Experienced players in league one, overrated?

I don’t think there’s one ingredient that fits every club, every time at this level. I suppose a rough gauge would be to look at the average age of the promoted sides for the last few seasons.

I know we’ve re-signed Roberts and Hourihane this season, but I still look back longingly to a time when we could sign someone I’d heard of, old or young, although I don’t think we’re alone in that. Im not familiar with many of our opponents players either.

It’s just an awful level and we need to get away from it.

 

This is exactly it.

I appreciate that players with lots of goals & assists are easier to find & there’s a lot of competition for them but I think good scouting still has a place.

Players like Scowen, Watkins & Yiadom probably aren’t stand outs in terms of stats but they’re durable & can play in numerous positions & are huge for clubs like ours.

 

I think all the players you mentioned were identified by the "spreadsheet" back when we seemed to be great at it. I agree there's still players to be found didn't wycombe find richard kone in non league?

 

Yes they did.

I’m not claiming to be an expert on how it works but when I hear talk of us getting rid of scouts & then I see us signing random players like Dexter & Rodrigues it just stinks of agents fixing their players up at clubs & us taking a cheap deal rather than us putting the hard yards in & getting players that we actually need.

 

Definitely agree with you on that. The spreadsheet and data analysis is no more it seems at oakwell.

 

It won’t be as straight forward as that. All clubs at all levels use data. But it’s about how you interpret that data. Man U for example have the best data sources and systems available but as their recruitment shows they are woeful at reading that data.

 

Suppose, I'd question if we have used data in recent years or had players pushed on us by agents. For example iseka, oulare, josh Benson, Cosgrove, Rodrigues, lambaseka. Not sure which stats on the spreadsheet they are hitting.

 

We are definitely using it but as you say the extent of that and the quality of the data analysts is questionable.