https://www.liverpool.com/liverpool-fc-news/transfer-news/liverpool-klopp-fsg-ian-graham-17252395
[article]Not every Liverpool fan will have heard of Ian Graham. About a year ago, it would have been even fewer.
Graham is the club's Director of Research, and joined in July 2012. The Cambridge graduate has, however, very much operated in the shadows of Anfield. A boyhood fan of the club, the Welshman has been partly responsible for the recruitment of the team which now sits eight points clear of the Premier League and are reigning champions of Europe.
Yet while some of the obvious (Jurgen Klopp, FSG, the players) and not-so-obvious (Michael Edwards) figures have been lauded, Graham was a relative unknown for his work behind the scenes.
If you don't believe us, take a look at how often 'Ian Graham Liverpool' was searched on Google worldwide over the past 12 months.
That changed - with the online football community, at least - when Bruce Shcoenfeld of the New York Times wrote a superb piece highlighting the importance of Graham. Published the week before the Champions League final, Graham suddenly became another name for Liverpool supporters to look out for.
He is an interesting and engaging character, and recently went to London to speak to the popular Freakonomics Radio show. Released as a podcast in October, Graham sat down with Stephen J. Dubner to discuss his role at Liverpool.
This is what he said.
And you can also listen to the podcast here.
******
It's important to say signing a player is a multidisciplinary exercise, you have the traditional methods of scouting, some newer methods of video scouting, coaches and the manager have to be on board and enthusiastic about the player. My role is the data analysis side of analysing football, which is a newer side, and the sort of players I really like are players who shine through in the data, but don't naturally shine through for your typical football fan or typical scout. Awkward, ungainly players, or players who have been overlooked, for various other purposes. One of my favourite players is Andy Robertson, our left back, one of the best left backs in Europe and now European champion, of course.
Robertson's problem was his background, as much as anything. He only started playing English Premier League football maybe at the age of 22, and he played for Hull City, which was not a very good football team. They were relegated from the Premier League, and he was the best young full back in Britain at the time. He was a really strange case of a really attacking full back, playing in a really poor defensive team.
So we get data on every ball touched by every player in every game, where it was on the pitch, and what happened next. We can see where all the players are at 25 frames per second, it's done with optical tracking. The same technology that's used for missile tracking originally - it's much easier to track a person than a missile, they travel a little slower.
We try to put everything into one currency, so football is measured in goals, it's what gets you a win. We try to take whatever action a player does on a pitch - a pass, a shot, a tackle if you're a defender - and ask the question: what was this team's chance of scoring a goal before this action happened, and what was the team's chance of scoring a goal after that action happened? We call that Goal Probability Added (GPA), which is a really catchy name, and so the thing I'm really obsessed about is the risk/reward pay-off of passes.
Some of the best passers in the game have some of the lowest pass completion percentages, and that's because the risk/reward pay-off is very, very skewed in soccer, or football. It's very easy to massage statistics, and get a high pass completion percentage, by playing very conservative passes which do nothing for your team's chances of scoring a goal. The passes I really love are the passes which go behind the opposition defence, that take four or five defenders out of the game; those passes are really hard to make, but someone who gets those passes correct half the time would be a world class attacking midfielder.
(This is very, very interesting, and shows the importance of a player like Trent Alexander-Arnold or Mohamed Salah. The duo have the lowest pass accuracy in the Liverpool squad this season (minimum 300 minutes, outfield players only) yet are absolutely essential to how the Reds progress the ball. It is, once more, showing the intelligence and depth of how football clubs analyse players. It also hints at how Liverpool consider Alexander-Arnold a 'world class attacking midfielder', despite his role at right-back.
It should also be noted that the likes of Wijnaldum should not be dismissed simply because they keep the ball safely, and that his risk/reward is clearly strong enough for inclusion, despite criticisms he can be too safe with possession.
It also brings this tweet into mind, which shows how Liverpool players progress the goal.
