Exeter City vs West Brom U21 - EFL Trophy - Match day thread

[andrew p long]

Big businesses when they dont have a good deterministic model for success always just revert to playing the numbers game. The more darts you chuck at the dartboard the more you build up a normal distribution of points. They just have a lot of money, so can afford a lot of "darts" to throw at the "board", eventually one or two will hit the bullseye and the ones which miss the board completely are just "the cost of doing business". ....

If you can find a reliable methodology to produce world class footballers which doesn't just rely on random sampling then I think you would become very very rich.

I think it is fair to say that Brentford come closest to achieving something like this. Scrap the academy, then get players at 19,20,21 - sometimes for the B team - but based on a much better analysis than employed by most clubs ( and pundits!)

 

[John William]

I think it is fair to say that Brentford come closest to achieving something like this. Scrap the academy, then get players at 19,20,21 - sometimes for the B team - but based on a much better analysis than employed by most clubs ( and pundits!)

In a real business there would be careful research into the ROCE (return on capital employed) of the strategy and DCFs (discounted cash flows) of the revenue streams.

As you say Brentford do probably do this something like this, but I wonder if the PL clubs ar that professionally run. Judging from their transfer decisions and the money they have allowed to leach out of the game into the pockets of agents, i doubt it.

 

[The Proper Chap]

Most premier league clubs are very poorly run, they are bailed out by TV money etc.

 

[The Proper Chap]

Championship clubs like Brentford are well positioned within the pyramid to make money out of players.

They can sign the best league 1, 2 and national league players and if they prove themselves at championship level they are worth many many multiples of the initial outlay (as long as age is on their side). They can also get them on contracts that protect their interests.

Of course some signings will not work out however they will be relative small fry losses in comparison to those that do come off.

Take someone like Josh Key for example, just say Brentford paid 500k - 1 million for him, if he did well in the championship he is probably worth around 5 - 10 million.

 

[AmberRed]

I think it is fair to say that Brentford come closest to achieving something like this. Scrap the academy, then get players at 19,20,21 - sometimes for the B team - but based on a much better analysis than employed by most clubs ( and pundits!)

Brentfords model is also based on where they are in the country! They are surrounded by Premiership clubs and 'mop up' a lot of players from these clubs.

 

[Trapdoor]

Also, this is why we are quite successful with our own model. We have a massive catchment area and a top class academy with a reputation for springboarding young players into the upper echelons of professional football. Devon also is experiencing significant growth generally, which means even more competition for academy places.

If your kids are good at football and want to try and make it in the professional game, there are few better places to break into it than ECFC. It's a good business niche to carve out from the clubs perspective, it's not as profitable as Brentfords model undoubtedly, but we have much less starting capital and cashflow to work with.

 

[tonykellowfan]

Brentford are an interesting case though as the guy behind them with the money is a gambling/computing whizz and I believe that part of their success is down to using their own proprietary computing models to select players.

 

[pct333]

Yep. I don't think they were used to a pressing game from their opponents. They constantly surrendered possession and had so little control that they were constantly running to cover gaps all over the pitch. Goes to show the standard of U21 football sadly.

...and they were playing on our notoriously heavy pitch, at this time of year.