You can see what the Sunderland manager is getting at when he jokes about the club’s new recipe for success just doing the opposite of what they have done in the past five years
If we had to slap a name on this era in football, we could do worse than the Rise of the Quants. These days, there is a widespread belief that even the mascot needs to have read Moneyball, and not simply be able to critique the movie. The biggest clubs employ armies of data analysts, while advanced metrics and tactical analytics are the adornment of increasing amounts of commentary. Privately, you might think some of your friends speak the language of football statistics much as Andy Gray once spoke the language of Spanish, when he inquired of a La Manga hotel receptionist: “Eh senoreo, where’s the fucking taxio?” But like Andy, they certainly have a go, and forcefully so.
In this occasionally stifling and frequently deeply boring atmosphere, it’s refreshing to hear of idiosyncratic tactical approaches. All respect to Chris Coleman, then, who this week gave the media a glimpse into his forward planning. “We just need to look and see what’s happened in the last five years,” the Sunderland manager explained, “and then do the opposite.”
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