Where we've been and what's coming next

This time a decade ago, I was leaving Brentford. Matthew Benham’s attention to the project had drifted for a bit to other priorities across his business empire, Dean Smith was in place as head coach, and I felt like our progress had stalled outside of transfer oversight. We had lined up a good domestic window (John Egan, Romaine Sawyer, Rico Henry, Daniel Bentley, Sergi Canos) plus scouting for another 6-12 months ahead of time, but the rest of the things I was brought in to do had stalled.

Phil Giles and I were clashing too often about the stasis of our group and tactics under Smith, and he probably wanted a bit more peace in his life at work, while I wanted to better pursue my vision for what the team should look like. They felt like I was overpaid and they didn’t need me, and I felt like this wasn’t what I signed up for, we were wasting time, and I could do better somewhere else.

It turns out we were both right, but it would take time for each prophecy to come true.

Benham, Giles and co have done brilliantly in the decade since. And my frustration with a Brentford team that had a coach who couldn’t organise a defense well enough to get us promoted, didn’t really care about set pieces, and never implemented long throws was maddening to the point I really did need to leave.

I remember attending an Opta Pro Forum with Nikos around this time, and we got to discussing tactical stuff with Ian Graham of Liverpool. Nikos and I were venting about Dean’s staff, and Ian asked who the most tactically astute people were around the club. Nikos and I laughed and said, “It’s definitely us.” Graham expressed skepticism, and rightly so — it sounds more like egotistic nerds getting too full of themselves than a common reality — but it was also correct. It wasn’t until Thomas Frank joined the staff as an assistant and then head coach that Brentford learned to defend well enough to get promoted.

[Note: For those who point to Smith getting Aston Villa promoted as an indicator of coaching ability, the talent and budget advantage he had at Villa was astounding, and they still had to get to the Premier League via a playoff. Then there’s the fact that none of his teams have performed well before or since that lend weight to the “Dean’s not very good” case.

This isn’t being mean, it’s literally the job of a Director of Football. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this coach? Can they coach our players to help them improve? Are they likely to get us promoted with the talent at hand, or will we get stuck playing to the level of talent we bring in? Can we supplement them with coaches that help fix their weaknesses, or will their egos get in the way? Not all of this is about Smith, but I can conclusively say Dean is a nice guy, though!]

So Brentford were firmly midtable in the Championship, set pieces and long throws in the Premier League were not a thing or The Thing, and stats and data had not yet had a tangible impact across the footballing landscape. In fact, basically no one outside of a couple of teams even considered the idea. I know this because when I left Brentford and looked for new employment, there was none. The best offer I got was as a lead technical scout for a fraction of what I had been making, reporting to a guy who definitely did not want me to be there, while the owner did. What a difference a decade makes!

Fast forward to the present day, and my current area of high conviction is women’s football. As usual, I have put both my money and my attention where my mouth is, which is why I am an investor and strategic lead in Crux Football. However, I have other glimpses of the future I am pretty sure about, and those will be the subject of my talk at The Transfer Flow Conference. They’ll include the actual intersection of AI and football data (not the usual snake oil you get elsewhere), the broken tactical landscape of men’s football, and a few other themes I have been chewing on and want to discuss.

We’re also going to feature talks from Hendrik Almstadt (title architect at AC Milan), Ben Levin (former COO of Crawley, and current COO of Crux) discussing the business of football, and Oliver Gage discussing Individual Development Programs for Premier League players.

Then in the evening, Patrick and I will take to the stage, rebuild two of the big teams, and just generally enjoy ourselves in front of a public audience. As a whole, it will be both thought-provoking and great fun. You can buy your tickets here.

We missed out on PL action this weekend, but I feel like that just created space for the best week of football on the calendar: the Champions League round of 16! I need to end this column now so I can finish my Variance Betting analysis of every matchup, but you can catch a glimpse of that on the podcast this week too.

—TK

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