Thetownend.com

Hello all.

Sandro will be appearing on The Sir Tom Broadbent Lounges Twitter Space on Tues 28th June at 9PM. Let me know if you have any questions for him!

It'll be recorded and put on other services for those who don't have Twitter.

Cheers!

Excellent news this!
-Which data driven transfer model will ours be most similar to: Peterborough/Franchise where signing players for fees with view to then selling at a significant profit? Or FGR style where signing players on frees and cheaper wages but perform at a higher level than their relative cost so maximises the effect of the budget.
-Will our model see us dip into the lower echelons for more Ricky Aguiar style signings or will it strictly be top 4 tiers?
-Will our model cover a small number 26-30 year old players to compliment the squad and offer some balance/experience?
-Mentioned previously of having attribute profiles for each position, what kind of attributes will we see in each position?

Also, who actually decided on said attributes, and what experience does that person have??

And how can these attributes be adequately and accurately measured??

The reason I was asking yesterday!
Do Shade and Devine have the stats/data to back up Sandro's forward thinking football philosophy.

Last season's team got out-muscled in certain games, are more physical players going to be signed this season? This appears to be the case so far.

This is where things get confusing as I'm with you that we need more physicality in the team but you won't get that if the model is to sign young players with potential

O’Brien and Simpson are both young, physical and have potential.

I couldn't agree more if we had them back for next season but then some didn't rate O'Brien!

O'Brien , AK and Cooper did well together, O'Brien and Conroy... Not so much

Sent from my CLT-L09

Agreed, I can remember how poor O'Brien was when he made his debut at Mansfield then improved quickly after that game.

What's the point? He's already had a 20 minute chat with Hodgetts. ;)

Would you rather never wear underwear again or never wear socks again?

Agree re the physicality- league two is tough to get out of if you cannot compete physically

Does the data model work with overseas players?

How does the Pakistan 'initiative' fit into the 'data driven model' ?

How does it work with young players with little experience. I think data model bring some up many questions!

What is the on pitch ambition this season?

We’ve heard plenty about developing players, but it would be nice to hear the clear expectation is promotion.

Can we have some examples of players who clubs have released / deemed not good enough that you have picked up due to their data / stats who have gone on to prove their previous clubs wrong and yourself right.

Not sure it’s a question he can answer but I’d love to know if based on the data / stats available we’d have signed Harry McKirdy last season.

Would love an insight into what data they look and which are the more important data / stats.

Good question Div exactly what I've been alluding to.

Favourite cheese

Extra mature cheddar😀

I predict he won't say no.

Will our model cover Scotland, and both Irish markets, as teams like Oxford and FGR have signed a couple of gems from these markets in recent times

Physic powers.

With family from Northern Ireland, Oxford keep hitting gold there turns my stomach.

We know data will be used in recruitment but how much will it be used in performance monitoring of our own performances and or own style of play, including down to the Academy level?

Just wondering how much data can be gathered when signing young inexperienced players.

Players aren’t being signed solely on their data, they will be shortlisted this way, but still watched and scouted the traditional way after they’ve been shortlisted.

Fair points you make.

All the way, no point in having otherwise surely?

What are the qualities/skills/knowledge that he has that will ensure Swindon go up this season? And can then deliver sustainability and progression from there

Great questions! Keep them coming.. Will try and get as many answered as possible.

Think the important question has been overlooked.

What is your favourite cheese?

Would you rather have eyelashes for teeth or teeth for eyelashes?

Do you like football?

What's the largest animal you think you could kill with your bare hands?

(Courtesy of my wife who has about 100 of these)

When is the fitness coach going to be put through the FFIT program?

What is the cut off point in terms of age of a player where the data model becomes less relevant? Are we only looking at players below that cut off?

good question!

That's a great Q. Will try and get that one in. Only have him for an hour so going to be tough!

Can we have a breakdown on what the data entails.

Is the job for STFC full time? How does it sit alongside his company working for other clubs? How do other clubs feel about STFC getting first refusal on players (assuming we do)?

It’s clearly just me, but I’m quite surprised at how many questions and how much interest there is in regards to the data recruitment model.