)
When we look through the lens of the data, it's not a perfect lens, it's a kind of smeared out view because you don't see all of the details about exactly how much pressure this player was under or exactly where the defenders were. But the players who play a full season of football attempt that sort of pass often enough that the law of large numbers comes into play, and you can get a good statistical reading of the player.
It can help a lot with both (on-field play and transfer activity), but the place it can really help is the acquisition of players in terms of our scouting process. In terms of Premier League football, and European football in general, it's a worldwide free market of football players. If we spot a player we like to play for Liverpool and we can pay the price the selling club demands, we can buy him. The real power of data analysis is when the data set is large. We have detailed data on hundreds of thousands of players, maybe only 5% of those would be near a Premier League level player, but that's still 5,000 players which is too big to scout in-depth and in detail, so we can really help that filtering and identification process.
Our owners and me and all my colleagues were huge fans of Jurgen and his Dortmund team in the early 2010s. They played the most exciting brand of football in Europe, and not coming from a place of financial dominance. They won the German Bundesliga twice at a huge financial deficit to Bayern Munich, and so he was always one of our dream hires as manager. But his last season in Dortmund was disastrous, they were in the relegation zone, and the German media said it was all over for Dortmund, Klopp's lost it. There's no way back for them. Our analysis showed something quite different: they were still clearly the second-best team in Germany but the performances did not match the results. I analysed ten seasons of Bundesliga performances and Dortmund were the second-unluckiest team in that ten-year history, it was just some terrible luck which cost Jurgen that season.
My concern (with Klopp) was the act you see on the cameras every week was just that - an act - and that the real person would be someone different. But it really isn't. Data analysis is something because it's new, and football is a very conservative sport. It is something that is difficult to get across and it would be very understandable for a manager who has a hundred other things to worry about to just say 'you know what, I'm not that interested in this', but Jurgen took the time, and was kind enough, to let me explain our approach. He understood it and appreciated it, which already puts him in the top 5% of managers in my opinion.[/article]
[article]Not every Liverpool fan will have heard of Ian Graham. About a year ago, it would have been even fewer.
Graham is the club's Director of Research, and joined in July 2012. The Cambridge graduate has, however, very much operated in the shadows of Anfield. A boyhood fan of the club, the Welshman has been partly responsible for the recruitment of the team which now sits eight points clear of the Premier League and are reigning champions of Europe.
Yet while some of the obvious (Jurgen Klopp, FSG, the players) and not-so-obvious (Michael Edwards) figures have been lauded, Graham was a relative unknown for his work behind the scenes.
If you don't believe us, take a look at how often 'Ian Graham Liverpool' was searched on Google worldwide over the past 12 months.
That changed - with the online football community, at least - when Bruce Shcoenfeld of the New York Times wrote a superb piece highlighting the importance of Graham. Published the week before the Champions League final, Graham suddenly became another name for Liverpool supporters to look out for.
He is an interesting and engaging character, and recently went to London to speak to the popular Freakonomics Radio show. Released as a podcast in October, Graham sat down with Stephen J. Dubner to discuss his role at Liverpool.
This is what he said.
And you can also listen to the podcast here.
******
It's important to say signing a player is a multidisciplinary exercise, you have the traditional methods of scouting, some newer methods of video scouting, coaches and the manager have to be on board and enthusiastic about the player. My role is the data analysis side of analysing football, which is a newer side, and the sort of players I really like are players who shine through in the data, but don't naturally shine through for your typical football fan or typical scout. Awkward, ungainly players, or players who have been overlooked, for various other purposes. One of my favourite players is Andy Robertson, our left back, one of the best left backs in Europe and now European champion, of course.
Robertson's problem was his background, as much as anything. He only started playing English Premier League football maybe at the age of 22, and he played for Hull City, which was not a very good football team. They were relegated from the Premier League, and he was the best young full back in Britain at the time. He was a really strange case of a really attacking full back, playing in a really poor defensive team.
