Here is Chris Summersell:
How did your first opportunity in football come about?
I’ll give you a short history of my experiences in the game. My first opportunity came when I sent an email to my local club to get
involved in coaching, Suddenly I was propelled into the world of
volunteer grassroots coaching. You have all these grand ideas about the game and then the reality of removing dog mess, putting up goal nets on freezing cold mornings and dealing with angry parents hits you. I learned more in those early experiences about football, people and myself than any other experience.
I then got into a small scouting role, once again voluntary, for
Brentford’s academy before it was shut down. I was rubbish at it in truth, but it was a learning experience and it enabled me to look at the game and individual players in a different way.
Eventually I got my first paid coaching job around the time I obtained my UEFA B Licence with Brighton & Hove Albion. I worked in their London based development centres working with their U7 & U8s. It was a great learning experience working for a forward-thinking club and to work with some really talented players.
More recently I became a Coach Tutor for the English FA, where I deliver the Level 1 coaching qualification to learners just beginning their coaching journey. I am really positive about the English FA’s modernised approach to coach education.
My interest in both tactical and data analysis grew whilst coaching, and when I gained confidence in my ideas I began writing for Total Football Analysis, as well as self-publishing my own blogs. With this work in the public sphere it has led to a brilliant opportunity that I unfortunately can’t quite go public about just yet.
What attracted you to scouting/analytics? What’s more intriguing now names or numbers?
I see myself as somewhat unusual in the coaching fraternity in that I was really interested in data in football from quite early on. In my experience even ‘progressive’ coaches I speak to are skeptical of statistics, unless it supports their pre-existing views, which isn’t really the point.
Even before I got into coaching I would regularly look at the old basic data, the Guardian used to publish chalkboards and the Telegraph published some basic passing data. Of course, analytics has developed hugely since, but it was back then that my interest in it began, and when I began coaching I saw it as an advantage in developing my understanding of football.
I guess it was this initial interest in data that made me completely
open to the rise of advanced analytics. I think it must have been
about 2014 when I started reading about xG and it just immediately made sense to me. I still find it baffling how such a simple concept is so misunderstood.
I never really envisaged me getting involved in analytics myself, I do not come from a mathematical or scientific background (I studied Applied Linguistics at University) and simply found it interesting.
It was when I began writing that I started cautiously using data, but the more I used it with my coaching and tactical knowledge I realised I was occupying a space in football that I don’t think many do, a translator between the laptops and the work done on the grass. The opportunity I mentioned earlier is precisely that, and I think this kind of role could be really important in the coming years. There needs to be better communication between analytics staff and coaches at many clubs.
Who/what is the first player/concept you "found"? What
caught your eye?
This is a difficult question because I’m still very new to this and I
would never claim to have ‘found’ a player. An example however is to explain my process I use to identify talented players through using data then video which showed me I could put myself in the right ballpark.
Initially using basic data from Whoscored, then later moving on to Wyscout, Understat and FBREF I started to draw up a database of players that appeared statistically interesting to me.
One of the first players I identified in 2018 was the Brazilian winger Galeno, then on loan at Rio Ave from Porto, and now at SC Braga. I simply found he was dribbling and shooting a lot, and when I looked at the video I discovered a really fun and dangerous winger. There were flaws to his game too which the video scouting uncovered. He became the subject of one of my first published scouting pieces and at the time was I believe the only publicly available piece on him.
This showed me that even using basic data could help identify
players who had talent, and that my coaching knowledge helped me build the rest of the profile.
Who/what is the player/concept you "missed" on? What did you learn from it?
One player that springs to mind is someone very close to my heart, Harry Kane. As a Spurs fan I saw him play in our youth teams and his early first team appearances, he is a fascinating case study for those interested in talent ID, development and analytics.
In his early Spurs appearances I shared the commonly held view
amongst fans that he definitely had ‘something’, but that he was
unlikely to make it in the first team, which was backed up by a series of unremarkable loans. In February 2014 I watched him play a U21 game at the Spurs training ground and mentioned how I thought he had talent but not enough to make it for Spurs. One of the guys I was with instantly told me that he was exceptionally highly rated in the academy. I noted it, but at that point I just couldn’t see it. 181 goals later at 26 years old, I’m happy to concede I was wrong.
Why I find it fascinating though was how Spurs were able to see his potential, even when he was well behind his peers physically. The Spurs academy manager John McDermott could see that potential and an amazing dedication to improvement, but Kane was very much a player hiding in plain sight. On the other hand I watched Raheem Sterling run rings around Spurs U19s in 2012, it was just obvious he was going to go all the way.
There is an analytics angle to this too, because soon after my training ground visit, Kane broke through into the first team late in the 2013/14 season. At the end of that season, Michael Caley wrote about how Kane’s shots and xG numbers flagged him up as a player with elite potential, and he was right. All this before the 2014/15 season where he became Spurs main striker and became a ‘one season wonder’. Analytics had suggested he was showing elite potential before that. What I learned from this was the value of having a rounded approach to talent ID. You need experts who understand player development, experts at the eye test, and experts in analytics. They need to work together.
If you could start over what skill would you build on first?
