Modern Soccer Coach Podcast

Using Data to Measure Elite Coaches - Tim Keech

Gary is joined by Tim Keech, co-founder of MRKT Insights, a data-focused football consultancy with clients in the UK and abroad. Tim works alongside clubs to help in a number of areas around data, one of which includes the impact and effectiveness of coaching.

Tim shares ways that coaches can be measured, how they can help facilitate the use of data at the club... and when the right time could potentially be to make a coaching change!

Check out Tim's work below... https://mrktinsights.com/index.php/2024/06/03/complex-systems-in-football/

Duration:: 1h 14m
Broadcast on:: 26 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

We are in Champions League, man. That was my name. Dilly-dilly-dong, come on! [SPEAKING SPANISH] It's a sharing of-- I'm so sorry for it! I will move it if we beat that move it. This is the Modern Soccer Coach podcast with Gary Kurnee. [CHEERING] [CHEERING] Hello, coaches. Welcome to another Modern Soccer Coach podcast. Today, we are joined by Tim Keach, co-founder at Market Insights. We've done a ton of analysis podcast interviews. We've done a ton of data interviews, but we haven't looked at data as it relates to measuring coaches. And this one is really, really interesting, Tim's doing some phenomenal work with Market Insights, data-focused football consultancy with clients in the UK and abroad. So definitely check out his work. Also, check out the pre-season resources at Modern Soccer Coach. Some special offers over there, ModernSoccercoast.com/shop. I appreciate the support. Here's Tim and Joy. Tim, thank you so much for joining me today on the Modern Soccer Coach podcast. Very, very excited chat. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for inviting me on. What a great topic. I was thinking about how to open in this, and obviously, data, football, coaching. There's so much to this. There's so much growth in the last few years. I think that whenever data initially came into the coaching space, it was this lightning ball moment where coaches felt that they could separate the emotion from almost the clarity of this is how to define a success. And I don't know if it's helped in a lot of ways. I don't know if it's delivered in the clarity aspect as much, but when I was reading your work and seeing your work, I thought, "Oh, this is actually where we need to move conversations more in coaching." And the first part is stale alongside results or stale instead of results, which I actually still struggle with. Your article, how stale matters. Like, "Oh, this is it. This is it. Here we go. Let's talk more." Describe the process of using data to define stale and give us a bit more on that. Great. So this is going to separate the pragmatists from the philosophy guys right down the middle. One of the things that we wanted to do as a company was kind of use data as much data as we can to look at coaches. The easiest thing to do is just say that guy's an improved team. The points have increased. The expected goals have got better and say these are the good coaches. But one of the things that we noticed and the way we kind of methodology for this was we've got full y-scout API, which means we've got every game y-scout. We've got data scientists. Instead of just saying what are the basic stats we can get? What percentage possession did they have? What we wanted to do is say, let's actually create metrics because we spend a lot of time with coaches. Let's create metrics that fit with what they're talking about. So someone says to me, "I play through the thirds. What does that actually mean?" So we kind of codified the coaches language into things that would show up as things that were actually happening in games. For example, playing through the thirds, we count that as any move that starts in the defensive third, goes to the middle third, goes into the attacking third, whilst keeping possession in all that sequence. So we're saying that's how many plays through the thirds. So we can measure that and similar things like pressing and counter pressures and everything that coaches talk about. And then we can get that code, run it through every single game of a while, which is thousands of lines of code, and pick out those patterns and then allocate those sequences to a particular coach's. Because we got data back to 2015-16, can we look at who's good now, where they're coaching then, and what they were doing. And if you strip out the XG and the box entries and things, does that still give you an indication that these guys were coaching football, that the bigger teams would look at and say, "That's the style I want." So like an obvious example, and someone we worked with at the time at MK Donce was Russell Martin. He had split opinion within the EFL world, but there was no doubt that he was someone who was coaching a style of football, that was attractive to bigger clubs. Swansea took him, Southampton took him from Swansea. Now he didn't get until Southampton, he hadn't had promotions. He hadn't had particularly a dominant budget. But what he had was a way of working that appeals to clubs. Because one of the things you find when you look through the data is that possession does really matter to the biggest teams. We talk about results on the pitch, results on the pitch are great, and I would never say to a coach, "Don't try and win." But you're looking at it and you're like, "If I want to make the most of my career, what style of, what will the bigger teams be looking at? What will they be looking at within beyond just the points?" And points are important, obviously. And you want to keep your job, you've got to win points. But I think it's a greater point. But if we just put points in XG in our model, then you're just finding the good teams. When you take those out, it just highlights another layer of interesting people to look at. And certainly when we've gone back through the data of the guys from National League, from League 2, from League 1, it wasn't necessarily always the guys with the biggest budgets. One promotion, it was the ones who were paying a certain style of football who got promoted. It's not promoted with their teams, but promoted through the kind of tiers of football. Yeah, very interesting. I almost think as coaches, we've become, thanks to the media, probably, in the way we're consuming coaching. It's kind of binary thinking about, all right, you're either a possession-based or you're a long ball merchant. And it's easy to tell the long ball merchants because of that style. But I think it's fallen into now you're a long ball merchant or you're not. The problem is that the volume of not can range from two passes and lose possession to 25 passes. And I think what's interesting is now you're looking at saying, okay, so we've gone through an era of tracking player recruitment and ADPs and all this here. We're now at a stage where we should be looking, maybe, or we should be looking now more at tracking coaches and seeing if they fit certain profiles. That's right. And I mean, certainly that's been a kind of big growth area for my company, has been working with clubs. And like, it's not just data. There's obviously personality and we'll get on to that later, I'm sure. But I think a big part of it is the club saying, we want to move in this direction. And increasingly with sporting directors with more involved ownership, they are setting these kind of central, what is this club's strategy documents? Again, something we do a lot with clubs is like, okay, you want to be, you want to be in the championship. That's just the name. How do you actually turn that into a strategy to get to where you want to be? And looking at the individual parts to make that up. And one of that is how do we want to play football? If we're going to, the word alignment, you'll hear a lot about how we're going to align coaching to recruitment, to training methodologies to nutrition and fitness and sport science. All other aspects of the club, we want to have at the front of that a club way of playing football. And if we're saying, that's how we play, the first question is, do you actually play like that at the moment? And if you don't, do you have a name with what you want to get to? And if you do, how are you going to measure progress along that pathway? So I'm not saying that in one year you can take a team that's playing long ball football and turn them into a prime Barcelona. It's going to be a multi-stage process. And part of that is having a way of identifying through data how you are playing. And then all your kind of tactical periodization and things you talk about as coaches, you can put into saying, okay, in 12 weeks, are we going to be better at building through the third? Are we going to have more long pass sequences? It doesn't have to be as I say overnight. So if you take a good example with QPR on the Gary Thingsworth, quite direct. In our model, possession school is kind of bottom 10 percent less. There weren't many teams that had less of the ball and built through the thirds less. Then Marty Sifwentes, who was working out in Sweden, came in. He was with Hammerby, and they had previously scored a 0.9 on our model, which is a very, very strong possession-oriented team. So he's taken QPR from like 10th Centalt or 40th Centalt in six months. So there's a clear progression. Now, no one's saying if you want to keep your eye on now, again, they're not, they're not Manchester City underpeck, but they