We will sign players, some will be shit, some will be good, most will be average - the same way they always have been for us and most clubs at our level, regardless of how they go about recruiting.

Hopefully slightly more will be better than average and I think it is these small incremental advantages that we may be looking for. Perhaps revealing what it involves would disadvantage us by revealing our secrets. Maybe it is best to keep some of the minutiae under wraps.

If the club hadn't mentioned performance data/stats was a big part of player recruitment we wouldn't be intrigued.

It's for  when the first player who was recruited using this method as a couple of bad games.

The player, expert and method gets a pasting.

its not just you, it seems an odd fascination and no way are they going to come out with a low down on why they selected player 'x' and the data reasoning. as with managers there is no guarantee but we are trying to chase the margins to get the right players for the style of play and formation.

This man hasn’t got a clue about what our Karachi venture is about does he? 😂

Defo a Zav Austin venture and only a Zav Austin venture.


Positive that he’s confident we have a better squad than season as well as signing 1 or 2 more this week.

Fine, if he's paying for it. But I doubt that very much.

Any key messages for those that couldn’t listen live?

He answered every question that involved statistics by singing 'I'm a stat man, be ba di da di da' (by statman John)

Probably.

Can’t listen to the interview on my iPad, but someone was happy about what he heard

‘if you're still getting worried about this transfer window, and some of the rumours being whipped about currently, have a listen in. really puts it into perspective that everything is under control, gives me massively positive vibes for the new season! ’

He is.

Can this be evidenced?

Why would the clubs name be against it if that was the case- wouldn't it be the Zav Austin Academy in partnership with STFC ?
It's being sold to Pakistanis as a Club Academy.

Why don't the club come out and say that if true given all the negative publicity, if they weren't involved they'd distance themselves I would have thought.

presumably  he's using club resources. coaches, kit, etc, spaces in academy.

though developing the coaches is a positive for us

still bizarre but better than the club funding the bulk.

if confirmed

Sandro confirmed last night that the only costs involved was the cost of the coach to go there. Even those flight costs would have been paid for by Bartercard points :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

The only way this will be evidenced is by believing him like he said last night and checking the accounts for travel costs when we release them, which we will

Zav's Angle here is prob to try and find a talent and then sign him to Town for a finders fee, could well be bollocks, I'm just speculating

good . I'm saving the STBL for my lunchtime walk

Absolutely, Fitton did the same and it makes sense. Imagine it'll flop soon enough

Has anyone answered what league Karachi play in yet? Not Karachi United.

Sandro said younger players have been signed today, but will be signing more with experience. Doesn’t necessarily mean players that are older but minutes and minutes played at a certain level

well, listened to over half of it.

not overly enthused at this stage by the approach we are taking. Or rather already felt that way but nothing has changed my mind

Fully agree we
  - haven't finished recruiting (could be August)
  - got to give this way fair chance to succeed. I don't mean a month!

it's all a bit experimental at the moment. DDR obviously isn't new, but new for us and possibly fairly new the way we are using it
---------

I do like the fact Sandro understands the "negativity" ( 🙄) comes from previous ownership scars

Listening to this now - We had the 18th biggest budget in the league last season apparently.

Were can you listen to this if not on twitter??

Twitter only I think. hold  on

https://twitter.com/stfcHanners/status/1541907905351503873?t=Uf8x0ShFpSFC4HA1jJNPiw&s=19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fr8EO8glKg

youtube too

Big fan of cheese especially blue cheese! I like the cut of his jib.

Even if I was lactose intolerant I would risk the cheese induced horrendous adventures in diarrhea.

Be interested to see where it is this year. We were under embargo last year so there was an excuse, but 18/24 on budget when we were 2/24 on attendance and have to be at the higher end of ticket prices....simply not close to acceptable for the backing being given.

Thanks Batch and million pound man, evening listening sorted :)

Cheers mpm. Didn't realise it was on YouTube, very useful

I got the impression that with him deciding last December to leave Wigan that his coming here was arranged way before Chorley decided to leave and may be the reason why he did.

Also, re Karachi. I understand what he said about it, but my question would be - why choose Karachi out of all the places the club could have done this kind of thing.

