When you employ Tim Sherwood, there is no doubt that you employ a manager willing to pour his heart and soul into the job…seemingly, as long as it’s a Premier League one.
Wearing his big British heart dangling on his sleeve, it’s rather easy to dismiss Sherwood as a footballing dinosaur. Perhaps you might say he’s reactionary, bullish, even ill equipped to survive in today’s Opta generation of young managers.
Maybe the man unaffectionately known as ‘Tactic’s Tim’ will surprise us all one day.
Judging on yesterday’s interview with the Telegraph‘s Sam Wallace, that would be wishful thinking.
Almost with an outright disgust for football’s new breed of pencil pushing statistics and data obsessed softies, Sherwood is asked about his opinion on lower league footballer’s coming good in the higher divisions and modern day scouting as a whole.
He comments;
Because clubs are not sending scouts out as much to these lower leagues. Years ago they found Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand and Stuart Pearce in non-league.
You hear people say now they will never be found again. Vardy is proving they can. In the Football League, Callum Wilson has proved they can. John Stones has proved they can.
A lot of clubs are just not looking because it is not sexy to sign a player from the lower leagues or non-league.
They also recognise that if you have a lot of academy kids coming through or from lower league it opens up the purse strings and you can spend the budget on the one or two outstanding make-the-difference players.
You are always better off going for quality rather than quantity.
Some fair points granted….unquestionably there is untapped talent in the lower division foolishly being overlooked. Aiming his cross hairs slightly more at the individuals tasked at bringing in new talent, he goes for the jugular;
These modern guys don’t want to be called scouts, they want to be called anything but. The old guard – the foot soldiers – are still known as scouts.
They are out there trailing around parks watching kids’ football. The new guys don’t want to go Fleetwood Town. They might not even get a cup of tea.
When they go to Manchester United or the top leagues in Europe they get looked after. They get the blankets over their knees, and a nice cappuccino.
…..’the foot soldiers’…ah yes when men were real men….do us a favor. It’s not just the personel, the reliance on factual readings has really got his goat;
There are far too few of the scouts. All that data analysis can be used for something but it can’t be used to pick your players.
Some of the data is not about goals, or assists, it’s about ‘expected goals’ when a player got himself in position to score, but didn’t. What a load of nonsense.
Trust your eyes. You can’t get a feel for them on the screen. Any player can be made to look good on a showreel. It’s far sexier to go to the top European leagues and find these players. It’s easier to sell it to your fans.
Are they any more effective than a League One player? One thing a talented young League One player has got going for them is that they are mostly English, settled in the country, they haven’t got a language problem, they are not coming in on big money and they are hungry for success.
Some of these non-league kids are playing for the love of the game and 200 quid a week.
There’s another ‘sexy’, he must have been dared to fit in twice. Without sounding like a fence sitter, how about we encompass all philosophies? good old footballing feeling with the stats to back it.
He does have some praise to give however;
Everton are a great example of doing it the right way. Look at Seamus Coleman [signed from Sligo Rovers], Mason Holgate [Barnsley], Brendan Galloway [MK Dons] and Stones [Barnsley]. They have got it right. So have Spurs. Those are two good managers, Mauricio Pochettino and Roberto Martínez who are willing to give young and developing players an opportunity
Tim however continues his frustration that the ‘good old day’s’ are long gone;
You have people getting into the ear of the clubs and telling them it’s a little bit more sophisticated, that there’s more science to it. They are baffling them with figures, statistics and pie charts!
These guys might do a good presentation, but where is the substance? Does it work? How many games have they actually been to? How long have they been in the game? Do they know what they are looking at?
Fair questions….it is only that however, purely questions. No wonder club owners turn to modern methods when the only alternative seems to be the good old patronising ‘just let me do it, I’ve played football before’.