It’s been quite a busy day in terms of team news and the FA Cup stuff, but I wanted to pen something quickly about last night.
I attended the EPC to watch a presentation about analytics by Logan Hughes, our lead analyst. I love stats, as anyone who listens to the podcast knows, and I wondered how deep they ran within the club. What influence do numbers have over the good, old fashioned eye test? As part of a special presentation, we got the chance to find out, and the answer is ‘a lot more than I realised’.
I’m not going to break down the presentation, for a couple of reasons. The main one is the same reason we weren’t allowed to take photos during the event – lots of the information was specific to us, and the club rightly don’t want that in the wider world for others to copy. The other is the club intend to do this again, and I think the best effect for those wanting to know about analytics is to listen to Logan.
Who is Logan Hughes? He’s a New Zealand native, born in this country, but raised back home. He started coaching his brother, moved on to analytics for the NZ Women’s Under 17 team, and then to Wellington Pheonix, a New Zealand side that plays in the Australian A-League. Somehow, he caught the eye of Jez George and the team, and we headhunted him from there, moving him over to England at the start of the season.
Oh, he’s also only 23.
Logan leads a team consisting mainly of interns who put together analytics for Michael and the coaching team. That includes a breakdown of the opposition, how they play, and making that deliverable to the players. The depth here is out of this world, and the workload surprised everyone in the room. They’re often prepping for two games at the same time, but at different stages, so starting a Tuesday game whilst balls deep in the Saturday fixture.
If you think numbers are overrated in football, then it appears you’re a long way behind the trend. We’re fairly advanced for League One, but bigger clubs have analysts looking directly at certain areas of the field. There’s even a degree of referee analysis involved. Anywhere numbers can give us an advantage, it is being exploited.
Logan took us through his prep, the workload, and the journey from watching a game on video to how players get their Hudl clips and how the report is structured and delivered. Some opponents will be the focus of 75% of his time, with 25% going on what we do. Sometimes, the analysis will be on us rather than the opposition, giving us the best chance to beat who we face.
He covered things like opponents surprising us, as Orient did, and completely dispelled the notion that we ever just play an aimless big boot. He even delved into how some teams try to throw the opposition off the scent by creating false set-piece routines and leaving them behind. Honestly, you’d be surprised – he explained how older coaches once got angry at him for not ripping up tactics into little pieces before putting them in a hotel bin – it’s not uncommon to find a hotel being tapped up for stuff like that! Whether this has happened here or not is another story, but he even spoke about a TV in the dressing room being rigged to show the same display in an adjacent room, so all of one team’s plays were displayed for the home team to analyse. Proper spy stuff.
He also covered how we sussed that Sessegnon was playing central defence for Wigan at the weekend before the teams came out, despite him having not played there all season, and why they didn’t relay that to the players before kick off. He spoke very highly of Chris Cohen’s influence in delivering analytics during the game and working more in-depth with numbers. If only there was a metric that could confirm that, like one defeat in 18 since he arrived – perhaps the club really are on to something with these numbers, after all.
If you’re a numbers nerd like me (and Chris and Charlie), then this is a couple of hours you’ll be enthralled by. We got some validation for the podcast – xG was mentioned a bit, as was Wyscout, and afterwards, he chatted PPDA with Chris as well. Analysts are the way forward, and he even explained how there are going to be elements of AI and VR in the player’s prep in the future. It wasn’t just interesting, it was utterly bewildering.
I’m desperate to know how a man of 23 becomes so conversant with stats that he’s headhunted by a club halfway around the world, when I can’t get Wyscout to tell me who our best player was from a single match. I know if I asked Logan, he’d take the time to show me; I’m sure of it. He was friendly and approachable and spoke so highly of the football club.
One moment stood out for me, which might have passed a few by because it wasn’t numbers-based. It was while talking about the TV screens and underhand tactics someone asked if we do things like that to baffle opponents. He laughed and remarked how we didn’t because we try to act in a sporting manner in everything we do. That impressed me because the laugh was offhand as if the mere thought of us trying to do something like that off the field was so far removed from our beliefs that it was worthy of joke status. That made me respect our club even more, if that was possible.
I came away buzzing, as I did when I watched Jez’s presentation a few seasons ago. It’s easy to underestimate the work that goes on behind the scenes, to think that a manager looking at a team is the best way to manage on instinct. That’s old hat I’m afraid, the future is much deeper than the eye test. We know when our team has an off day by looking, but there’s no way the depth of preparation needed to be successful can ever be achieved by one man watching a game again.
People like Logan Hughes will become more pivotal to clubs as time progresses, and having seen him in action, I’m delighted it’s our team he’s working for.