are certainly significantly more possession-based than that showing up in the data. So directional travel is important. And there's also this concept that you can't do it with certain players. You have to have a certain level of player before you can play a certain way. And yeah, if you're going to, I think if you're playing in the Premier League and you try and try and like probably Norwich underpeck, they try to match teams for football, and you realise quickly that Premier League teams are Premier League teams because they have better individuals. And if you try and match them up in the same way, you'll probably lose. Whilst Thomas Frank has probably adapted his game model a lot more for looking where they can get competitive advantage. And for us, from the research we've done, like pressure, which isn't, we took about possession. There's one way of playing. We talk about pressure is like the other kind of good way of playing. So there's a kind of territorial dominance. Like you want to keep the wall away from your goal closer to the others. So you look at the managers who have done that. They generally, that correlates better with success, immediate success, then implementing a possession-based model. But if you're looking at people like Luke Williams, who was at Knox County and has gone to Swansea, you're looking at Brian Barry Murphy, who was at Rochdale and managed to get kind of a bottom-end League one club playing very attractive football, Ben Garner, who was swinging them, a few other clubs. They've all developed possession-based models without possession-based player, and Luke Williams obviously got a promotion. So it's not that you can't get teams playing in a certain way. I mean, Jim McNulty at Rochdale is, of course, really highly on our model. It's another team that we've done some work with, and Jim is a possession-based coach. And Rochdale had a lot of problems, well documented financial problems, but have still committed as a club to a way they think develops players better and gets them higher prices for their players. If you look at their transfer record, they sell a lot of young players for a lot of money because they play a style of football that is attractive to scouts from larger clubs who also play that style of football. And from a coaching point of view, it also shows probably Jim McNulty will be someone that clubs will be picking up on models like ours and saying, hang on, that guy is playing football on a small budget, what could he do with a bigger budget? And I think that increasingly is the way that clubs are going to recruit. Yeah, so you answered my next question, which was going to be that, well, the coach ex will say that, listen, I've only got these players, and I'm in a league that involves travelling in the air for a lot of times. I've got to get results to get people off my back. But you're saying that you would then, if that's going to be a possession-based coach, you would then, you would chart that over a period of time and see that there's growth in that area, that's the measurement, not necessarily a strain-up metric of where they are. Would that be right? That's right. I think we look at change in direction of travel. And pragmatism is necessary. You can't be saying, I played great football, we lost the last five games, six-nil, now I'm going to care. You're not going to be able to job very long. I'd never say to any coach abandon the principles of trying to win games, but it's more like, what can you do as a coach that shows the direction of travel to a club? I'm sure we'll talk later about how clubs can assess whether their managers are doing well. It's one of those things that I always say, no one can flick a switch, it's their process. Yeah, but just on that, forget what book it is. You would know better than me about the club story at Dortmund when, you know, it was his last season. And the underlying data was good, the results were bad. Yeah, like is that? You know, it sounds great, right, from like Liverpool's saw something and they knew that the performances were still good. But at the same time, it's Dortmund, you can't be losing those games at big clubs. It all worked out, so I'm not saying that, but how much of that, you know, you've been in the business of it, how much of that is actually true and how much of that there's a bit more to this story. I think there's always more to the story, like Klopp had already got to a European Cup final with Dortmund and won the league. So he was hardly a plucked name of obscurity, but yeah, I always laugh at that story about underlying data and trusting underlying data. And I think instinctively you know that a manager can have a bad season, everything can go against you. The underlying data is a good way of just quantifying that that's true rather than just an excuse. But I mean, we've always seen clubs have a bad season. And if you're a new manager and you have a bad season, you get sacked. But if you've got some credit in the bank, I think they'll let you get away with it if it's injury or just like with Klopp a couple of times you've seen it with Klopp teams. They kind of have an amazing season where they win almost every game. There's a hangover from that physical tide in this club's changed the way they play against you. It's hard to keep that level of energy going. So all those types of things factor into, I think you're allowed to rebuild season if you've got to the European Cup final. Yeah, for sure. But it's also, if it's a smaller club, there's usually a seller models are now the big thing. So seller models will mean that you're going to have, you can't just take out talent out of your team every year and replace that with talent and sell it. It's just the theory based model around that doesn't work. Is that something that is also the concern? What we tend to do, when we're doing deeper dives into managers, we kind of look at whether they're the club they're going to be working for and the clubs they worked at. We call them like build phase and performance phase. So if you sell lots of players, you got a lot of churn between your squad between seasons. It's very rare for a team that changes 70% of players to succeed in that season. They always need that season of building up, getting some semblance of continuity between the players and then kind of going the second season after that. You're like, that's your performance phase. And we use that a lot with clubs. It's like, we did, we worked with Plymouth Argyll for quite a few years, really. And we kind of had this promotion and then we had like the next year, it was like, we considered loads of goals. So it's like, we need to change the squad. So we kind of strengthened the defense. The next season was a performance season because we had a solid base and they got 80 odd points and then the next season, it was like, okay, we'll keep the core of the squad and just add in some extra goals. And they got the promotion to the championship the year after. So it's that phasing in and all the way because they're really data savvy. They've got that way of working. Other clubs may have said, we got 80 points. Let's take the office for our players. Let's reset. And they kind of back to the idea that you could build on build on the work that the whole club with our help had done over the time and really go for it. And that same at Luton, that was their kind of approach over multiple years. It kind of assessed the market, assessed the phaser, assessed the transfer market and the value and the competition and then go from there. So I think coaches who are working in systems where there is a strong use of data and a strong use of feedback reporting and we're all in this together type feeling, do better than the ones where it's like, work a miracle, here's your squad, get on with it. It's got to be a joint process. Yeah, but here all this is a topic. So, because you mentioned the word alignment, we laugh. It was like everyone's using this alignment. You said their data savvy and I see now people saying buy in, buy in the data. The coaching staff are buying in the data. This is now a term that's been used around. I think the data community around people that are starting to support, but there's obviously so many variables. But if the data work, it also goes the other way that if the data work is inaccurate or maybe not presented well or maybe not understand in context, the data person hasn't effectively communicated it like in your eyes, how would you define something, some I club that is data savvy. What does this all encompass. That's it. I think I think everyone who works in data has to know it's not infallible. There's there's always context like contextual data is the most important thing really is, and it's not making excuses. It's kind of saying, this is what the data is saying the data is saying. We are conceding far too many chances. Now, you don't want to take that and just take it as gospel and say that is that is the truth. We need to change that because maybe your central midfielders have been injured and you're playing an 18 year old and is getting bypassed too easily. That's that's a coaching point that maybe you can you can tactically tweak something to stop that and that's that's useful information. The thing is that we as data we've left to understand is coaches are watching the game. So they are watching the game that they're picking up on these things. That's what their profession is, it's a notice it. What we tend to be able to do is