Wyscout review and poking around the French third tier
I signed up for Wyscout on Friday and was given full access for 48 hours. Inbetween the busy bits of family life over a weekend in the run up to Christmas I thought I'd do a quick review of it and reveal some of the players I liked the look of.
For those who have never used Wyscout it actually looks a lot like Football Manager (or at least Football Manager about 10 years ago)
The home page allows you to select a league to scout. The package I was trialing allowed me full access to 5 leagues (I chose the big 5) and partial access to all the others. To be honest I really couldn't see that much difference between full/partial access for player scouting purposes.
I decided to use the trial time to see if I could use their stats and video clips to find some promising players in obscure leagues. So I looked in the French 3rd division, my thoughts being that France is producing so much talent that their third level must have some potential top quality players in it - with a third of their World Cup winning squad having played at that level. I also looked in Ligue 2.
So I click on the French flag and select Ligue 2 from the league list.
This gives me an overview of the players with stats down the left hand side. It was very easy to navigate. The age bar on the left allows you to filter the results.
My main criticism with all stats based approaches is that they are only as accurate as the person submitting the data. There is a lot of subjectivity over a lot of the categories in most data sets and Wyscout is particularly prone to this with things like "clever passes" and rankings.
They also have a hilariously inaccurate estimated value box which values some of the most in demand players in Europe for a relative pittance. Sandro Tonali at £6m for example.
However despite all that has one massive advantage, you can see the video clips associated with the event data.
I found this to be excellent. For example I found via the stats function a player called Maxime Fleurey playing in the National league in France, he seemed to be an unstoppable dribbler completing a high percentage of his dribbles and at a high volume. His "best of" video showed a powerful runner with a powerful shot.
I decided to dig further into the video and looked at his dribbling video containing everything classified as a dribble. This identified a fairly big flaw in the way the stats were gathered. They were classing a successful dribble as anytime the player was involved in a duel and retained possession. A large number of Maxime's duels were when he received the ball in space and then a poor touch or a bad decision meant he ended up being closed down quickly. He was then good at keeping the ball but it wasn't really a successful offensive move, more a way of covering up a technical deficit.
On the other hand leading the way in Ligue 2 was a player called Alexis Claude-Maurice who had similar dribbling stats but a video view reveals silky technique and a purposeful approach.
My conclusion from this is that data scouting is less reliable lower down, you can assume technical ability in higher leagues, but many examples in France of flawed players. Your tackling monster might just be so because of an unsure touch and poor quality ball retention from his team. All those interceptions might be due to poor quality passing from the opposition.
My National league scouting in France found quite a few players of high potential but they all had areas they could work on.
Vincent Thill - on loan at Pau from Metz - goals - through balls
A player I had heard of after he started playing for Luxembourg at 16. Reminds me a bit of Odegaard in stature and style. His highlight video would be great, loads of silky skills and some spectacular shots. Stats showed he shot a lot, video showed bad choices of when to shoot. Still only 18 and I'd pick him out as one to develop.
Moussa Sylla - Bourg en Bresse - Cross monster
Another on loan player (from Lille), Moussa stood out for his high volume of crossing. He plays as a right back but is getting in around 6 crosses a game. He also seems to defend fairly well. If he could work on his crossing technique, maybe slowing down just at point of delivery he could be a really good option. Only 19 too.
Maxime Fluery - dribble and create but fails eye test
My first eye test fail (watch as he develops into a superstar now!), looks good on volume of chances created and deep progressions but looks technically flawed to me. Fall either stuck under his feet or too far ahead.
Youssef Maziz - through balls
France has a lot more of the highly skilled number 10 type players than you see in the English third and fourth tier. I'd call them George Boyd types. Maziz seems to glide around and ping nice accurate through balls on occasion. Looks good on video and stats.
Mahdi Talal - through balls
And Talal is another, similar in style.
Nathaneal Saintini - young centre back, dubious after video
18 year old centre backs are rare to find. They are usually early physical developers. Saintini looked like he was still growing and filling out. He was good on paper, little dubious after video where his technique looked a little rough.
Lenny Vallier - left back with good forward passing
Left back who didn't look great on the dribbling and crossing front but showed up very well on the passing model. He seems comfortable in possession, retaining it well.
Vallere Pollet - deep completions
Good at picking up the ball and driving into the final third. He showed up well on their deep completions ranking and a video clip showed a good technical player who looks to be getting physically stronger (the good thing with younger players is the clips go back to their debut so you can see the change)
Quentin Boisgard - skilled midfielder
A player who has drifted down the divisions after being a Ligue 1 youngster with Toulouse at 18. At 21 he is now in the third tier but seems to have all the technical attributes needed to play higher. If I were a Championship club I'd have a look at him to see if a fresh start is needed.
Wyscout is great but you'd need the video element of it to get the most out of it, for stats alone I prefer the interface on Whoscored.
However the one main advantage of Wyscout is you can download the stats to Excel. If that floats your boat then the £10 a month package would be really good value.
A club account at £300 a month for unlimited access would be really good value as it comes with unlimited accounts. If any pro clubs reading this(!) want to add my on to their platform I'd be happy to be added. Otherwise if anyone wanted to get together and buy an account for a club not currently using it and have full access via that contact me (DMs open), if there were 30 of us it would only be £10 a month.
