Wyscout review and poking around the French third tier

"The operation was a complete success, but the patient died"

Scouting, in these data-driven days, seems easy. Too easy maybe. The data is good enough now, even from the no or low-cost providers to identify good young players in form. Chances are that 20-year-old starting in a big 5 league and putting up good numbers is going to be a good player.

The higher cost providers give far more granular data which enables you to identify these good talents even earlier. Looking for a creative, left-footed central player with the ability to press? Give me a data subscription and half an hour and I'll get you a list that I'm fairly comfortable won't look too silly in a couple of years time.

But player identification is only part of the process.

Two of the recent yo-yo clubs Aston Villa and Newcastle, plus Fulham this season, seem to have embraced strategies I generally approve of; data scouting and recruiting from specific markets.

I recently tweeted about Villa:

Remember when Villa signed Idrissa Gana Gueye, Jordan Veretout, Jordan Amavi, Jordan Ayew and Adama Traore in one summer, then finished 20th? The scouting worked, £130m of bids for that group in last 12 months says so. The rest of the process let them down.

— Stop Bunching! (@SBunching) May 16, 2019

Newcastle, under Graham Carr, targeted the French market. Between 2010/11 and 2014/15 Newcastle signed 19 players who were either French or had developed in France.

Those 19 were:
Hatem Ben Afra
Papiss Demba Cisse
Gabriel Obertan
Demba Ba
Yohan Cabaye
Sylvian Marveaux
Mehdi Abeid
Yoan Goufffran
Moussa Sissoko
Massadio Haidara
Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa
Mathieu Debuchy
Romain Amalfitano
Loic Remy
Olivier Kemen
Emmanuel Riviere
Remy Cabella
Henri Saviet
Florian Thauvin

Plus other French speaking signings such as Cheik Tiote, Kevin Mbabu and Chancel Mbemba from the Belgium and Swiss leagues.

Yes, some of those players haven't kicked on and had good careers, but the majority have, and ended up playing at a higher level than Newcastle.

Cabaye and Ben Afra ended up at PSG.
Remy and Ba at Chelsea (that won't slip my mind)
Yanga-Mbiwa and Kemen at Lyon.
Debuchy at Arsenal.
Cabella, along with Debuchy, has reached the CL qualifiers with St Etienne.
Florian Thauvin has been exceptional for Marseille.
Even the likes of Abeid and Amalfitano have played in Ligue 1 this year.
Moussa Sissoko will be playing in the Champions League final for Tottenham
Kevin Mbabu is now a highly rated Switzerland international fullback
Most of the others are on competitive Ligue 2 teams, though some did drift off to Turkey, the Middle East or China.

These clearly weren't all bad players.

In fact, on paper, where, as we all know, football isn't played a team of:

GK
Debuchy Yanga-Mbiwa Mbemba Haidara
Cabaye
Thauvin Cabella Ben Afra
Ba Remy

should have been reasonably competitive in midtable (if a little lightweight in midfield!) given the clubs these players moved on to.

GK
Arsenal Roma Porto Lens
PSG
Marseille St Etienne PSG
Chelsea Chelsea

So what went wrong?

The cliche would be that all these players used to sun beating down on their backs in the south of France couldn't stand being in a northern, windswept, isolated, city away from the bright lights. I'm not sure this is true really. The cultural and climatic differences between Brazil and Donetsk are far bigger yet Shakhtar manage to maintain a happy Brazilian contingent of players and have done for years.

Too much of a cultural shift? Should Newcastle have tried to introduce players more slowly? 18 players is an awful lot of change, and they were signing non-French speakers too, at least the same number again An unused player can quickly become a disruptive player. Ben Afra has made a career out of brilliance off the pitch and difficulty off, particularly when he doesn't feel wanted. With a huge churn of players it would take brilliant management to maintain a focus and stop the squad splintering into factions by language.

But the bigger question is "did it go wrong?"

Newcastle finished 5th in 2011-12 with 7 French speakers starting most weeks. Pardew won manager of the season.

In the following season they finished 16th but also reached the quarter finals of the Europa League. In this season 11 of the French speaking players played in 10 or more games.

Joe Kinnear is appointed Director of Football, boardroom disagreements cause chaos but Newcastle finish 10th and 11 French speakers play 10 or more games.

In the following season Pardew leaves at Christmas and the club finish 15th (though only surviving on the last day of the season) with 9 French speakers playing 10 or more games.

The next season sees Steve McClaren take over (replaced by Rafa Benitez with a few games left) and the team are relegated. But what has happened to our French speakers? Only 5 remain (Sissoko, Mbemba, Tiote, Cisse and Thauvin) and Thauvin is a new signing. The core of players who played in the previous midtable-ish seasons are gone.

So did the French experiment fail or did the board room disruption cause the issues that ultimately saw the team relegated?

My conclusion:

The scouting worked, the experiment of building a midtable PL team on a relatively small transfer outlay by signing a core of players from an undervalued market can work if you plan sensibly. And don't appoint Joe Kinnear as a Director of Football.