Leeds United Director of Football Victor Orta has revealed the four key areas that he looks at when weighing up a move for a new player.
Orta is a key part of the Whites recruitment team, working closely with head coach Marcelo Bielsa.
Now, speaking to WyScout for a special recent event, Orta has described how much effort goes into identifying players and then ensuring they are the right fit for the club.
"We are creating a document that we are calling 'DNA Leeds United Player'," Orta said.
"And we're detecting more or less what is our standards to try to recruit a player.
"Obviously for me when you're in recruitment you need to evaluate four things.
"One is the technical level, that you can minimise the risk because in the end with tools like WyScout you can monitor the player in a long way.
"The other is the physical level and in this century you can even have metrics about this.
"And then there are two situations that is more difficult to try to minimise the risk.
"One is the transition, which is watching a player perform in an atmosphere and seeing if this same player can perform in a different atmosphere.
"And obviously the psychological analysis that is more risky because at the end they are persons and a lot of things can be involved around them.
"But these are more or less the four points and then you can detail the technical level, the things that fit for your team, that fits for your tournament.
"But for me these are the four legs in a table."
Despite a wealth of statistical tools being available nowadays, Orta still maintains that a human decision is crucial in signing the right players.
He added: "I'm working 70 per cent old style, so reports, eye and human detection.
"The other 30 per cent is with stats, technology and algorithms.
"Because at the end of the day I always say that football is not a sport of repetition like other sports.
"In football you cannot quantify but stats give you enough quality and quantitative (data).
"It's a perfect mix and I think it's difficult to arrive at the best tool in terms of technology to detect players.
"Obviously we use a lot of tools but still I keep the old style and scout reports as the base of my decisions."
