[robnewbold]

Great interview, great share, and i believe under Bikul stewardship great days ahead.

[GrumpyBaggie]

So step number one, be able to be in championship and sustainable. Step number two, be able to do that whilst being competitive. And when I say that I qualify that as meaning being able to compete for playoffs every year and doing that now without parachute payments.

Very pleased with this philosophy, I would much prefer ann attractive, competitive, financially sustainable team playing in the Championship than the harsh reality of struggling in the cash-dominated greed league

[Standaman]

As ever very interesting and engaging. A 45 minute interview and a  lot to unpack.

Few things of note.

1. We hired a data team which means we didn't have one before which will come as no surprise but never the less is a bit of a shocker.
2. Recruitment process, data, followed by video and final background checks. (Side note here can we end all discussions about whose signing a player is). Some role for coaching staff input but very limited in the talent identification stage.
3. Academy will be of growing importance.
4. Inference that this will be a busy summer.

Finally these guys don't do knee jerk everything is very measured and Nestor sees his role as taking the emotion out of the day to day management of the club. 

[Barrington]

You say they don't do knee-jerk, but I'm not sure I agree with that completely.

We got Dobbin on loan from the Villa presumably to get a lot of time on the pitch, then just bombed him when Johnston became available (and we also had Grant who came back into the fold). Then we did the same with Lankshear. Got him in as highly rated and was again presumably going to get a lot of starts. Then we knee-jerked and got Armstrong in and Lankshear was left to languish on the bench. I'd say they've spent a lot more money than was necessary there when we're not exactly flush with cash.

Saying that though, I do appreciate that they are a lot more data driven now. I was being a bit nit-picky.

[Davros1582]

getting Armstrong was like pulling the best looking bird you could only to find out that you had nothing in common and being to embarrassed not to let her go. You work at it for weeks until you realise it cant go on anymore and then (figurately) bench her.

[zippyandbungle]

getting Armstrong was like pulling the best looking bird you could only to find out that you had nothing in common and being to embarrassed not to let her go. You work at it for weeks until you realise it cant go on anymore and then (figurately) bench her.

Cmon…who’s going to do the joke about “two up top”?

[baggiejohn]

You say they don't do knee-jerk, but I'm not sure I agree with that completely.

We got Dobbin on loan from the Villa presumably to get a lot of time on the pitch, then just bombed him when Johnston became available (and we also had Grant who came back into the fold). Then we did the same with Lankshear. Got him in as highly rated and was again presumably going to get a lot of starts. Then we knee-jerked and got Armstrong in and Lankshear was left to languish on the bench. I'd say they've spent a lot more money than was necessary there when we're not exactly flush with cash.

Saying that though, I do appreciate that they are a lot more data driven now. I was being a bit nit-picky.

I am a massive fan of data profiling, & the process to identify unknown players described by Nestor, is probably cutting edge, however an experienced coach wil be aware of, players that meet the profile & will continue to have a significant input into player selection.

As Standaman said, there is a lot to unpack from the interview, but the one striking point for me was this bit about game model.

The question is, how do you hurt the opposition? What does that formation look like? Is it more controlling the ball in their half? Is it more counter attacking?

We’ve been doing a lot of analysis on our opponents, because fans have probably been frustrated with the low amount of goals scored at home. What we found is that organisation possession-based play that we have has led to teams coming to The Hawthorns and just playing in a low block.

And we’ve struggled a bit to break that. And you see a lot of nil, nil draws. And so we’ve been analysing how we can start to adapt that style a bit more and then build a system around that.

And the system’s a bit fluid. So we’ve built the squad around two key formations and that formation kind of changes during a match. Sometimes we’ll defend with four at the back, we’re attacking with three.

And that then leads from a scouting perspective to take a look at the type of full-backs, for example, or wing backs that you want to bring in that can slide into the midfield as that kind of new number six and then everyone else pushes forward.

So there’s a fluidity to it, but there’s a base philosophy underlying all of those decisions.

I think we all knew we were struggling against the low block & have been for some time, but Nestor's approach was to have a discussion about it & from  what I can gather, that also included the players, so getting total buy-in from those who have to deliver.
In my experience, that approach is what success looks like.

[BalisPen]

Let's hope the data gathering extends to managers too, as the last appointment process was a joke.