give you the context of, okay, you know, you're an expert on what you're doing and you're spending all day with your players. This is how you stand against your peer group in terms of performance, because they're not watching every game in the league. They're not watching every game around Europe. That's what the time no one has, but the data can give you an indication that says, okay, we think we're really good at passing through the thirds and build up play, and we think we're one of the best teams in the league. Now, that data doesn't bear the route the data says we're with below average. Is it we're doing well given the context of the budget and the context of the players we have, is it, is it that we don't know what the level is within this league and always have a takeaway from it so if you're working with the coach and you're working as a recruiter or as a data analyst with a coach, it's always, you can't just give a string of numbers you've got to talk football. And I think the biggest compliment we've had as a as a company is when we were hired and the sporting director said to the media why they were working, it's like we've tried a few companies but these ones speak football. I was like that that was good because we always try and make sure that when we're talking to a coach and we do work directly with with a lot of coaches is like, we can give them numbers and we can give you, they're talking about pressing and someone saying, oh, you're bad at pressing your PPD a number is really high. You need to change that and we like, yeah, but if you look at counter pressing you're really good shots ending from counter pressing that's really high. Maybe the PPD is misleading because you're playing a slightly lower line than other teams or you're you're not, you can get your PPD a low just by kicking the ball in the corner instantly challenging for it, whilst you're a build up team. So there's always giving them the context that the raw data doesn't give, and explaining to them in football in terms why something that might look like a red flag isn't or something that might look fine is actually bad considering that's our main build up method or something to make sure that as a data person you understand enough about football that you can confidently speak to a coach and some coaches are absolutely brilliant and they love all the data. Others in the past have been dismissive. They've been like, I don't care what the data says I know my team, and it's like fine. And you'll find probably just a stereo type but the new generation of coaches probably have grown up with data as part of the courses they want their stats ever since I announced the model on Twitter the other day that we're doing I've had a lot of messages saying that you're like, and so can you send my profile. So people and these are coaches working at these level clubs they're buying into it, and they're wanting they're wanting the stats probably for a pay rise if they're doing well. Hello coaches we take a quick break here. If you are in the process of preparing for the new season and you're looking for some new ideas and resources we have some solutions over a modern soccer coach.com. We have three options. Out this month we have the preseason masterclass package with an emphasis on periodization that is out this week for webinars at just $25. We also have a special offer for a bundle package of ebooks and set piece work 50% off on that deal and we've also released 25 tactical training patterns for a 433. So tactical patterns that gives you some ideas, some ways to implement it on the training ground all on video form so it's a PowerPoint so you can look at it watch the videos get the breakdowns. All available now modern soccer coach.com/shop appreciate the support back to Tim. What's really interesting there is the piece that you said that the coaches watching so many games today and that the analyst who maybe isn't getting that buy in is coming up and saying. All right, in order for a coach to skyd effectively today with tactical analysis they're going to have to watch four or five games and at a level that they're seeing rotations and initial interchanges. That takes an incredible amount of time. Sometimes the data person is pulling up a spreadsheet with that metric and it's coming and the work isn't done on the back end of preparation, which is the disconnect. I find that's so interesting where I think coaches sometimes get a bad rap today about being invested in data but you're saying what if you make it related to their world. It changes can get them to take it a bit more seriously. Yeah, I think you always have to have something you can do with it like you can give someone a list of numbers but there has to be a coachable kind of implementable point to what you're saying. So we've done probably four or five years ago to do these like 70 page opposition analysis reports, like, what's the expected threat from the left back where's the where who's who's the who takes the throw ons and who receives and things and at the end of the day you could break it down to like the right winger puts in crosses from the right hand side of the pitch into the middle of the box is like what are you actually learning from this. We've ended up with far more targeted like what what are the kind of two or three takeaways that in a two, two day turnaround or one training session that you can specifically say to the to the team like this team typically is what we classify as a direct team that's right could I play off him. Make sure you're there for second balls and not guns and the reality is probably all you can get out of a half an hour preparation session when you've got that kind of session so I think it's just it's been a learning experience for us that not everyone is much yellow bl sir, I'm going to be studying 70 hours of video footage and micro analyzing everything most managers in my experience most managers don't have time. They can make a couple of tweaks around the opposition but they're not building whole game plans each each each week based on the opposition I have a couple of things they do. They might be you get the occasional story down you are the analysts pointed out the goalkeepers 10 yards forward so we try to shop from the halfway line and all those kind of nice stories but reality is for every one that comes off there's 100 things that and then the situation doesn't arise or the left backs dodgy is about as far as you can. It really does vary like from club to club and from manager to manager and some of the best ones that do barely any prep and some of the ones who really have not had the results are really really like in depth people say how much it matters I think is never really known I think it's just as long as the coach is comfortable at the level they detail they need to feel comfortable going into the game. That's what you need. 100% and there's a good there's a good me also quote around that is that such and such cannot do anything and win and such and such can do a lot of prep and lose. Anyway the concept of of tracking coaches I stay on that there and you mentioned there about you know coaches obviously being engaged about where they stand on that there and as you go down the ladder and you've written a little bit about this as well or you've written a lot about actually this here about the subjective side and media and losing the changing room and I guess my question would be when you're managing the media and you're managing players those are very very subjective areas. So how do you know if I'm that that often coming coach in the third division that's playing a state of football and hoping to get on the radar of the championship or your primarily team at some stage. How would you gauge my ability to manage media and players. Yeah so I think we always we kind of use the phrase kind of data is just information so you're not going to get his is 0.6 managing the media, but what you're going to get is clubs will ask us can you can you look up his interviews see what's what a couple of post match things, watch some things after heavy defeats watching things after victories. I set up a Google alert for the guy's name in the media and you get these kind of things saying, whoever blasts media in press conference and stuff and it comes up for sometimes you're working for like big clubs it'll be have they mentioned a rival club in a positive or negative way or, and particularly I mean if you've got talking about the clubs with extremely passionate fan base is any indication they've had any affinity for a rival club at any point is an automatic no so it's all these types of things that you you're gathering data on. I think handling pressure and things like that you want to you want to look at a variety of situations and I would say in terms of media and kind of advice for up and coming coaches I guess it's just remaining calm remaining polite it's difficult because this is an emotional business. It's it's really not people are put off by people who like when he's talking big clubs he's talking multi million pounds brands billion pounds brands they don't want someone who's going to suddenly show someone or just swear in a press conference aggressively it really does like those type of incidents is I think famously was it Joe can hear or someone went into a meeting and started shouting points to get individual journalists and calling them calling very rude names so if you can avoid doing that that's a good thing People joke