You don't get too many Premier League managers who look like Brad Pitt, although Jose Mourinho did cool and brooding pretty well.
But as baseball gets the Hollywood treatment with the UK premiere of the film Moneyball, based on the book that detailed how Billy Beane used statistics and analysis rather than gut instincts to turn the Oakland Athletics from nobodies to big players in the MLB, the same principles are starting to be applied in the top flight.
Liverpool owner John W Henry is a strong proponent of the Moneyball concept, believing the success if brought him at baseball's Boston Red Sox can be replicated with the Merseysiders.
In both Boston and Oakland, the traditional means for recruiting players, based on batting averages and old-fashioned hunches, were discarded in favour of more detailed statistical profiles.
Boston’s success - winning the World Series twice in four years after their previous title had been in 1918 - only served to reinforce Henry’s faith and desire to see the same principles adopted at Anfield.
It helps, too, that Liverpool sporting director Damien Comolli, a friend of Beane's, has long bought into his ideas, which are derived from sabermetrics.
Tottenham’s signings of Gareth Bale and Benoit Assou-Ekotto during the Frenchman’s spell at White Hart Lane - he also paid £11.6million for Dimitar Berbatov, who was then sold to Manchester United for £31m - are hailed by Comolli as proof the concept can be applied to football.
That in itself is not novel. Indeed, as early as the mid-1970s Ukrainian scientist Anatoly Zelentsov taught Dynamo Kiev’s players a series of computer-designed plays and warned against improvising, with the pitch dissected into grids and players moving into “squares” to receive the ball.
While the Dynamo players were often likened to robots, playing with their heads not their hearts, they dominated Soviet football and won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1975 and 1986, while the Soviet squad, selected on scientific analysis from the original 40 names by Zelentsov, reached the European Championship Final in 1988.
Of course, Pitt, who plays Beane in Moneyball, is everything Zelentsov and Kiev were not.
But while Comolli’s belief in sabermetrics may not be fully proven, Liverpool’s recruitment policy this year was evidence of a change in thinking.
Kenny Dalglish may have had the final say, but the purchases of Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing, Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, for a combined £92m, fitted the blueprint.
Three of the players were English, although nationality is not the be-all and end-all.
Henderson, Carroll and Suarez were all young and embodied potential, while the £35m spent on securing the Newcastle striker showed that moneyball in a football context does not necessarily mean cheap.
The basic idea is that players are bought at the start of their career, when potential has been noticed and their physical abilities can be seen, or in the later stages, where their experience can be brought in as a priceless added extra.
Players in their prime, between 24 and 29, fall outside the moneyball criteria.
Statistics used include valuing shots on target or cross completion over headline-grabbing numbers of goals scored and assists.
Two managers from very different footballing schools, Sam Allardyce and Arsene Wenger - who uses ProZone statistics to help decide if a player has gone beyond the tipping point of their career - have both been major proponents of science-based analysis, with all top flight clubs now having their own in-house boffins.
The Mirror got together with EA Sports, official player rating index of the Barclays Premier League, to discover the players who would make up the top flight's ideal Moneyball side.
Our XI is well represented at the top of the current table, with four players from Manchester City, three from Spurs and one each from Chelsea, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Norwich, who are represented by former Huddersfield midfielder Anthony Pilkington.
The side, based on their latest transfer values, cost £137m to put together, with free transfers Brad Friedel and Demba Ba the cheapest and £38m Sergio Aguero the most expensive.
It doesn’t look a bad side, by any stretch.
And if you don’t like it, tell Brad and Angelina...
***
REVEALED: THE MIRROR'S MONEYBALL DREAM TEAM
Goalkeeper:
Brad Friedel
Defenders:
Pricey star – Ashley Cole
Young star in the making - Kyle Walker
Bargain basement – Stephen Warnock
Actual top performer - Joleon Lescott
Midfielders:
Pricey star – Yaya Toure
Young star in the making – Anthony Pilkington
Bargain basement – Rafael van der Vaart (£11million, but still a bargain)
Actual top performer – David Silva
Strikers:
Pricey star - Sergio Aguero
Bargain basement - Demba Ba
But as baseball gets the Hollywood treatment with the UK premiere of the film Moneyball, based on the book that detailed how Billy Beane used statistics and analysis rather than gut instincts to turn the Oakland Athletics from nobodies to big players in the MLB, the same principles are starting to be applied in the top flight.