Talks well, though. As ever the proof of the pudding will be in the recruitment and how that translates on to the pitch.

Said this before but attendance ≠ budget. Think the board have been pretty clear that we're trying to be sustainable. If Crawley, Salford, Stockport et al are prepared to overspend and take on the debt that's on them. It's up to you if that equals ambition or stupidity really. We know what happens to us when we spend beyond our means.

Having said that I don't think we'd be that far down this year. Certainly some smaller teams going for it though. If we can have a successful season and the crowds remain high hopefully the budget increases. Unfortunately given how fragile the fanbase is it will require success on the pitch to sustain that level of crowd.

Yeah, I get that in the sense that some clubs will always spend beyond our teams. I also get that we like a lot of clubs, have debts to pay. This is all understood. Even taking that out of consideration, 18/24 is a long way from being acceptable, in my opinion.

There should be a handful of clubs in this division with a bigger budget than us and that is it. Top half shouldn't even be questionable.

You can get it in any of the usual podcast apps as well

He was working on a consultancy basis once Chorley announced he was off, which was well before the end of the season - then eventually got offered the job on a permanent basis

Not sure it is in question though is it? They are just talking about last seasons, someone will be able to conform but i am sure Rob Angus or Sandro mentioned when talking to Vic recently the budget will be top 5

we were under embargo* limiting our wage options.

we also had to be careful of financial skeletons crawling out.


*ok not umbongo, restrictions because of the monitored loan power took out during COVID

edit: ok, already pointed out above this was last season

Yeah about 4th or 5th would be around what I would expect. That is about what I would expect. We should be in for a hell of a few weeks on signings if that is true.

I think we will be

So, let me get this right…

Budget was 18th and we’ve slashed it but managed to jump to 5th!
What on earth are other clubs doing with their budget!!!

Maybe...the people who think it will be 5th aren't the same people who think the budget has been slashed.

Jeez, I need to sit down, my genius has drained me.

Which goes back to my point the other day. No point the club answering the questions then if people are not going to liste, not saying believe them but even listen to them

People use their own judgement. Internal appointment, lots of youth recruitment. Doesn't scream 40% increase.

But
   - maybe the youths are more expensive because they are higher calibre.
   - maybe we haven't finished recruiting yet!

Going to come back and reevaluate late August

That's kind of my point. In no way am i saying this but what if the club came out and said these players are on more than JoJo and Mitchel lawson for example and that they have offered Lindsey a better deal than Garner was on. Is that good enough for you and others? I get people will make their own judgements but these things are possible but not believable by many

I think in all honesty I'd be surprised and slightly sceptical.  So yeah, it does prove your point. People will judge regardless.

But with transfers that has always been the case. If we were under Power and made these signings and appointments "cheap option" would be rife. In fact it was at times (Luke Williams).

Don't we need to wait until the season starts to make these judgements? It's pointless speculating on budget etc until then.

Window doesn't shut until 1st September which confuses things even more.   Although you'd hope we'd have most of our business done by then there's no way we will have done.

More depth to the squad was needed last year and that will easily eat into the 40% increase (assuming that's the figure).

Lower average wage, but more players would be my guess

yeah manc. that was point 2 of my earlier post.

bloody annoying given the early start. some transfers always seem to go to the wire.

but with last season's contracts ending today I suppose it keeps things steady.

That has got me thinking though. Would JoJo and Mitchel Lawson really be on much more if anymore than Harries and Shade?

Who knows?
Also depends if they had any other offers on the table.
Like I’d imagine you’d end up paying a player who had three other offers and had been on trail at 2 of those clubs more than a player who hadn’t had any interest shown in him what so ever, regardless if he was the better player…

Demand & supply I guess

When did JoJo sign, was it just the beginning of last year? Didn't the EFL loan deal put a cap on wages? Not sure if we could pay extra in bonuses.

Surely JML was cheap.

Still too much

Let's not forget last year as we stated at the precipice of having no club, we would have had to offer a pretty above average wage to encourage people to sign on to what was a barely going concern which had not been paying it's players. Umbungo/wage/contract caps aside.

I'm not saying we couldn't be doing better, but might be worth bearing that in mind when people start talking about wage budgets.