about you kind of a standard or the group title the group did really well and the group are doing this all that media training stuff but it's a safe way of getting around it you can show some personality but I think sometimes land answers are far that's what that's what I'm starting to think is that Brandon Rogers got a lot of stick for a great character you know and all those names but like that's probably the best way to go right it's just repeat that every single week It seems to be like I think it's one of these things where what the positive side of sharing a good personality and some are like Russ Martin or or Luke Williams have shown personality and still succeeded but I think the generic kind of approach to answering questions is like don't throw anyone onto the bus don't blame individuals. Take take responsibility collective we're at we're a team we're all in it together type of approach is all the kind of cliche media lines that Brendan and everyone else. Trumps out and it's like what was your terms of the alternative is you break those rules and you're hammered for breaking the rules. So I'd say yeah I'd say always make sure that you're kind of take a deep breath before you answer a question people do try and needle you they will. And it's like learning to deal with that and is compared to someone like Brazil when I think they have to do like 20 hours a meter a week. It's not so bad. Let's move on now to sack in the manager also something you've written about very very interesting and obviously you're. Yeah this I struggle with this one because I just think there's so many variables like I struggle understand how. Funny the the era interview and I watched it yesterday and he you know that the group were saying on the overlap that yeah but you had a run of games coming up that you know would have the palace would have helped. But he said yeah and it shows me the right session because it was. And I thought help me out here I'm still struggling others that because the coach will say you know I'm sure if you go into an executive meeting with the head coach and you say listen results. And you say listen results aren't good enough. They've got at least five pretty valid excuses about why it's dropping so how do you differentiate or how does a club differentiate between, you know, this having to make a change. And really, like you mentioned there by club and writing it out or the impatient. Yeah and it's difficult because I've seen all all situations I've seen situations where the club have stuck with them and then they've turned the corner, like I think Ryan lower Plymouth was a really good example. He was they gave them a new cut. He lost six games in a row or something like that. It could have been something that hadn't been quite a while. The club gave them a new contract. Everyone was like what are you doing and and Simon how the owner was like this is doing is doing everything we wanted to do. And we believe that things will change and they did change and I think he got the precedent job at the top of the table. I've seen that that I've seen it where the momentum, the underlying performance has been great, and the results have been terrible, and they stuck with it and stuck with it and it's never turned. And then it's been too late and the club's club's been relegated, even though all the way along the underlying was fine and that is luck, luck is such a key part of football that I have written about luck a lot and it's I really believe a lot of people doing the right thing have got very unlucky and a lot of people who have done a lot less of the right things have got incredibly lucky. And that's unfortunate that's life in the low scoring sport football. That is just how it works so like human emotion and pressure and momentum they're real things like it's very there are clubs and nasty places to be when you're in a bad run. They've had situations where everything's great apart from the results and then everyone's like, oh, isn't it funny luck will turn it will be fine and then it's not, and then people being sacked people lose jobs. And then they think up people people shouting and screaming and corridors, incredible amounts of stress in the in the employees, and it's horrible to see really so you need to do that and I think the big issue is like, I always say like, if you're only tool is a handler every problem looks like a nail. There's one there's one thing a club can do and it's changed the manager during a between transwin there's all I can do is change the manager, and if things are going badly. You can you can sit there with your analytics hat on and say, well actually we would do do a win anyway where our underlying performance was good. It would have happened anyway but you can't prove it, and a lot of the time. It's changing stuff does freshen things up it does make people think about the new manager bounce is a thing that people says happens. I think, I think there's research that says a new manager bounce is a thing but it tells off very quickly. And you're underlying very rarely changes, and even then like sometimes you look at some managers who've done really well. And they've looked at it and it's, it's like a parliamentary lottery everton is underlying performance was no different to Marcus Hill, but his results were a lot better, because sometimes there is much thing as an aura or there is the calmness they bring the personality. Maybe the players aren't any different or any better but they're able to get more out of them from from lesser performance. So one thing we do. Which I don't know if it helps or not to be honest but we do anyway is kind of take an independent view we do this thing where we, the beginning of the season we forecast performance and we, it's fairly accurate you kind of use bookmakers that they don't lose money for a reason they're fairly accurate long term predictions of relative performance you get teams that outperform of course but generally they're around the right kind of range. And then you've got individual kind of blocks are fixed is what you're talking about the area you've got you have horrible runs and you have nice runs, and it's like before the each six games we're going to predict the next six and say, even where we are. We think a decent performance would be three points from the next six games, and often that upsets the club and we're like why are you saying we're going to do so badly we're like. That for a club over the last season I think we were within two to two to three points for every every block of pictures, because as the kind of people one step removed you take the emotion out of it you say you're on a table runner form you've got injuries. You can see things are going badly so it's going to be three points from the next six games, sometimes you're like, you've got really easy fixtures you're in good form it's going to be a, it's going to be 18 points. I want to take that step and view it and then that almost kind of sets the expectations for the club. Now, would I say it would save someone from the sack no it definitely hasn't. But I would say, if you're able to kind of offer slightly detached view of where the club is, and what your your independent advice would be. I would say this guy's pretty good. The data is all pointing that we're improving. If you as the leadership group can offer that assurance, it's going to be easier than if you go in there and say you've got to win the next two games or you're out, because I don't think that negative pressure helps anyone. Sometimes change has happened sometimes they did. Sometimes every change is an opportunity for another coach so you can't you can't say never suck anyone but I think sometimes pressure builds and it starts affecting the atmosphere and that has a big impact on results so you do have to do occasionally. Yeah, so interesting. I watched the QPR. I mentioned QPR before. I watched the documentary the old one. I watched it on YouTube. And it's so funny and interesting. And I wonder if smart business people come into a club and then have the business skill to drive something and obviously to put money in and never really had like if I own a printing company. I don't really get any, you know, glory for that. But I buy a football club and all of a sudden people think that I'm putting money in. So they start to, you know, sing my name and stuff like that. But then as soon as the guys got criticism, as soon as the fans turned on them, it was as if like emotionally the the ownership just went. Oh, no, no, no, I can't deal with this. And I wonder how that, you know, again, coaching comes across as being impacted by the emotion but how much does ownership be impacted by community emotion. How much do you think that is. It's, it's, it's incredibly pressured, but like no other industries you say, you don't get this in anything else you don't go to the supermarket and someone complains that you didn't order enough paper clips at work or whatever. It just doesn't happen. So I find that the publicity. I imagine like I've got kids and if they're coming from school and they're saying everyone says you're terrible at your job and you should be sacked. Just the kind of the pressure I've spoken to a lot of managers about like and sporting directors and other people I've said like, how do you cope with it when you know it's completely unfair like how do you deal with it and they're like, I think that is such an important I couldn't do it. And I'm far too thin skin to any any