[KingKoren]

Let's hope the data gathering extends to managers too, as the last appointment process was a joke.

Have you read it? It clearly is referenced.

[BalisPen]

Have you read it? It clearly is referenced.

Yes, I have and thanks to Gaz for writing it all up.

The appointment of Mowbray was a elongated joke imo and ultimately relied upon a good medical results.

His 10 year model which found Kompany (one season in the championship of those 10) as the best and Mowbray third, whilst the likes of Cooper and Edwards didn't make the top 3 simply doesn't make sense, as surely the likes of Wilder and Warnock would have been higher than him too, as he's had one promotion of the championship in nearly 20 years.

The player recruitment, of Cole especially, goes against everything he said about age and potential.

He says the right things like we belong in the premier league but, he isn't doing anything that the likes of fake Albion have been doing for years, other than appointing a mediocre manager in his big first major appointment.

It's all great pr but, it needs to be backed up with great decisions and most importantly results and I pray and hope that is what happens as quickly as possible.

[Albionic]

Stick with the plan,
 a value cycle
A club sustainable in the championship without parachute payments

Gold dust, we have been very fortunate to get these guys on board

[lewisant]

Anyone fancy doing a TL;DR?! I cannot be reading all that 

[gazberg]

Anyone fancy doing a TL;DR?! I cannot be reading all that 

It's shorter than the podcast! 

[lewisant]

Forgive me but what is the TGG podcast? I’d rather listen

[gazberg]

Forgive me but what is the TGG podcast? I’d rather listen

Training Ground Guru mate sorry. Podcast/article link below


https://trainingground.guru/podcast/andrew-nestor-leading-a-new-era-at-west-brom/

[MarkW]

Anyone fancy doing a TL;DR?! I cannot be reading all that 

Recruitment - data-led first line, then video, then in-person

Manager recruitment - created a model to try to determine performance uplift by managers. Mowbray was Top 3 in that model over last 10 years

Trying to balance lowering age of team with having a competitive squad who can be in and around the playoffs. Loss of parachute payments made it more important that we're smart with money

Then there was a lot of talk about how Nestor got involved with Bologna, how he met Shilen etc.

[boingboing1989]

Yes, I have and thanks to Gaz for writing it all up.

The appointment of Mowbray was a elongated joke imo and ultimately relied upon a good medical results.

His 10 year model which found Kompany (one season in the championship of those 10) as the best and Mowbray third, whilst the likes of Cooper and Edwards didn't make the top 3 simply doesn't make sense, as surely the likes of Wilder and Warnock would have been higher than him too, as he's had one promotion of the championship in nearly 20 years.

The player recruitment, of Cole especially, goes against everything he said about age and potential.

He says the right things like we belong in the premier league but, he isn't doing anything that the likes of fake Albion have been doing for years, other than appointing a mediocre manager in his big first major appointment.

It's all great pr but, it needs to be backed up with great decisions and most importantly results and I pray and hope that is what happens as quickly as possible.

Thats the one thing that stuck out to me, we've got all this fancy data driven scouting and someone signed off on Devante effin Cole.

[lewisant]

Recruitment - data-led first line, then video, then in-person

Manager recruitment - created a model to try to determine performance uplift by managers. Mowbray was Top 3 in that model over last 10 years

Trying to balance lowering age of team with having a competitive squad who can be in and around the playoffs. Loss of parachute payments made it more important that we're smart with money

Then there was a lot of talk about how Nestor got involved with Bologna, how he met Shilen etc.

Thanks mate, at least we aren’t in the dark days anymore.

[zippyandbungle]

Yes, I have and thanks to Gaz for writing it all up.

The appointment of Mowbray was a elongated joke imo and ultimately relied upon a good medical results.

His 10 year model which found Kompany (one season in the championship of those 10) as the best and Mowbray third, whilst the likes of Cooper and Edwards didn't make the top 3 simply doesn't make sense, as surely the likes of Wilder and Warnock would have been higher than him too, as he's had one promotion of the championship in nearly 20 years.

The player recruitment, of Cole especially, goes against everything he said about age and potential.

He says the right things like we belong in the premier league but, he isn't doing anything that the likes of fake Albion have been doing for years, other than appointing a mediocre manager in his big first major appointment.

