what confuses me about the Kline Saga

[toshes mate]

I am not going to defend Kline or the Khan's but I do feel it may be helpful to people to understand the driving forces behind ambitions and objectives in a computer world full of hugely profitable, obviously successful, and very large corporate 'dictatorships', the Facebooks, Googles, Apples, of this world for example.  These conglomerates thrive on illusions like hype, advertisement, the promise of relief from purgatory, relief from the humdrum and drudgery.  When mixed with the simple action of many of us to try to keep up with the Jones's lest we be left behind, isolated and forgotten about, it can be an exceptionally easy pull.   Nothing these corporations have done deserves the wealth and power they have got because most of it has been achieved via sleight of hand.

Kline and Khan's obsession may have been the absolute certainty that one day they'd have a system that would not only recruit players but also select the best eleven/eighteen for any football match that would ever be played.   When the enormous prize for doing this - fame and fortune - seems attainable then people will try to achieve and emulate it and, occasionally, they will succeed like those mentioned already.  The serious problem behind all of this is whether or not we are all being taken for suckers because our addiction to not being left behind leads us into a nightmare of ever greater loss of control via simple human interfaces - like bumping into someone on a street, a conversation developing and becoming best friends or whatever.  That is an occurrence much more random than any computer algorithm would allow to pass as anything other than a bug to be caught and corrected. 

In other words turning up to watch a Sunday football match and spotting a player who stands out as having that 'special something' dies a death unless people determine to turn off all their electronic devices and instead trust their own judgement for a change.   There is a whole real world out there that has evolved its beauty over countless millennia and the digital age is but a few decades of age.  Let computers help you by all means but do not let them control you.

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

Good OP, agree entirely

The only thing you can say in Khan Snr's (sort of) defence is the initial decision to employ Kline appears to have been taken around 2015 (albeit his role not publicly formalised until last March) so it fits with the general narrative that everything Khan did up to the start of last season may have been a disaster but his decision making since then has been ok

He was already on the payroll in July 2014 when we played in Jacksonville.
He came over to a crowd of us with Mark Maunders (a very friendly man)
Several of us on this board had a long chat with CK, he told us the basis of
what he was doing, but not in any detail, and no inclination of any 'power'

BTW: that was the day Dembele the Younger scored a hatrick

[Twig]

The algorithms used in analysing Opta data are all 'unique' to the person who designs a spreadsheet or database analysis sequence or tool.  The efficacy of the analysis is the real world perception of its accuracy in delivering the objective the designer was seeking to achieve as in FFC's case 'the recruitment of players who will achieve optimal results on the football pitch'. The problem is how do you actually prove the sought objective via a statistical analysis program is better than that that would have been achieved without it?  The answer is you cannot since you never have the chance to play the same football season out twice, once using the system, and once without it.  It is football's equivalent of 'snake oil' but satisfies the problem of answering questions about why you refused to live with the times and failed miserably by not having a stats expert.

As a 'retired' professional computer programmer who knows what computers are really good at doing I remain totally unconvinced that anyone will ever find a system that is better than a gifted footballing brain that knows talent and /or fitness for purpose when he/she sees it.  Yes, the data has a place in football, but it is not the answer to everything and should never be the leading light.  I can also see why statistics can be really useful in some other more delineated sports e.g. baseball.

In other words it is extremely difficult to calculate the predictive validity of the tool.  Fair point.

To be fair I guess stats have always been used.  The moment you ask simple questions like "How many assists has that winger got last season", you are referring to a stat.  The problem is when a complex set of algorithms are claimed to have such strong validity that they are used to override all other professional inputs and considerations.  This is where the madness sets in.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Who are these good football people pray-tell?

If you are seriously unable to answer your own question that may explain your obsessive support for the unsupervised statistical football analysis handled by people who only found out about English football because someone's dad had just bought a club over here.

Brilliant TM

[Jims Dentist]

Who are these good football people pray-tell?

If you are seriously unable to answer your own question that may explain your obsessive support for the unsupervised statistical football analysis handled by people who only found out about English football because someone's dad had just bought a club over here.

Brilliant TM

Excellent, spot on response.
I just don't see how Marcel can keep on defending our bunch of incompetent decision makers.