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Data has never played a more prominent role in professional football — and Arsenal have turned to STATSports in a quest to unearth potential stars of the future.
The Gunners, who are one of 14 Premier League clubs to enjoy a partnership with the tech giants, launched their STATSports Arsenal Edition product six months ago.
Anyone who purchased the fitness-tracking device, which slots seamlessly into the back of a performance vest, was given the option to share their personal results with the North London outfit.
And last week, 22 of the top-performing youngsters were invited to be put through their paces a in front of Arsenal staff with the prospect of being picked up by the famous Hale End academy.
Club legend Jack Wilshere — back at his boyhood side while studying for his coaching badges — was on hand to deliver a motivational speech to participants prior to what was a gruelling training session on the Emirates pitch.
The ex-England international, 30, believes the technology gives players at all levels of the game an added responsibility to put in the hard yards.
Wilshere said: “There is no hiding place nowadays. It’s no good just saying, ‘I’m going to work on my technique and be a good footballer’. You’ve got to put the work in.
“I was quite lucky in that I was blessed with a lot of talent, but the fitness side of things was something I had to work hard at.
“When I first broke through as a youngster, these numbers weren’t really there for us to see but now it’s all there thanks to this kind of technology.
“You can see exactly where you are at. I’d have benefitted hugely from something like this when first breaking through, I think.”
Diamonds in the rough
Starting off with some basic training drills, the lucky players then found themselves dropped into a match environment with an ever-increasing pitch.
Watching on from the sidelines was Steve Brown, a leading figure in Arsenal’s Talent ID team.
Brown and his colleagues are responsible for spotting promising youngsters and ensuring the Gunners beat fierce competition from rival clubs to oversee their development.
While many budding stars progress through an academy’s age groups from childhood — just like Wilshere did two decades ago — there are also those who take less conventional paths to the top.
Brown said: “Talent identification is like an apple tree really. All your apples are blossoming at the same time but you never know when each one is going to fall.
“Some players are late developers and there is no one set pathway for us to pick up a player. The journey is never linear, everyone progresses differently.
“Next week we’ll be in Croatia. Two weeks ago I was in Italy watching England’s Under-15s side. We get to academy games, senior games, out in the community — and then stuff like this.
“Sometimes we have to get creative as staff. During the coronavirus lockdown, it was actually a case of us putting our coats on and getting out to the local parks to see if we could find any players.
“We actually brought a few kids into the academy off the back of it, so you never know where you’re going to find talent.”
While he is in no doubt that data has given Arsenal an edge in their recruitment and development teams, Brown also insists it is only one fragment of a wider development process.
He added: “In terms of identifying talent, helping us bring in players and analyse them in training, I think data is brilliant.
“However, I’m yet to see any data that tells me about a person’s character. That is also key.
“Data is a great training tool for us but you also need the player and the coaches to be operating in harmony to help maximise an individual’s potential.”
Tip of the iceberg
Of course, the collective hope is that one of the invited participants goes on to forge a professional career, ideally with the Gunners.
Barry Watters, head of sports science at STATSports, believes football is only just starting to get to grips with its data drive — and that events like this one could be a staple of the future.
Watters said: “I think football has been very good at embracing data and collecting lots and lots of it in recent years but maybe not so much in using it properly.
“You also get that in a lot of businesses, where they may access loads of information simply because they can but maybe don’t maximise its usefulness.
“For us, working with clubs like Arsenal, it’s all about streamlining that data. The way our stats are available live, fed into an iPad or a watch, helps coaches to make instant decisions about things like workloads.
“Our future will be focused on the machine learning side of things and helping people and clubs to interpret their data better.
“Rather than just giving someone their stats, we want to recommend specific training programmes to help someone improve a certain area based on their results. There’s a lot more to come.
“Of course, to have a player be picked up from this day would be the dream. But I think even to get here today, giving these players the opportunity is a huge success for us.”
At the end of the session, those involved were taken back inside the home dressing room for a closer look at their results.
With some fine football on show throughout the afternoon, it is quite feasible that someone may have kicked off their professional football journey thanks to a tiny GPS tracker.
To find out more about the STATSports Arsenal FC Edition, visit www.statsports.com/arsenal