It's all great pr but, it needs to be backed up with great decisions and most importantly results and I pray and hope that is what happens as quickly as possible.

I think you have some very good points

Not specific to us, but there are definitely players/managers out there that area a bit more savvy when a microphone is shoved under their nose and as a consequence the fans seem to fall for it.
Of course I’d like our owners to be fully invested/comitted  to making us extremely competitive in the mid table prem and developing our club….but we won’t know until we see it, despite how good they are at interviews.

[NJS]

I think Cooper turned us down.  Wilder? no chance.  Rob Edwards would have required shelling out some money - why would he not have wanted to have another season with Luton when we were wildly casting around after the sudden departure of Corberan.

I suspect we have at least another season with Mowbray which I am underwhelmed about but I'm a Baggies fan so I hope(that word)  he has learnt a few things about structure in his travels. 

I also believe that the loan of Armstrong was down to him so he will have even less say in recruitment going forward.

[baggiejohn]

Thats the one thing that stuck out to me, we've got all this fancy data driven scouting and someone signed off on Devante effin Cole.

The purpose of  anything data driven is to provide evidence that helps with decision making.

Cole was a low risk/low cost stop gap that's all.

I'd say they got most of the decisions right for players.

As far as Mowbray is concerned, Nestor talked about "uplift", I assume, by that, he meant the squad was in a better place when he left a club than it was when he joined. Depending on what criteria & units of measure they used, it's quite likely that Mowbray came third of the coaches that could have been available.
It's pretty clear to me, from the section on game model, that Nestor & the coaching team have had conversations on how to get through the low block, so Nestor sees himself as a mentor. That's a good way to move forward IMO.

[MarkW]

The purpose of  anything data driven is to provide evidence that helps with decision making.

Cole was a low risk/low cost stop gap that's all.

I'd say they got most of the decisions right for players.

As far as Mowbray is concerned, Nestor talked about "uplift", I assume, by that, he meant the squad was in a better place when he left a club than it was when he joined. Depending on what criteria & units of measure they used, it's quite likely that Mowbray came third of the coaches that could have been available.
It's pretty clear to me, from the section on game model, that Nestor & the coaching team have had conversations on how to get through the low block, so Nestor sees himself as a mentor. That's a good way to move forward IMO.

My educated guess (in that model uplift is something used in my industry) is that they created a model to predict performance of teams on paper, and then looked at actual performance, and the gap between modelled performance and actual is your "uplift".

Without making a load of assumptions it's hard to guess what the mod had in it, but essentially it's trying to say "This season should have finished with 55 points but got 65 points, so the manager has a +10 uplift on performance if all else is equal".

My main issue with that is depending on what the model is trained on, you don't know if it was the manager who caused the uplift, or maybe it was luck in the way the fixtures fell, or something else you haven't considered.

Fans (and football professionals) like to underestimate the role of luck and variance in football. If you have an 80% chance of winning a game, then losing shouldn't come as a surprise because that's still a 1 in 5 chance! (Ignore draws just for the sake of argument).

There are so many factors that can't be considered - refereeing for example - and there are things that don't tend to enter the conversation, like when you play a team - are they on a poor run of form or having a new manager bounce? What injuries do they have?

Attributing all uplift to a manager is a dangerous thing in my opinion, unless they have research on how much impact a manager can have, and how long they need to have that impact

[NJS]

I agree that modelling cannot tell you everything.  But it is better to perform some modelling and measurement than only relying on intuition / gut feeling.  Just the exercise of modelling makes you reflect before deciding.

[zippyandbungle]

I agree that modelling cannot tell you everything.  But it is better to perform some modelling and measurement than only relying on intuition / gut feeling.  Just the exercise of modelling makes you reflect before deciding.

This is also a very good point
In sales I always say if you make sure that you have everything in place, people /product/marjeting/location….then it’s at least not your fault if people just do not choose to purchase .
Any preparation always beats no preparation, but still doesn’t guarantee.

[MarkW]

I agree that modelling cannot tell you everything.  But it is better to perform some modelling and measurement than only relying on intuition / gut feeling.  Just the exercise of modelling makes you reflect before deciding.

Oh absolutely, I'm a data analyst in real life so I'm definitely aware!

"All models are wrong but some are useful" is the mantra to live by!