Leeds United director of footballer Victor Orta has opened up on the way head coach Marcelo Bielsa and his team of analysts work to ensure the very best is being done for the Whites to succeed.
It is little secret that Bielsa as incredibly articulate when it comes to planning and preparation, something that became incredibly apparent when the 'spygate' episode broke out earlier this year.
Bielsa refuses to leave any stone unturned and goes into tremendous depth, along with his support staff, to ensure his team are in the best possible shape for every fixture.
"He has a group of analysts for the players and we have a lot of tools now," Orta told the Training Ground Guru podcast , describing Bielsa's work.
"I am working with 70 per cent of our style which is reports, recruitment, human eyes and the other 30 per cent, I start to work now with stats and algorithms, and I have two algorithms and I am really happy because they are tailored for me, tailored for our style, tailored for Marcelo Bielsa’s style but it’s still my pressure.
"The filter is still 70 per cent, 30 per cent. I have my own opinion on stats in football. It’s not a sport of repetition, like basketball, baseball, American football, futsal and handball where the stats can determine levels.
"Here in football it is difficult to make a pattern with stats, but we are improving.
"With ideas of people we are improving and this is the thing that is still 70:30, but we start to sure algorithms and stats."
On how the algorithms that Leeds use, Orta continued: "We decide around 80 stats and with our values for a future star and the weight of the stat, perhaps I prefer the passing or long passing, or the defenders is different, perhaps a centre-back is more dominate or a ball playing centre-back or a right-wing back is defensive, or right wing-back offensive and we are creating models and patterns that these stats are five stats, four or three, have this weight and then we put half of the stats and the website determinate what players can be really good for you.
"It’s more useful when the way of work is that I decide three or four names with the older style and I then compare qualitative analysis for these four names. This is better than this, this is better than this, this is better than and this and then I can put in the report that we share with Marcelo in a really open and more clear idea.
"I prefer the one-vs-one, in respect of the winger, of the defensive work because perhaps the right-back that we have is really good in defensive work. This algorithm does not say this is a good player, this is a bad player. Not the player.
"We have these things and these weaknesses and then you need to use at the end one important situation in modern football is all the information is there."
