Newcastle United's analysis of potential transfer targets is being aided by a team of professors in mathematics, statistics, computer science and economics.
The Magpies subscribe to Real Analytics, a web-based platform, which uses exhaustive research from these individuals to try and mitigate the risk and uncertainty associated with player recruitment.
With the help of artificial intelligence and proprietary algorithms, which calculate how much value a player is adding in terms of victories, each individual in this huge database is given a dynamic rating based on their performance, physical and tracking data; potential; and how often they miss a game through injury or suspension.
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Data already had its place at Newcastle but it took on even greater significance when scouts were unable to attend games earlier in the pandemic.
Steve Bruce is a stickler for running statistics, in particular, and that passion is shared by the club's recruitment data analyst, Chris Scott.
Scott is 'really interested' in 'pressures' and 'counter press regains' because the Premier League is a 'monster' and you need 'players who can run all day'.
“Data analysis should be the beginning and the end of the process,” he told the Athletic. “So, we might ask it to find a left-back who can do X, Y and Z, which will be based on how we play and what we want our left-backs to do.
"That’s a more useful search than just looking for the top 30 left-backs aged under 30 in France. We want to know who the top five are who can do this, this and this.
“And then, at the end of the process, when you have done the old-fashioned scouting, you look to see what impact they’ll have.
"It’s almost like doing a virtual transfer, where you can see if the player will actually improve the team or not and by how much. It’s due diligence.”
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