criticism I'll date you. And they seem to just either let it wash over them or they, they have psychological support and I think, or they, they find ways to completely switch off and football, all those kind of things I think the difference between a coach and a head coach and or a manager or whatever we want to call them. That scrutiny that you get as a head coach and to the to the extent that people just horrible, like horrible things people would say and messages you receive and it's like, I think the ability. It shouldn't happen, but the it does. And if as it does is how do you, how can you be, how can you support them as a club, and how can you structure your club so that the pressure is, is taken spread around wasn't just being focused on one guy but you do have to have a way of dealing with it. But I think a lot of guys get very cynical and switch off from football and end up not liking it because of the things that happen in the industry but yeah I think as a coach and you're working with player you become a coach because you love working with you love football you love working with players you love making people and then suddenly you're being 40,000 people calling you an idiot at best every week it becomes really it's a completely different experience so yeah hard hard hard. Because if I was just doing an interview yesterday with a professional coach who's saying that get sometimes football clubs are quite the dynamics are quite unique in terms of walls being put up and stuff like that there. I think again buzzwords culture trust. Can you really have trust in it in a in a fast moving environment which is up for grabs every week like probably not the trust that I find really interesting is the recruit in this area of recruitment, which again you're starting to see more of with football directors chief executives and social was on the overlap and I found it really interesting of course the whole United thing you could do a whole podcast of everyone's not hundreds of them about well should they have signed that she weighs it all gone wrong but what was interesting I thought when he was talking was almost that area of like how adversarial the recruitment and coaching technical departments can be that they're coming in and saying I need this to get over the line for my football department. And they have people that are all saying well actually because I've seen radars and there's there's always something in a radar that's down at 20 30% out. What's the stop for me focusing on that there and saying oh yeah but you know Messi's head and averages are down you know our match and how do they how do you advise that or do you advise that the cohesion between different departments has to be aligned or at least positive. The positive relationship is key. I think that probably the main thing and this is where I always go back to strategy like what is the strategy for the club. If you're Manchester United you've got to win things if and I mean I'm not criticizing Chelsea directly but if you look at Chelsea's what what are Chelsea Chelsea I probably see themselves as a club that should be winning league titles. So your recruitment then is different to a Brighton who have a business model which is rely on player development so as a coach you can say you're putting me under pressure to win titles you're giving me players with a view to developing and selling and adding value to players. Can those two go in hand in hand yet they can but if you're putting extreme pressure to win to win now and giving me players who are not at the level of the best four teams in the country yet. And I'm going to have that year or two of underperformance if during that year or two of underperformance you sack me. All I've done is kind of sacrifice my reputation for your project for two years. And because everyone now thinks, well he finished 12 with Chelsea rather than saying this guy is my friend Potter. Up and coming player developing football coach in the country. A few months at Chelsea this guy's rubbish and it's like it's the same coach. It's just was a different job and a different different phase of build phase performance phase whatever we're going to call it. It was a different phase so I think there has to be clarity about the purpose of the club has to be clarity about who does the recruitment who signs it off. The most frustrating thing for recruitment departments is where a manager comes in what is two minutes on why scout and dismisses a player they worked for six months. Likewise, I imagine for a coach is being put under pressure to win and then to begin giving a centre forward whose he believes is not the right fit and he doesn't like any of the players being suggested and he knows a player he worked with before which is the goal cliche everyone goes back to their old clubs, someone who does the job. And they want that player because they want to win and their reputation. So I'm always like, who's taking the risk, the front guy, the guy has to go in front of the crowds is the guy who is going to be judged on the recruitment. The recruitment team are going to be judged on the value of the players. I signed him is now worth three five times what we paid. That's how they get their next job. They don't get the next job and I signed a 27 year old and we finished in eighth place. Whilst for the manager that might be what they want to do to get their next job. So it's always like who's who you asking to take the risk. What are the motivations of each individual person and the job of the owner ultimately and then the sporting director to deliver the strategy is to get everyone aligned. Make sure the coach is a coach you buys into the process and the sage of the club. Make sure the recruitment team know the strategy and the finances and everything of the club. And they work together at the beginning of the season to say these are our aims. This is how we achieve it. Let's assess the squad together. Let's find out where we think coaching can help. Let's look where we think recruitment is required. And then we're recruiting what are the profiles. And then let's get some options that we can all look at together and we can feedback so we know that the worst thing is where coach says I'm not having him and gives you no other information. And the worst thing probably for coach is where you're being shown endless clips of a player and you're like, no, he does not do what what I think. So it's just having that communication and like one of the good things I really see that the best gloves do is having a common language around players. Instead of saying, I want a six. Well, what's that mean, because some managers call it six, some will call it four, some will call it a ball winner, some will call it a deep playmaker. What do we mean by a player profile. And so making sure that if I'm working with Russell Martin, he says I want a a inverted 10, whatever it might be. I know what he wants. If I'm working with with Jose Mourinho and he says, I want to, I want to mackelele a type I know what he means. And it's like just everyone has their own language. So I think it's almost like, can you find a common language that is used across all departments in the club. The head coach uses it that the recruitment team is supporting director. We have those attributes in mind. We look at a player and we say, good player not for us is just not the right profile. It's not a good players, but does he fit your budget for your style. Is he better than what you've got and just having this kind of approach where I can go to a coach in a, in a six months after it starts working and say, I found you, I found you the six for this and you will know what each other means by that and I'll have confidence in the profile is what he wants. Yeah, yeah, the seem almost applies to management then right where you're bringing in a manager and, and kind of talked about this about having the right objectives or what you want for the manager but also, it's just, I even talked to a colleague yesterday who's in the professional game and been in a few job interviews and, you know, didn't get it and then you start talking about people who did get it and then you start eventually. And I was put mad up as I said, I don't understand what, what, how people choose managers at all. What are some things that are done, what about this, what are some mistakes that you think people make when they, when they give someone a three year day who isn't the right candidate. I think I'm going to go back to strategy again but there's got to be the ownership have to know what they're trying to build like too often there's a thing owners say which really annoys me which is like I'm not a football expert. You're not a football expert that's, that's true is good that you acknowledge you're not one. But who is like who is the football expert in this setup like if you're just going to outsource it to someone and you're not an expert how do you know they're not a complete charlatan. Like what, what are the metrics you use to judge whether someone knows what they're talking about and it'll often be they've worked at a big club. And I always say to people like football is not a meritocracy there's not filtering all the way through where the best people work at the biggest clubs often I've, I've met people who worked at really really like top end clubs and they're a tiny part of a huge machine. And then you go for guys from league two and they do everything. And who's better who's better at running