The Premier League’s financial environment makes it difficult for teams outside the top
six to compete for the best players, and yet, the rest of the league still manage to sign
players of an excellent quality. Whether it’s Burnley signing James Tarkowski when clubs
like Liverpool and Arsenal were in desperate need of a center back, or Wilfred Ndidi signing
for Leicester City when Manchester United signed Nemanja Matic for more than double
the price just six months later. Some smaller clubs do this by engendering a level of astuteness
in their player acquisition and scouting, that can compensate for their financial disadvantage.
This is often due to certain inherent advantages the smaller teams have that cannot exist at
larger clubs.
They can give players more game time, as they would have to compete with players of a higher
standard at bigger clubs. Clubs like Leicester City, Everton, and Bournemouth have built
a reputation for being willing to give young players chances, but this advantage can work
with older players as well. Sean Dyche has created a climate at Burnley that makes older
players, who may have failed to impress elsewhere, feel valued.
The other crucial advantage that small clubs have is their greater risk tolerance when
it comes to transfers. The bigger sides will sometimes be reluctant to sign players from
the lower leagues based on their perceived lower quality. This leaves a void that teams
outside the top six can fill. Jordan Pickford and Lewis Cook are both good examples of this.
Pickford was perhaps the lone positive in a dreadful season for Sunderland, and both
Liverpool and Arsenal were in dire need of a better goalkeeper. Similarly, Cook was playing
phenomenally at Leeds and displayed all the attributes necessary to be a top midfielder
in the modern game. Both of these clubs were willing to take potential short-term losses
for greater long-term gains, knowing that giving game time to these young players would
enable them to improve dramatically.
Primarily, the development of statistical analysis in football and its role in buying
players has greatly evened the playing field in scouting talent. Spending big on a large
scouting network that can be in multiple countries is, while still important, not as crucial
as in years past because small teams of analysts can look at large amounts of data from companies
like Wyscout and Opta to extract crucial information regarding players. This access to statistics
combined with the ability to attract excelling players from smaller clubs enables teams to
acquire players who are not just talented but can serve specific functions that improve
the whole team. This is especially helpful for teams with a specific way of playing,
and the prime example of this was Burnley’s signing of James Tarkowski.
Tarkowski was a highly rated, young, English centre back at Brentford. He was quite a gracious
and elegant defender, who was solid and disciplined defensively and was capable of playing long
raking passes from the back and carrying the ball forwards. As such, it seemed rather odd
for him to join Burnley, a team that’s known for its ‘no nonsense’ approach to defending.
The low block is designed to funnel shots towards the center of the goal and encourage
teams to shoot from range by employing two compact lines of four to compress space in
the box. Its a system that requires discipline, intelligence, and aerial prowess from centre
backs.
Whilst Tarkowski’s style of play was vastly different from Michael Keane and Ben Mee,
the following stats from Squawka showcase that Tarkowski had the necessary attributes
to fit the Dyche system. He had minimal defensive errors, no dismissals
and only 4 yellows in his previous season, and he won a significant proportion of aerial
duels. Dyche could also see that Tarkowski would bring different elements to Burnley’s
passing, as he usually passed longer than Mee and Keane, assisting their direct style
of attack. Burnley used statistics to look beyond the stereotype.
Another example can be found at Leicester City, who have unearthed talents like N'golo
Kante, Wilfred Ndidi, and Riyad Mahrez over the past few years. In an interview with Leicester
Mercury, former scouting and recruitment analyst Rob Mackenzie detailed that the functions
of the statistics used by the scouting team, stating that they were able to track the movement
of players “on and off the ball, and how that compared to the players Leicester had
at the time.” Mackenzie also said that the Leicester recruitment team used specific indexes
that detailed information about a specific statistic. For example, when detailing the
signing of Riyad Mahrez, Mackenzie said “We had a positivity index for the use of the
ball and how successful they are, and Riyad scored highly. He was always looking to do
something positive with the ball and was successful.”
The financial gap in football is only getting larger, but that is certainly not the case
when it comes to scouting. Smaller teams will always have an advantage over big teams in
their ability to guarantee game time and take more risks in player recruitment. This tailors
their focus to players who do well in lower leagues, and the use of statistics can enable
them to find players who can fit and add to their specific team style. Teams outside the
top six have shown intelligence and innovation in their ability to get the best talent that
goes unnoticed by the marquee clubs in England.