How long does it take to evaluate a player?
Welcome to newsletter number 4. I’m really enjoying writing these and have a lot of motivation to write, which I haven’t really had for a while during lockdown. I hope you’re enjoying reading, subscribing and sharing is really appreciated.
I saw this tweet today and coincidentally was also messaged asking how many times I watch a player before writing about them.
For me, there’s no correct answer. I’ll watch a player until I’m confident I have a good understanding of them. This will vary from player to player. It will depend on position, role, influence and the context of the game such as if their team are being dominated then I might get to see a lot of him out of possession but nothing on the ball, this is still useful of course but not the full picture.
I see the discussion a lot about how many games is enough. But it just depends and I think people overthink it and want the golden number of games when there isn’t one. In the same way that people getting started in the gym, instead of just starting, they look for the perfect workout or secrets for fast results when really the answer is to just lift weights and start.
You’ll never regret watching another game either. I’ll write my report once I feel confident in my opinion of the player and if I think he’s our level and the right fit. If I don’t have confidence in my report, I’ll watch another game or supplement it with clips.
The first match gives you the fundamentals. The basics of what type of player they are, their build, personality/style and some strengths and weaknesses. I’m confident that on my first watch I have a good idea of a player. Every match from there, I’m going back and questioning my original assessment and diving deeper to see more detail that I maybe didn’t pick up or look for the first time.
I’m constantly looking back at my original assessment to critique it and see if I still agree with what I said and then make changes. There are diminishing marginal returns of each game, which basically means that for each additional match I watch, I’m getting less value. So I learn less in game 5 than game 4, and then game 6 might be basically pointless and doesn’t show me anything new, only backing up more current report, which is still useful to an extent.
Looking at the tweet at the start, it questions how you make a decision on a player from one match if he only spends 15-45 seconds on the ball per game.
Let’s say I’m at a game and I’m only watching the left back in an evenly contested game. It’s a 94 minute game with stoppage time, the ball is in play for 60 minutes and my left back spends 30 seconds on the ball. He’s spending 1/120th of the game on the ball. But within that, he receives the ball 50 times and I see 40 passes, 3 crosses, some carries into space and 2 cases of driving into space on the counter. He’s also the set-piece taker so I see three free kicks and 6 corners.
He’ll also be out of possession for 30 minutes, 6 minutes where he’s directly defending, the rest indirectly. So he’s in four 1v1s, three 2v1s and three 2v2s out wide in the defensive third. He also does some recovery defending and presses out the mid-block 4 times.
Obviously I’ve just plucked these numbers out of the air but they are realistic. To think that you’re only going to get 30 seconds of information from this player is ridiculous and know the writer of the tweet doesn’t think that either. You get constant information. Everything a player does, however small, contributes to your assessment. You can get so much from one game. Watching more will help but I’m not a fan of the idea that you can’t have any opinion or make decisions from one game. He asked for the logic and hopefully, that explains it.
Of course, I’m not signing players or making huge conclusions about a player from one game but I think you can rule out players. It’s risky and you might not get it right 100% of the time but that’s the job. As I spoke about in the last newsletter, the job is to have the best opinion.
What happens if the player has a bad game though and I dismiss him?
Players don’t just have good or bad games, it’s not binary. I believe that part of the skill of scouting is to be able to tell when a player is having an off day but still a good player. It’s not just 'he played badly, he must be terrible’.
I might think that he had a quiet game with much impact but was still athletic and technically sound with a few good moments which make me want to watch him again but as a low priority.
I might think that he played really well but the things he was trying just weren’t coming off but he showed really good signs. A fan might say he played badly but I might of still been impressed.
If he has no confidence on the ball, is unathletic and doesn’t know where he’s meant to be, then I’d have a hard time believing that if I come back three weeks later he’s going to persuade me to sign him.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that I’m going to get these right every time or that I’m God’s gift. But I do believe making those judgements is part of the skill of being a scout and the best ones make the right judgement more often.
The more games the better but I trust myself to exclude players from one viewing and don’t want to waste my time following up on players I have no confidence in just in case they were having an off day. It’s also likely that I’ll watch them again in future as I’m watching other players in the game and can keep an eye on them then.