a football club. I would take probably the lead to a guy over the tiny part of a big system guy because I know he's done a good job in all those departments. But it's far less sexy for the owner to say I've, I've taken a guy out of a barrow than it is to say I've got the iPhone Barcelona. And they just assume his, his somehow better because his work there. And that's probably my big thing is you need someone who can speak to the sit almost between the owner and the sporting department to say like, we should be like I don't say I'm a football expert by say logically I like people to say logically why what they're saying makes sense. So if you're telling me we need to play a possession based football that best be backed up with like, for example, this club did it and they managed to get from here to here. Or this guy went in a club, and I talk about relevance of experience rather than just experience so this guy took over in a similar situation at maybe at a lower level. He very quickly established a core starting 11 over the next year he added in some more attacking player and to me that's a logical way of building a club. If you're saying this guy brilliant is guaranteed success is his best coach I've ever worked with. What can I do with that really it's just that's just like conjecture and third party opinions. I can't really do anything with that but if I can go to an owner or a sporting director and say, this is, I can't guarantee success but the evidence we've used is this and too often clubs will just say he's done it before. He's got teams promoted out of this league, and I'm like, well you've got a bottom three budget he had the biggest budget in the league, he had a team that finished third the year before you finished 17. He had, yeah, he had two different assistants with him who ran all the sessions as far as we know, and it's all these things like, you're never guaranteed success but I think you give yourself a much better chance by logically working through that kind of thought process that might work and too often it's just, yeah, he's done it before a bigger club, or he's had a few jobs he's experienced, and the biggest thing I say, hunger is underrated like the guy who has to make it work and it's his first shot at the level. To me it's probably more likely to succeed in, because he has to, then someone who's one of the circuit names he's been from club to club and I'm okay and it's kind of found his level. And sometimes you don't want to go for a complete, complete punt on a novice, but I think as long as you, you've looked at what might be relevant to the job, I think it's a good, good approach. Yeah, the aspect I asked, I just, I just George at Lincoln on recently and asked him about succession planning and he was quite open about the fact that even with, with Michael in place at the minute that they go through a process, because you never know. I want to get your thoughts on that there but before I do I want to ask you about number, and number two, that sometimes, like you mentioned there I thought that was really interesting someone can be a small cog in the wheel at a big club, and it's branded and it can also be branded themselves, inaccurately, in today's great day and age of social media and how do you gauge whether a number two because the charisma factor of a leader is such a big component. How do you look at that there and say, or do you look at number two's in your platform as well and how do you distinguish. You obviously can't get their own data so you have to look at the data of the places they've worked so a good example. He's just gone at Birmingham is someone like Chris Davis. So he's been around was with Brendan Rogers he was with Andchposter Coglu. He's been very highly rated within coaching circles for a while. So it was always a name that's been cropping up linked with, with jobs so if you're asked to assess someone like him or Eric Ramsey has gone to Minnesota someone like that. What can you do you can look at where they've worked. And that's, that tells you something it tells you they're leaving first team sessions and then that first team is playing in that style. And I think people who work with Andch, particularly end up running a lot of the sessions themselves so you can look at, okay well, top them and sell tick and places have played that style of football. So can we look at that Leicester under Brendan made similar styles of football. So it's a consistency and he can definitely deliver a coaching session. And then it's after that it's feedback within the industry so everyone will say great coach. Really innovative, really personable is then can he handle the pressure and the media and the only way to to really get that is by talking to them. So I haven't spoken to Chris but I've spoken to lots of guys on the way up who are in these positions at the moment. And it's just really like getting a handle on their personality. So I always say to them, if you want to get into the big jobs, almost do do the coaches voice do podcasts do that type of thing. Because people were he speaker now hear how you explain your concepts and that's a big part of it. So I think you have to build a profile and then there's also then they've got guys like Ben Garner, for example, he worked with Tony Poulis. He could not be further away from Tony Poulis and how he handles the team, both in terms of personality and also in terms of how he likes to play football is his Mr possession football in the lower leagues. His Swinden team was one of the best kind of passing and building through the third teams in the leagues in recent years. So you get people like that who are the complete opposite. So for people like that, they have to build a profile within the game because everyone will just assume you work with Tony, you play like Tony. You don't always. So I think these guys have to, what I say for interview for these guys is include your philosophy documents, your clips of your training sessions, your clips of any teams you've managed. They're built up play because you're going to be filtered. The first filter is football people. The football department will be asked to come up with a list. So you need to get through that filter. So you need to win over those guys. We could work with this guy personality wise. He could lead a group personality wise and he plays the style of football we want to play. But he is aligned with our footballing philosophy or how do you want to say it. Your second stage interview, your final interview, that's with the owners. That's a different interview. You've already passed the football test. So with the owners, it's, could this guy be the face of our club? Like, how does he come across? How does he cope with scrutiny? Could he cope with pressure? And can he be trusted to manage 100 million pounds worth of my money, which is what you're asking them to do. So I always say to people going into those interviews. Realize who your audience is. You've passed the football test. You're now in front of an owner and the owner, whatever the football people think the owner decides, like the owner will choose the guy. So you're doing your pitch to him that I will add value to players. I will not fall out with your star player and get less money in the transfer market. I will play a brand of football that tracks fans. I will not get relegated or I'll get us into the championship. Whatever the level of the club is your pitching to them that you can be trusted to deliver on the club strategy. So yeah, I would say know your audience for interviews, but also build your portfolio in the right way if you're intending to go up through the levels. Here, McKenna's success. Has that surprised you? I think he's had that reputation a bit like Eric Ramsey, a bit like Chris Davis, coming through that this guy's doing stuff that people want. And the fact that I'm just United, it was a top number fours and it's kind of gone there and head hunted him. It's funny because I remember when, when Soul Show was at United, it was like, I speak held back by these terrible assistants and these these inexperienced young pups and nowhere near good enough to be at Manchester United and now they're. They're the hottest property in football. So again, how much can you really judge man, assistant managers by reputation or by first team stuff. I think it's all those guys that have reputations. So I think, along with Scubala and Lincoln, they come through Loughborough University together a few of them so this is kind of group of guys who've been around coaching circles and at a young age had had had experiences that made you think they might be good. I don't think anyone would predict it's what you've got so good in so quickly across two divisions but I think if I'm looking if I'm a Manchester United and I'm looking for my next manager. Would I take someone who's not managed in Europe or is likely to, these may be famous last words if they win the league but it's likely to struggle in the Premier League next year, because of that you've gone through two levels with essentially the same squad. That's that's a big ask to play the same, the same style of football and I think he will be brave and trying is probably not going to do it Thomas Frank and completely changed the way they play football I think you'll stick to the principal so it's then looking at that and saying I think the company got the Bayern Munich job up to being relegated. So, do we look at that and say, it's better to stick to your