For those who have never used Wyscout it actually looks a lot like Football Manager (or at least Football Manager about 10 years ago)
The home page allows you to select a league to scout. The package I was trialing allowed me full access to 5 leagues (I chose the big 5) and partial access to all the others. To be honest I really couldn't see that much difference between full/partial access for player scouting purposes.
I decided to use the trial time to see if I could use their stats and video clips to find some promising players in obscure leagues. So I looked in the French 3rd division, my thoughts being that France is producing so much talent that their third level must have some potential top quality players in it - with a third of their World Cup winning squad having played at that level. I also looked in Ligue 2.
So I click on the French flag and select Ligue 2 from the league list.
This gives me an overview of the players with stats down the left hand side. It was very easy to navigate. The age bar on the left allows you to filter the results.
My main criticism with all stats based approaches is that they are only as accurate as the person submitting the data. There is a lot of subjectivity over a lot of the categories in most data sets and Wyscout is particularly prone to this with things like "clever passes" and rankings.
They also have a hilariously inaccurate estimated value box which values some of the most in demand players in Europe for a relative pittance. Sandro Tonali at £6m for example.
However despite all that has one massive advantage, you can see the video clips associated with the event data.
I found this to be excellent. For example I found via the stats function a player called Maxime Fleurey playing in the National league in France, he seemed to be an unstoppable dribbler completing a high percentage of his dribbles and at a high volume. His "best of" video showed a powerful runner with a powerful shot.
I decided to dig further into the video and looked at his dribbling video containing everything classified as a dribble. This identified a fairly big flaw in the way the stats were gathered. They were classing a successful dribble as anytime the player was involved in a duel and retained possession. A large number of Maxime's duels were when he received the ball in space and then a poor touch or a bad decision meant he ended up being closed down quickly. He was then good at keeping the ball but it wasn't really a successful offensive move, more a way of covering up a technical deficit.
On the other hand leading the way in Ligue 2 was a player called Alexis Claude-Maurice who had similar dribbling stats but a video view reveals silky technique and a purposeful approach.
My conclusion from this is that data scouting is less reliable lower down, you can assume technical ability in higher leagues, but many examples in France of flawed players. Your tackling monster might just be so because of an unsure touch and poor quality ball retention from his team. All those interceptions might be due to poor quality passing from the opposition.
My National league scouting in France found quite a few players of high potential but they all had areas they could work on.
Vincent Thill - on loan at Pau from Metz - goals - through balls
A player I had heard of after he started playing for Luxembourg at 16. Reminds me a bit of Odegaard in stature and style. His highlight video would be great, loads of silky skills and some spectacular shots. Stats showed he shot a lot, video showed bad choices of when to shoot. Still only 18 and I'd pick him out as one to develop.
Moussa Sylla - Bourg en Bresse - Cross monster
Another on loan player (from Lille), Moussa stood out for his high volume of crossing. He plays as a right back but is getting in around 6 crosses a game. He also seems to defend fairly well. If he could work on his crossing technique, maybe slowing down just at point of delivery he could be a really good option. Only 19 too.
Maxime Fluery - dribble and create but fails eye test
My first eye test fail (watch as he develops into a superstar now!), looks good on volume of chances created and deep progressions but looks technically flawed to me. Fall either stuck under his feet or too far ahead.
Youssef Maziz - through balls
France has a lot more of the highly skilled number 10 type players than you see in the English third and fourth tier. I'd call them George Boyd types. Maziz seems to glide around and ping nice accurate through balls on occasion. Looks good on video and stats.
Mahdi Talal - through balls
And Talal is another, similar in style.
Nathaneal Saintini - young centre back, dubious after video
18 year old centre backs are rare to find. They are usually early physical developers. Saintini looked like he was still growing and filling out. He was good on paper, little dubious after video where his technique looked a little rough.
Lenny Vallier - left back with good forward passing
Left back who didn't look great on the dribbling and crossing front but showed up very well on the passing model. He seems comfortable in possession, retaining it well.
Vallere Pollet - deep completions
Good at picking up the ball and driving into the final third. He showed up well on their deep completions ranking and a video clip showed a good technical player who looks to be getting physically stronger (the good thing with younger players is the clips go back to their debut so you can see the change)
Quentin Boisgard - skilled midfielder
A player who has drifted down the divisions after being a Ligue 1 youngster with Toulouse at 18. At 21 he is now in the third tier but seems to have all the technical attributes needed to play higher. If I were a Championship club I'd have a look at him to see if a fresh start is needed.
Wyscout is great but you'd need the video element of it to get the most out of it, for stats alone I prefer the interface on Whoscored.
However the one main advantage of Wyscout is you can download the stats to Excel. If that floats your boat then the £10 a month package would be really good value.
A club account at £300 a month for unlimited access would be really good value as it comes with unlimited accounts. If any pro clubs reading this(!) want to add my on to their platform I'd be happy to be added. Otherwise if anyone wanted to get together and buy an account for a club not currently using it and have full access via that contact me (DMs open), if there were 30 of us it would only be £10 a month.
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