So we get data on every ball touched by every player in every game, where it was on the pitch, and what happened next. We can see where all the players are at 25 frames per second, it's done with optical tracking. The same technology that's used for missile tracking originally - it's much easier to track a person than a missile, they travel a little slower.
We try to put everything into one currency, so football is measured in goals, it's what gets you a win. We try to take whatever action a player does on a pitch - a pass, a shot, a tackle if you're a defender - and ask the question: what was this team's chance of scoring a goal before this action happened, and what was the team's chance of scoring a goal after that action happened? We call that Goal Probability Added (GPA), which is a really catchy name, and so the thing I'm really obsessed about is the risk/reward pay-off of passes.
Some of the best passers in the game have some of the lowest pass completion percentages, and that's because the risk/reward pay-off is very, very skewed in soccer, or football. It's very easy to massage statistics, and get a high pass completion percentage, by playing very conservative passes which do nothing for your team's chances of scoring a goal. The passes I really love are the passes which go behind the opposition defence, that take four or five defenders out of the game; those passes are really hard to make, but someone who gets those passes correct half the time would be a world class attacking midfielder.
(This is very, very interesting, and shows the importance of a player like Trent Alexander-Arnold or Mohamed Salah. The duo have the lowest pass accuracy in the Liverpool squad this season (minimum 300 minutes, outfield players only) yet are absolutely essential to how the Reds progress the ball. It is, once more, showing the intelligence and depth of how football clubs analyse players. It also hints at how Liverpool consider Alexander-Arnold a 'world class attacking midfielder', despite his role at right-back.
It should also be noted that the likes of Wijnaldum should not be dismissed simply because they keep the ball safely, and that his risk/reward is clearly strong enough for inclusion, despite criticisms he can be too safe with possession.
It also brings this tweet into mind, which shows how Liverpool players progress the goal.
)
When we look through the lens of the data, it's not a perfect lens, it's a kind of smeared out view because you don't see all of the details about exactly how much pressure this player was under or exactly where the defenders were. But the players who play a full season of football attempt that sort of pass often enough that the law of large numbers comes into play, and you can get a good statistical reading of the player.
It can help a lot with both (on-field play and transfer activity), but the place it can really help is the acquisition of players in terms of our scouting process. In terms of Premier League football, and European football in general, it's a worldwide free market of football players. If we spot a player we like to play for Liverpool and we can pay the price the selling club demands, we can buy him. The real power of data analysis is when the data set is large. We have detailed data on hundreds of thousands of players, maybe only 5% of those would be near a Premier League level player, but that's still 5,000 players which is too big to scout in-depth and in detail, so we can really help that filtering and identification process.
Our owners and me and all my colleagues were huge fans of Jurgen and his Dortmund team in the early 2010s. They played the most exciting brand of football in Europe, and not coming from a place of financial dominance. They won the German Bundesliga twice at a huge financial deficit to Bayern Munich, and so he was always one of our dream hires as manager. But his last season in Dortmund was disastrous, they were in the relegation zone, and the German media said it was all over for Dortmund, Klopp's lost it. There's no way back for them. Our analysis showed something quite different: they were still clearly the second-best team in Germany but the performances did not match the results. I analysed ten seasons of Bundesliga performances and Dortmund were the second-unluckiest team in that ten-year history, it was just some terrible luck which cost Jurgen that season.
My concern (with Klopp) was the act you see on the cameras every week was just that - an act - and that the real person would be someone different. But it really isn't. Data analysis is something because it's new, and football is a very conservative sport. It is something that is difficult to get across and it would be very understandable for a manager who has a hundred other things to worry about to just say 'you know what, I'm not that interested in this', but Jurgen took the time, and was kind enough, to let me explain our approach. He understood it and appreciated it, which already puts him in the top 5% of managers in my opinion.[/article]