principles and get the big job then to to be more pragmatic change your style stay on the league and be considered this guy's a long ball guy. It's a hard dilemma but yeah, Karen's done brilliantly and I think more and more the profile of managers getting getting those jobs will be the 32 year old project like Brighton. They're allegedly taking a 31 year old out of a second division of Germany like who does that. But on our data system is really high we were lucky enough to go out to some party with a client last year and meet with very briefly meet with the manager but it was very clear that this guy was there. Something special in German coaching circles. So, I think having having that knowledge of the market of, yeah, do you trust data to the extent of right and do which not many people do, but Brighton will sign someone out of the out of Ecuador after 900 minutes and sign. They believe in data and I think their success has shown it works. And then it's just finding other clubs who are more risk averse and we'll say, it's all very well having data but we're not in a position to take the risk and I hear that all the time. The kind of Tony bloom gambling background eyes look at the percentages. They, those type of guys will say to you, will it work out and if you say yes or no. And I've not spoken directly to either of those guys but they, they will ask the type of guy will say, don't say yes or no give me a percentage of money. I think there's a 70% chance this works out and they'll respect that more than 100% gaffa, that type of talk. It's not, it's not what these kind of data guys want they want a acknowledgement that everything is risk. And it's just, are you confident on our risk matrix that this is the right gamble to take, rather than kind of that traditional football 100% yes or 100% no, they like the gray areas. Very, very interesting. The, the aspect that I've taken that coach, they say, they deserve a who, when that coach is really hot properly and has the ability to make that impact but it's kind of like the Fergie thing as well from years ago where you want that not to be protected but you want to control as much of the environment as possible so you're going to need to bring in five, six staff of your people to implement your philosophy. Is that a challenge for clubs, not a financial but more like a political challenge if you bring it in a lot of hugely hugely like I'd say the way clubs want to operate and probably the fact that Josie Mourinho and Antonio content people who have got on the paper excellent records. I think people are looking at that style of manager now and saying, okay they're brilliant at what they do but there's such dominant figures within the structure that if they leave we're basically rebuilding. So the kind of sporting director courses everything is focused now around this, this model of a coach being the coaching team being a replaceable part within a larger context and I think that's the logical way to build a club is to do that. Now I say to clubs and to coaches when they ask me like how many guys can we bring what's the typical structure, it does depend on the club. I say to clubs, make sure that you're hiring the brains of the operation because you can take a coach and you can take one assistant but maybe that was a group of five guys who are automatically aligned because they work together for years. Maybe the one guy or not bringing us the guy who after the game calms everyone down and stops him storming into the dressing room and ripping the place apart. Maybe the analyst is the guy who's doing all the prep work, maybe the maybe the goalkeeping coach is not just a goalkeeping coach but is actually a really good man manager of people and, and maybe these guys can say to each other. It's a session we did a port a three years ago, you know where we will have the same problem and they want to they can just do it. If you're taking one guy and one assistant you're losing a lot of that of institutional knowledge from those people. So it's always that bounce about what should the club own and the club wants to hold that information they want one coach to be switched and now or two or three coaches to switch them now. You don't want to have to rebuild from scratch. But when you're building that club model, maybe to begin with you need to almost like get their intellectual property from them, and if it works really well say there'll be one thing in this brilliant. Maybe you take some of the things he doesn't say that's the way that we will always work. And then the next case maybe you say instead of having a team of five ever team of three, and the next one it's a team of two, and you're, you're making sure that there are specific things you want them to do. You've already got such an aligned game model such an aligned way of working that you can just take one or two guys like Norwich have taken. And Glenn riddles from, and they've not even worked together but they, I believe they think they have a good blend of personalities and a good blend of backgrounds that they can fit into a wider club model. But then you've got other clubs where they really don't think in that depth and they just need someone to come in and solve it so they'll let them have six people, and they'll just say you run the footballing department. And if we change, we change, and we'll take it with so lots better. I think, I think logically the, the, the small cog in a bigger machine is, is, is probably from an investors point of view probably the way they'd want to build it but I don't think it's necessarily on the pitch. You look at the successful managers around the world they tend to be quite dominant characters and personalities. So, I think there's always a fine bounce to be struck. It's, it's, yeah, it's so complex, isn't it? Our last, last couple for you, investment and investors and managing investors and obviously be based in America and work in America. How do you manage investors when they're based in the US or they're based and maybe from a financial model of where, you know, probably more for profit are definitely looking for a profit maybe sooner rather than in England. You know, when the landscape, it's very, very difficult to make money or professional football off ticket sales and all that. So, I mean, I guess my question would be, yeah, like, how, how do you, how do you communicate the reality of the up and down nature of football? Yeah, I think, I think in some ways, and again, it's a massive stereotype, but a lot of the American guys are data guys take the kind of their private equity or made them their fortunes through having levels of management information that aren't available. And one of the things we do is build kind of management systems for clubs. So we, we kind of look at it from the approach of if I, if I was known or what would I want. And for me, if I was known, I want to know my biggest cost space is my players. So I want to know that, that when someone's asking me for £5 million and another five in wages, that the process has been followed and it's been followed through properly and I, that's transparent and visible to me. I think those are shocked when they go into a club and all they get is a one page PDF asking for £5 million with kind of some subjective comments on a player saying, we think he's good rating a please can you sign sign the check. And I'm like, I wouldn't accept that as known or I don't think owners should accept that but it's, it's common. So, again, ownership is, they don't realize, often realize how powerful they are said earlier about that. And you're the expert so I'm, I'm, they often say I'm a dumb American like, I don't understand football at all soccer at all I don't understand it. You, you run that, I will just, I will affect and all the person is hearing then all the agents all the bolic they're just hearing, right? Okay, money. This is, this is a guy that we can, and it's that alignment of interest again it's like everyone in a football club is there looking for a better job all the time. And because it's so volatile we know, we know, we know as a consulting them let alone as a member of staff that you can get a phone call one day and you've gone. So, you, you need your reputation to be based on good results so you're the best way to get good results is to spend lots of money quickly, and, and hope it works. So, I want to say to them like have a strategy designer strategy, ensure that it's actually followed, and you have a step process to follow, and those processes are being followed. Demand reporting against measurable objective data, and make sure that you have business plans and bullet points and takeaways from meetings that that align with that business plan. I would say most football clubs don't run like that. I think most people think they should, but I think the reality of day to day head down involvement in the club is you're fighting fires all the time. Other last night a player was spotted in town and his agents on the phone demanding he leaves and some incident in the youth team has got some pranks going out of hand and now one of your best youth players is leaving and all that level of stuff. It's constant and it's distracting and everyone needs to be involved in is pulled out of scheduled meetings because something's happened, and that happens every day. So you need some kind of separation between long term strategy and short term management of a club, and often they put the same people in charge of both and save