magicjuan
Player Valuation: £60m
I get what your saying and im the same, kinda, football isnt played on data, its played on grass, by humans, so whilst all the data in the world will tell you 1 thing, the human element will at some point, quite often in fact, tell you something very different.
So whilst I agree, you cant ignore that a LOT of football clubs seems to be investing vast sums of money on such things. They of course dont compute the human aspect, but they are helpful.
Sports science and data such as this has come so very far and the investment is worthwhile for most clubs, cos if some nerd in an office can improve something by 2%, well you will surely agree, that 2% is worth every penny in the 93rd minute.
I do think theres is a massive switch towards only taking data to judge players tho, as you said earlier, the only thing that matters, REALLY matters is did X player put that ball in the back of the net.
I'm not doing data down, it has it's place, but I think the excessive overuse and over reliance isn't so much about performance enhancement but finance appeasement.
Mathematics, the language of life, the universe and everything, isn't itself yet a sport, but it's getting closer and we'll be swapping Alan Ball for Johnny Ball