The ability to network. I am just getting to the stage now where I can network effectively and now more opportunities are coming my way because of it.
The reason is that I have anxiety as well as being quite introverted, which is a combination that made it difficult when making my way through the often harsh, brash football environment. I am only now in a position where I fully understand this and the effect it has had on me professionally.
When I started out, I was too anxious to reach out to people, to ask if I could watch them coach, to meet people and bend their ears about football. I knew opportunities wouldn’t come to me, but I was just really bad at doing a great deal about it. Fortunately once I began writing about the game and realised I wasn’t as bad as I thought I must be, I gained in confidence and networking became easier.
Do you see player development as more of an art or a
science? Is development on the club or the player? Why?
I think it's both. It’s really important for people working in youth
development to understand the science that underpins the growth of each player across the physical, psychological, social and technical corners of development. This could be anything from birth bias and maturation rates to the body mechanics to execute technical actions. The art of player development is in the connection you build with players and knowing when and how to step in and help players.
It works both ways and every player is different, some players are
more independent and will develop in spite of the environment, some players are more reliant on the environment they are in to fulfill their potential. Everyone is different and it’s vital to understand each player as an individual, and the kind of monitoring and intervention they may need.
What is your favorite sports moment? Why?
I have to pick two. The first one is for the pure emotion that football can bring, I doubt I can do this moment the justice it deserves. As I mentioned before, I am a Spurs fan and have suffered watching them for many years but I was one of the fortunate few to have been in Amsterdam for the Champions League semi-final last May. When Lucas scored the winner in the 96th minute, I have never experienced a feeling like that in my life. I’ve never seen so many people in tears, Tottenham in the Champions League final? Surely not.
To give a non-football answer, the 2005 Ashes Cricket Series between England and Australia was the most compelling sport I have ever witnessed.
I appreciate cricket isn’t likely to be a sport that many reading this will be interested in, but at the time it was the two best teams in the world who were very evenly matched. England won the series 2-1, it captivated the entire nation and invigorated a sport that desperately needed it. It was the pinnacle of competitive sport.
What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?
I’ll whisper this quietly, but the first football team that really wowed me was Arsenal under Arsene Wenger in those early years. Don’t get me wrong, I hated that it was them lot, but I watched them thinking ‘why can’t that be us?’. They were just so different to any team I’d seen before in England (back then access to watching other leagues and European football was far less than now).
They took care of the ball, they had artistry, their passing combinations were a joy to watch and in Dennis Bergkamp had one of the most influential players in English football history. Whilst Manchester United were more dominant in terms of sustained success and were undeniably great, I just never identified with the way they played, although Eric Cantona was an absolute magician.
Fast forward a few years and like a lot of other people the Barca of Pep Guardiola was highly influential and was one of the reasons I got into coaching in the first place. Everything that needs to be said about this team has already been written a thousand times over, although I will add that I haven’t found his Bayern & Man City teams quite as entertaining.
Of course I can’t help but mention Marcelo Bielsa, who I was first introduced to in 2011 when he took his Athletic Bilbao team to Old Trafford and absolutely took Man Utd apart. Never have I seen a team treat Man Utd (under Fergie) with such disrespect, they dominated them in and out of possession for 90 minutes. I still regularly watch that game, it’s the template of what I want to develop in my coaching.
My biggest inspiration however is Mauricio Pochettino. He completely changed my football club, I hope to one day meet him and thank him.
It wasn’t just the style of play he developed, it was the way he united the whole club together, how he conducted himself and the
connection he built between the team and fans. At our best we were one of the best teams in Europe, playing attacking, exciting football and his teams gave us so many amazing moments that no one thought possible when he came to Spurs. People will say ‘but what did he win?, I say they’ll never understand.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into
media/analytics?
Be curious. There is such a wealth of information and expertise
available to everyone, so go and be curious about your craft. Read, ask questions and learn about what the best people in the industry are doing. If you are curious, you’ll be open to learn new concepts, pick up new skills and question everything. It is the basis for everything.
I would also say it’s important in football to try and make your work public. I found this really hard at first, and I still do get really anxious when sharing my work. Once you can overcome that and people are seeing your work, you’ll start building a what is essentially a public CV. Importantly you’ll get better at it and you’ll learn as you go along.
As someone who struggled to find the confidence to put things in the public sphere, if anyone wants to start writing then I am happy for people to contact me, my DMs are always open and I will happily look at someone’s work and give advice where I can.
What is your favorite app/tool to use (for fun!)?
Twitter has been undeniably the most important app for me. It has helped me learn, connect and led to some amazing opportunities. I use Wyscout a lot, and sites like Understat, Whoscored and FBREF are invaluable sources. I have also recently started learning Tableau for very basic data viz. I can’t neglect to mention Football Manager either.
What other sport/hobby/discipline do you feel improves your
work as an analyst? Why?
I always find it a struggle to find the time to watch other sports, and if I do it’s usually cricket. In saying that I watched the recent Superbowl for the first time, and I was immediately looking to detect patterns and ideas that translate to football, I could immediately see how you can take principles and apply it to set pieces. I think I’m going to try and watch more NFL from now on, I might even give basketball a go.
No comments:
Post a Comment