Director of football Damien Comolli recently stated that specific player statistics will be guiding Liverpool’s transfer policies. The Frenchman specifically stated that the general health of players will be a paramount focus of future scouting and transfers. Talking about his most recent target, Blaise Matuidi, Comolli had this to say:
“I looked at his stats over the last three years – especially the number of matches played. We are going in the right direction of players who don’t get injured. We are going to take more and more account of the health of a player in the future. It costs so much having players who don’t play.
“With Luis, we took account of the number of decisive passes, his performances against the big teams, against the little ones, in Europe, the difference between his goals scored at home and away.”
This emphasis on statistics has aided certainly Comolli in the past. During his tenure at Tottenham, Comolli masterminded the transfers of such key players as Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, and Alan Hutton. It is already well known that Comolli was a very active agent in the transfers of Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll; his future involvement will be inevitable. The rumor mill is rife with Liverpool transfer speculation, and it is fair to assume there will be a fair number of large transfers this summer. This emphasis on the statistical contributions and health of players should ensure an influx of consistent, talented performers.
I for one would not mind seeing a few players of Gareth Bale’s talent making Anfield home.
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This is no surprise. The whole FSG philosophy is based on statistical analysis of up and coming players (Moneyball, sabermetrics, etc). This has worked for years in baseball and they wanted to apply a similar formula to football. One of the key reasons for hiring Comolli is because he already has experience in this sort of statistical analysis of players.
Most of the stuff that I keep seeing being lauded as magnificent advances are merely common sense approaches to football management. My only concern is whether the type of stats that they are looking at are relevant or not – a lot of the stats in football (e.g. distance run, % passes complete, # passes complete etc) give a pretty shoddy indicator of a players performance and for my money aren’t worth the time spent calculating them.
I could’ve/would’ve given similar advice for free
This guy needs some credit, he is brilliant
Very impressed with Damien’s efforts so far.
I posted some stats in the other forum whereby the top four available wingers are:
1. Hulk
2. Turan
3. Gervinho
4. Sanchez
beyond that…
6. Ashley Young
7. Payet
10. Eden Hazard
Now I must certainly be missing players on that list, I don’t get paid Damien’s money to find out the stats. Plus, the above stats are only for this season, not the past 3 seasons.
Hulk (left wing) and Sanchez (right wing) would be the best balanced pairing. Probably talking £65 million for the both of them though.
But Turan (left wing) and Gervinho (right wing) would work great too. More like £30-35 million for this pair.
In terms of statistics I’m cooling on the idea of bringing in Hazard…or at least bringing him in for silly money…he’s still a good player but the stats tell us he’s maybe not that good.
The problem with those stats (from Upper_Krust) is fhat you can’t really compare the leagues that each of the players play in. I’m not underestimating any of these leagues but the Serie A (Sanchez) is probably a better league then the Turkish league (Turan) and the Portuguese league (Hulk). I’m not saying the players in the “weaker” leagues are rubbish because I think if we can get Hulk and Turan for example then I’d be more than happy.
I have faith in KK and Comolli in their choice of signings…..YNWA
In other news…water is wet.
@FC Ashe… LOL
the only time i will be happy is for the first time ever in one window in the summer that liverpool just get on and get their business done without the rubbish and the fuss that has been the transfer windows for nearly a decade.
We just need to sign better players and that doesnt mean matt jarvis and adam etc, thats not the deal we need to do at all.
If we dont pay out for talent and i mean the matas, agueros, hazards, navas, mouss sissoko’s, coentraos’ sanchez’s etc then its not going to count, we need much much better players and we need it without any mess or fuss, sell the deawood are give it away and invest around 60 -100 mill then we can start talking depth of squad or league tittle challenge, untill then no way,
please bring me;
coentrao,
sakho
aguero
mata
moussa sissoko or ever banega
@KJ
Definately agree, its worth noting a number of games are played in Europe as well as the home league where you could argue that the overall standard may be better than their respective leagues.
The fact that so many Portugese teams reached the latter stages of the Europa says a little about their quality though.
All that said, we are just p***ing in the wind compared to the kind of information Damien will no doubt have at his fingertips. So I’ll leave it in his capable hands…although I’ll be darned if that’ll stop me from speculating.
General health of players? The great Bob Paisley once turned down the chance to sign Frank Worthington because of the er questionable substances found in a blood sample, Bob was decades ahead of his time, superior in so many different aspects of management.
I think it’s fair to say Damien Comolli has every LFC fan’s dream job.
Damn skippy! The jammy git…
I think every job at LFC would be great.. I’d do the grounds keeper’s job if I had the talent.