Former Tottenham scout David Pleat is not a big fan of a data-led approach to recruitment, remarking that it cannot replace scouting players in person.
David Pleat worked as a scout for Spurs for a long time, helping the club identify the best-emerging talent in the English Football League.
However, he vacated his role earlier this summer, with Tottenham’s new regime now going for a more data-based approach to identifying players.
It has been well documented that the club’s technical directors Johan Lange and Rob Mackenzie use data analysis to narrow down their list of targets and identify players with the specific attributes that Ange Postecoglou is looking for (GiveMeSport).
So far, the signings that Tottenham have made using this approach have proven to be a success, with the likes of Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven and others hitting the ground running at N17.
However, Pleat prefers a more old-fashioned approach, insisting that number crunching cannot replace the wisdom brought to scouting by people steeped in the game, who know what it takes to succeed at the highest level.
The 79-year-old told The Athletic: “The data people, they’re intelligent boys from university who’ve done wonderful dissertations. (But) they haven’t been in a dressing room and smelled the liniment. They don’t know that side of it.
“They’re more intelligent than most football people, and they’re very good at expressing themselves. They’re looking at lung-bursting runs, at intensity, at all sorts of things. But in the end, someone has to go with their eyes and ears.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I do not think it makes sense to present it as a binary choice between data-led assessment and direct, in-person scouting.
Both qualitative and quantitative analysis are required, with data just being another tool that helps identify outliers and potentially narrow down the list of targets.
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