Tony Pulis column: “There’s more data than ever before, but does it help managers?”

I have been able to recruit at all my clubs. I would tell the scouts and coaches what I wanted and then do my homework based on their recommendations and watch them in action.

The more years go by, the more noise in this area from other people within the club, but I always insist on being the one who makes the final decision.

The scouts and coaches knew exactly the type of players I wanted for each position. I often saw good players, but I didn’t try to sign them because they didn’t fit the identity of the team I was managing at the time.

Ideally, this kind of thinking is used in today’s data-driven model – where the portfolio is aligned with the club’s identity and what the manager needs.

Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth are good examples of where this technology has worked brilliantly, but there are a few Premier League clubs that have not used it successfully.

It is amazing how they discovered these players, and access to this information is what turned the Premier League into a global league, with more than 65% of its players foreign.

But, regardless of data being an amazing tool to discover new talent, being a dinosaur, I will always insist on watching a player before signing him, and I’m sure most managers now want that too.

If a player I sign doesn’t fit the bill, and there are many, I’m more than happy to raise my hand and accept full responsibility.

However, it no longer always happens this way, and it bothered me to hear that some players brought to the club did not have the manager’s approval, or were not even seen by anyone.

If everything isn’t tied together, you’ll never succeed.

Young managers today often don’t know anything different, but when I talk to them about it, I always remind them that at the end of the day, you’re the one standing in front of the dugout when your team is playing, and since it’s your job that’s on the line, the team has to be made by you.

So you have to be aggressive and make sure the players coming in are better than what you have, based on the data or what you can see for yourself. If you can trust the person who signs it, happy days…if not, you’re in trouble!