Man Utd have beefed up their data department under Ineos and its biggest challenge to date is helping in the search for a new head coach.
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Manchester United have invested in their data department and it now aid the club's search for a new head coach(Image: Getty Images)
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn't mince his words when describing Manchester United's approach to data when he got a chance to look under the hood of the club he took control of just over two years ago.
In an interview with the United We Stand fanzine in December 2024, Ratcliffe described United's approach to data analysis as being in the "last century."
The Ineos era at Old Trafford has brought plenty of change since their minority investment was confirmed in February 2024, and not all of it has been positive. But one area that has improved is that approach to data, a facet of the game that is now crucial in delivering success.
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Insiders and industry experts now talk of United's use of data as being amongst the best in the Premier League. One of Ratcliffe's first moves was to hire Michael Sansoni from the Mercedes F1 team in April 2024, appointing the Southampton University graduate as the club's director of data.
Sansoni has led a transformation of United's approach to data, which is now used across the football side of the business in areas such as performance, recruitment and training. Adverts for new data engineers to join the club pop up regularly.
The data department has already proved its worth, and now it will help club bosses identify a new head coach. Clubs have only recently started crunching the numbers to help with appointing managers, and there is only so much it can tell. The performance indicators aren't as easy to interpret as those for players.
But data can still play a part, and it has come a long way from looking at simple metrics such as win percentages and trophies won. Now it can help inform appointments, but as Omar Chaudhuri, chief intelligence officer at Twenty First Group, explains, it can also help clubs decide when to stick rather than twist.
"Historically, a lot of clubs would change a coach when they were on a bad run, see a new coach come in, get a managerial bounce, and then see that peter out over time," said Chaudhuri, whose company supplies intelligence and has helped clubs with their search for a new head coach.
"Analysis and data just help clubs understand that a bit better, and I think they increasingly recognise when their incumbent manager is perhaps getting a bit unlucky through measures like expected goals, that tell them whether the team's been performing well but haven't necessarily been converting chances or the opposition have been very clinical."
That is, in theory, an advantage for Carrick, who, over his 17 games in charge, will deliver a wealth of data to Sansoni and his team that prospective candidates won't be able to.
While fans and pundits obsess over results, the data boffins will be digging deeper into those performances to see how sustainable they are and what they tell us about Carrick's United.
When it comes to assessing external candidates, Chaudhuri points to three areas that will be a focus. Historic performance, playing style and squad fit.
"On performance, a lot of clubs tend to want to identify coaches that have significantly outperformed their budget," he said. "You want someone who's been able to finish higher in the league than what might be indicated by their resources. And on that, identify whether that's been the coach or the club that's driven that.
"A good example recently would be Brentford and Thomas Frank. The reason Thomas Frank was so successful at Brentford was arguably as much about the club environment around him as it was him. And we're seeing that with Keith Andrews now doing a similar job after Frank left.
"And then finally, on the kind of organisational fit, it tends to be, does this coach play young players and grow value? Do they tend to come into clubs and demand a lot of money in their first few transfer windows? Are they good at managing rest and rotation? Are they going to manage diverse playing squads? All those types of things that might give a club a sense of the extent to which they'll fit into the new environment."
Part of the problem for the data analysts is that all of these things are, as Chaudhuri puts it, "descriptors" of how a coach has done in the past. There is no foolproof method for picking the best young coach in Europe off the shelf, and United are the perfect example of that.
When they appointed Ruben Amorim in November 2024, it seemed like a successful appointment. Twenty First Group had Amorim down as the most overachieving head coach in Europe.
But it turned out to be a disaster. And according to Chaudhuri, the best indicator of how a head coach will do isn't what he did at his previous club, but how his predecessor at his new club fared. Erik ten Hag and Amorim are maybe the perfect examples of that.
"Manchester United had a succession of coaches that had very impressive CVs, but they've all done pretty much as well or worse than the previous coach. That is consistent for so many clubs," explains Chaudhuri.
"Brentford would be another great example. When Frank went into Brentford didn't have much of a CV, but previous coaches had done reasonably well, Dean Smith, Mark Warburton, etc. And when Andrews comes in, he definitely didn't have a CV at all and he's gone in and done really well and that's because the predecessors have done well.
"Head coaches are often seen as a silver bullet to resolve all issues. But most clubs need to hold a mirror up to themselves and understand why it is that they might be changing their head coach in the first place and try and resolve some of the issues that led that coach to leave."
That also means that, as much as the media and supporters drive debate over a managerial appointment and the topic is seen as one of the most fascinating in football, it perhaps doesn't have the importance traditionally attached to it. To look at an example at United, would Luis Enrique necessarily be that much better than Carrick?
"You can end up kind of obsessing over the difference between the best candidate and the fifth best candidate, but if the structure is now set up to deliver then whoever they are, they’re going to fail," said Chaudhuri.
"A coach can only really be as good as the environment in which they're in, and good clubs will understand how good their environment is, because they're able to do the analysis."
That doesn't mean it's all about structure rather than personnel. You can be sure United's data team will be analysing the runners and riders for their next head coach, working out who looks like a good fit and who doesn't. There are lessons to be learned from Amorim's appointment.
Insiders would also insist that the football structure is now in a better place than it was 18 months ago, and that the environment is set up for a head coach to succeed and change the narrative around this job.
And when it comes to data use, it doesn't have to end with drawing up a list of potential candidates. It can be used when they face chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox for interviews.
"I actually think one of the biggest values of data is asking questions in an interview, because data will tell you what a coach has done and it might tell you a little bit of the why and how, but 90% of what a coach does is between the games," said Chaudhuri.
"Let's say you know from a coach's data that they make subs later than the average coach, and those subs have less impact. One interpretation of the data might be, well, they're not very good at using subs, but a better use of that data would be to say, okay, coach X, tell me why that was the case? Is there a rationale, is there justification for it?
"The really good coaches, and we've seen this before in some of the processes we've been in, will know that and have an answer ready, and will be able to say, well, in this environment I'll do this differently, etc.
"The not-so-good coaches won't be aware of that at all. And they'll fluster, and they'll kind of make up excuses or whatever it is, and they won't be able to really understand their qualities as a coach."
This time around, United could really do with landing on the right coach, for the right environment.