Liverpool owner John W Henry is a strong proponent of the Moneyball concept, believing the success if brought him at baseball's Boston Red Sox can be replicated with the Merseysiders.
In both Boston and Oakland, the traditional means for recruiting players, based on batting averages and old-fashioned hunches, were discarded in favour of more detailed statistical profiles.
Boston’s success - winning the World Series twice in four years after their previous title had been in 1918 - only served to reinforce Henry’s faith and desire to see the same principles adopted at Anfield.
It helps, too, that Liverpool sporting director Damien Comolli, a friend of Beane's, has long bought into his ideas, which are derived from sabermetrics.
Tottenham’s signings of Gareth Bale and Benoit Assou-Ekotto during the Frenchman’s spell at White Hart Lane - he also paid £11.6million for Dimitar Berbatov, who was then sold to Manchester United for £31m - are hailed by Comolli as proof the concept can be applied to football.
That in itself is not novel. Indeed, as early as the mid-1970s Ukrainian scientist Anatoly Zelentsov taught Dynamo Kiev’s players a series of computer-designed plays and warned against improvising, with the pitch dissected into grids and players moving into “squares” to receive the ball.
While the Dynamo players were often likened to robots, playing with their heads not their hearts, they dominated Soviet football and won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1975 and 1986, while the Soviet squad, selected on scientific analysis from the original 40 names by Zelentsov, reached the European Championship Final in 1988.
Of course, Pitt, who plays Beane in Moneyball, is everything Zelentsov and Kiev were not.
But while Comolli’s belief in sabermetrics may not be fully proven, Liverpool’s recruitment policy this year was evidence of a change in thinking.
Kenny Dalglish may have had the final say, but the purchases of Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing, Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, for a combined £92m, fitted the blueprint.
Three of the players were English, although nationality is not the be-all and end-all.
Henderson, Carroll and Suarez were all young and embodied potential, while the £35m spent on securing the Newcastle striker showed that moneyball in a football context does not necessarily mean cheap.
The basic idea is that players are bought at the start of their career, when potential has been noticed and their physical abilities can be seen, or in the later stages, where their experience can be brought in as a priceless added extra.
Players in their prime, between 24 and 29, fall outside the moneyball criteria.
Statistics used include valuing shots on target or cross completion over headline-grabbing numbers of goals scored and assists.
Two managers from very different footballing schools, Sam Allardyce and Arsene Wenger - who uses ProZone statistics to help decide if a player has gone beyond the tipping point of their career - have both been major proponents of science-based analysis, with all top flight clubs now having their own in-house boffins.
The Mirror got together with EA Sports, official player rating index of the Barclays Premier League, to discover the players who would make up the top flight's ideal Moneyball side.
Our XI is well represented at the top of the current table, with four players from Manchester City, three from Spurs and one each from Chelsea, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Norwich, who are represented by former Huddersfield midfielder Anthony Pilkington.
The side, based on their latest transfer values, cost £137m to put together, with free transfers Brad Friedel and Demba Ba the cheapest and £38m Sergio Aguero the most expensive.
It doesn’t look a bad side, by any stretch.
And if you don’t like it, tell Brad and Angelina...
***
REVEALED: THE MIRROR'S MONEYBALL DREAM TEAM
Goalkeeper:
Brad Friedel
Defenders:
Pricey star – Ashley Cole
Young star in the making - Kyle Walker
Bargain basement – Stephen Warnock
Actual top performer - Joleon Lescott
Midfielders:
Pricey star – Yaya Toure
Young star in the making – Anthony Pilkington
Bargain basement – Rafael van der Vaart (£11million, but still a bargain)
Actual top performer – David Silva
Strikers:
Pricey star - Sergio Aguero
Bargain basement - Demba Ba
