Back in 2013 Arsenal went from working with US-based statistical analysis first StatDNA to acquiring them. The purchase, believed to have been around €4 million, put the Gunners at the forefront of the football data revolution.
In their own words, StatDNA’s website says: “Our professionals bring experience in sports, software development and advanced analytics, and hope to push the envelope in delivering you advanced statistics and an easy-to-use video platform.”
In this video (first posted in November 2016), Sarah Rudd, VP of software and analytics at StatDNA, delivers a lecture on why statistics matter and how StatDNA’s analysis and full data sets are changing the modern game.
Frustratingly, you can’t always see what is on the big screen, but it’s an interesting watch all the same…
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If you want to know more about Arsenal’s relationship with StatDNA, there’s also a decent article by the New York Times journalist Rory Smith.
Interesting watch.
Though Andorra beating Hungary with just 44 passes in the match is an interesting stat and shows that everything can’t be guaranteed by numbers.
The cool thing with good analytics is that it is honest that it can’t guarantee anything. Any decent model will never say anything is 100%.
StatDNA was wrong about Griezman, while Wenger’s gut about him was spot on!
wengers gut got him park young chus and chamaks . after acquiring this compamy 90% of our transfer has been spot on
They should check the statistics of how many people call the sport football or soccer, hopefully they will come to the realisation soccer is a very very and I repeat a very silly name. Calling football and other name should be an international crime for goodness sake! ?
Sarah Rudd is based in the US, and when you talk about ‘football’ there, it means a game played with helmets, strange goal posts and a funnily shaped ball.
Where touching the ball with the actual foot is pretty much the exception.
And where they call a sport team world champions if they win the domestic league.
Once again, apart from the obvious usefulness of calling it something other than “football” in places where that would be confusing (the U.S., Canada, Australia), there is the undeniable point that “soccer” originates in England, probably in upper-class schoolboy slang: “Assoc football” for “association football” becomes “soccer football.” Analogous, and in distinction to, “rugger.”
I feel like I’m commenting in the Guardian.
It should be called American rugby! Soccer is a name to piss off the English.
The British used to call it soccer, derived from Association Football. This was to distinguish it from Rugby Football, which was known as rugger.
American history?!
That is really interesting, the saddo said. It’s rather encouraging that we appear to be at the forefront of the development of this analysis. Is it too much to ask, from a fan’s perspective, that such intelligent analysis might one day, soon, make the likes of idiots such as Savage, Merson, Owen and Lineker redundant? We can but dream.
That nyt piece is real interesting, but how successful have statDNA been?
Elneny Gabriel are definitely their recommendations, and they haven’t exactly been as good as expected…I’m not sure if Cech, holding or Lucas were from statDNA….the real difficulty in sports analysis is measuring the intangibles like mentality
Lucas, Elneny and Gabriel we know we’re definitely recommended by them.
Gabriel has faltered to deceive, but has been promisin. I like Elneny, but it’s clear Wenger doesn’t rate him.
And Lucas? Well, something tells me he would be something special if given a chance
Thing about Gabriel is that he seems to be the same player now that he was 2.5 years ago…..I like elneny but he needs to be more penetrating if he wants a first team run
The NYT article linked to shows that they put in a good word for Higuain and de Bruyne, but apparently missed out on Griezmann.
I think it’s hard to put it all on their shoulders: buying a player is not just about identifying them, but getting the deal done.
Similarly, can’t rate Gabriel based purely on how he’s done, but whether he’s good value as a squad player. I think he certainly is.
El Neny hasn’t started three games in a row yet, pretty good performances as a sub, scored a great goal against Barcelona. Gabriel had some very good games.
Not opposed to analytics, but you don’t want the technocrats taking over. This is Gazidis’s vision.