether that's your way or that of other posters is immaterial, it was relevant in its way to the discussion happening). It was then a joint, sustained effort to continue to derail along the lines of data use, spurred by people criticising the posts they made and the value of data in the game, which, as people whose careers seem to revolve in varying degrees around data use, they naturally defended. Which prompted more criticism, more defence, etc. Then you derailed it onto an even less relevant tangent with that post, then I continued that derailment with this post 😛. It's now starting to look like the Paddington crash up in here (too soon?).

I've heard he's a total machine, a real star, treks all over the pitch, but I know he'll never be Captain. Need to sign someone with a surname like Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Archer for that.

I assume Harvey was already pretty data-focused, he wasn't just head of recruitment he was also head of Player Analysis. Sounds data-related. I know on my FM game he starts as chief scout and chief data analyst as his secondary role.

You've both misunderstood me. Especially Chaddy, who I've already had this discussion with. I didn't say it was impossible Joe, I said there isn't all that much use in it for a club our size now. Not the same thing. Sure, we can still find some gems potentially but they just got a lot harder to get out of the mine and we weren't exactly ripping it up with European successes before were we? Didn't you post up what Kaminski's points would have been when we signed him and he came up short? Apologies if I'm misremembering and please correct me if so (maybe you said only just qualified), but if that's right then that's basically our only success from it so far and it would no longer be possible. That was a lad playing regularly in a decent enough league belonging to the world's number one ranked nation, in a side that just finished 2nd in it and had been in European competition that season. He was good enough to win our Player of the Year in his first season. If that doesn't cut the mustard anymore it's going to be very difficult outside of people with British passports on the continent. Only a few leagues earned better points than the top tier in Belgium when I looked at the points system - Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. I read that Mbuemo and Pukki wouldn't have qualified under the current rules. I know there are ways it's a lot easier to qualify, like being a regular in an international side in the top 50, but the point is our market is considerably reduced now, with probably just as much competition vying for the gems, and we have barely had anything from it before the restrictions.

That's the Head of European Scouting I believe. It already occurred to me that they might just bump him into the Head of Recruitment role after interviewing however many dozens of people applied, in another lazy jobs for the boys move. Especially now there isn't all that much use in European scouting for a club of our size with the Brexit rules.

I believe in the proper use of data in the game but I have to say roversfan99 is entirely right with the statement that data is useless on its own. For starters if it's on its own then nobody is using it so by definition it's useless. But less literally - if the person with all this data at their fingertips doesn't know what they're doing with it, how to interpret it usefully, how some data interacts with other data, which data is relevant and which is misleading...then yes it's useless. In fact it can be counter productive in the wrong hands. In the right hands, it's very valuable, can save you millions on players and can aid significantly in bringing success. For one thing, we are supposedly all about data now, but with the dinosaur in charge it hasn't got us anywhere. Meanwhile Barnsley have probably done it right judging by their far greater success with far more limited resources.

I'm always confused by this reading of what happened with Dolan early doors. The problem wasn't anything to do with Dolan, the problem was Mowbray brought in an even younger lad that we didn't own and played him instead, terrified to have them both playing at the same time on opposite flanks. That was what killed Dolan's momentum, hampered his confidence, and I more than suspect during his time out he was discouraged from playing with quite as freedom. You keep going with players who have built up momentum, especially very young ones. All sorts can happen to their mindset when you don't.

Why would Travis only just fit in there without injuries? He plays pretty much every game he is available and fit enough for.