the strategy gets lost. So I'm always saying like you need ways of working that enable you to see what's going on without getting caught in the mind you sure of every day. So yeah that kind of man management culture stuff separate to the objective stuff and try and keep it separate from the long term from the short term. So yeah we work a lot on that and I think American owners buy into that, and they tend to be the ones who are saying I like those ideas let's do it. And a lot of the time, kind of you're kind of battle hard and English club owners. They bought football clubs because they love football and they love transfers and they love, they love playing football manager as a kid and now they now they are rich enough during the club. They want to be involved, they know they shouldn't but they want to, they want that kind of. There's there's far better ways to make money than buying a football club, you buy it because you want to, you want to turn a, get a small fortune from a large fortune and all those cliches that they will say but it's, it's, it's, it's a hard business to make money and you've got a big cost base. Luck you've got things outside your control your best for does the ACL, you can lose that can be something that costs you tens of millions. On the other hand you can have a player sold for 100 million that you developed and you get 20 million quits suddenly coming into the club so it's ups and downs every day, and having that rational approach. Whatever you want to call it is quite a nice way of separating that emotion from the how we doing overall like what's our direction of travel. And that's I think where data helps. Yeah it's almost as well for that like 100 million or you do make money or something does go well it's like winning the lottery and telling everyone is not like everyone's. Your vultures are going to be charging you everyone distributors are now charging you travel. Last one for you what about talk a little bit about the journey there in a market market insights I mean how, how have you with the game changing and the way it has over the last 10 years when did you see this common and when is it blown up. Yeah so I think we started as a company in 2019 so probably the worst timing ever to do a start just before a global pandemic and we started very much on player recruitment we're all football fans we'd all been kind of doing bits and pieces on the periphery of football with agencies or or clubs just reading our Twitter feeds and messaging us asking for suggestions we thought, let's get together and do a kind of case study of what we would do if we worked with a football club so we we put together this like 100 page report on Swansea City just as an example to send it to them and about a month or two later, met up in a service station of them 25 as most meetings happen and and agreed to work with them as a consultancy and kind of snowball quickly we started working with some quite of the Champions League level clubs and consulting projects right down to like National League clubs and Cambodia India USA all over the world really working with clubs, mainly on player recruitment and probably in the last two years we thought, actually a lot of this stuff we're doing with players the way we worked the way we think the way we worked outside of football we were all consultants and data scientists is like why don't we just take what we've seen over the last two three years and football that we don't like and see if we can find some solutions around critical critical thinking process engineering all the boring bits of our jobs we thought we'd left behind when we were signing players let's take some of that stuff and put it into a context of football so let's have like a seven step process for sign off some checks and balances you can put into these these things to make sure that some of the mistakes we were seeing are the clubs make outside of our client base but also within our client base you've seen a contract agreed over a WhatsApp that should have gone through a process and all these types of things that are noticing like if I was known or would I want that and I so let's let's build some processes let's build some software that's built some consulting services based around making sure that coaches make sense there's a strategy in place and the processes for sign offs in all the key areas of the club and place so in the last two years that's kind of probably been not the main focus we still do a lot of play stuff but it's become a growing part of the business we've done some head coach and some advisory work we do a lot of contingency planning so build systems that kind of monitor the market for suitable future coaches because as you say you never know they can it's that Goldilocks problem in football where you're at the level then it's you're too bad or you're too good and there's a very thin band where you're either going to be sacked or poached we were talking 18 months average spanner best probably even less than that now 14 months I think I've seen now top division managers so you're changing all the time so you need to be prepared and it's it's not frightening but it's surprising how even big clubs it catches them on the wares and they're like we haven't got anyone on the list we don't even know where to start but if you've got a style of play you're wedded to and you can code that up and you can say straight away here's 20 guys in the last three seasons you have hit all the metrics you want from your coaches six of them are pouring on the market let's reach out to them let's let's work with you about the culture the personality that the media interviews let's do some some soft schools chats with them let's interview them informally first and when a job comes up we're ready to go like we have zooms and coffees and I've met some really people you never think someone like me would be able to get to have got in touch with us and said you're doing manager stuff can we have a chat and we go meet up in London for a meal or something and have a nice just general chat about football and then nothing will happen for a year and then someone will say do you know that guy and a bit like oh yeah I met a bunch it was really nice we talked and I think is I don't think is right for you but next time someone else they say I think yeah I think I could see him in this club and you can send him a WhatsApp and play are you interested and if he is when the job comes up we get a move up so it's a really like we work on behalf of the cards we're not an agent so we're not taking money from the manager but we just find it really good to have that market knowledge for us as a company so we just yeah it's not the worst lifestyle in the world having to go and meet a manager in London for a pint at lunch time and have a chat about football so that's something we're happy to do yeah like I can tell I can tell it's probably why doesn't interviews gone 15 20 minutes over is like I can tell you low football I can tell you genuinely a football fan so I can see where the kicks are without there where does last question for you a bit of a random one LinkedIn like is that a big is that your biggest kind of connection with because I see that space getting bigger quickly with football business and recruitment is that a big area for you? I was a Twitter guy I was I was only on Twitter right I regard as LinkedIn as being horrible business cliche I just I hated LinkedIn Twitter has died like it's just yeah I used to write articles before I worked in football you used to write an article it'd be like 500 likes I'd get inbound DMs from clubs us saying how good it was now 10 likes if I'm lucky and I put the same on LinkedIn and I'm getting connections from club owners and people so LinkedIn is where football is now it's moved it's moved that one completely my advice to everyone in football who wants to break into the industry is write stuff down write blogs I have this thing people say to me and it really annoys me they're like oh I don't want to give away my ideas I'm like if you're worried about running out of ideas you're not right for the job you should have your head should be bursting with ideas every day and they think of ways to help clubs and give competitive advantage and the only way like people write to me all the time saying I want to work with you and it's like a two line email I'm like I can't do anything with that the one everyone we've hired and we've got like five or six guys working for us now in addition to the five or six owners every one of them has come from the blogging space because they show they're working and they show their thought process given stuff away yes but it has no value the stuff in your brain if you don't have a way of monetizing it so the only way to do it is to do one guy wrote to me from Switzerland and sent me this really good piece of work and now he runs like the dark region which is Germany's Switzerland and Austria part of our company so we even he is now like a almost like a subset of the company which he runs out there and is he's getting interest in a new market for us in this this area so certainly a bit of get up and go goes a long way and and putting yourself out there and it's just go for it let's save you're interested and talk last thank you so much love thank you for listening to the modern soccer coach podcast for more coaching topics sessions and resources head on over to coach Kurtine on Facebook or visit the website at www.modernsockercos.com