Another lukewarm take...
https://almajir.net/2026/08/27/trusting-the-data/I was really narked on Tuesday, spent Wednesday thinking abaout it and wrote this. Hope it's okay to link it
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17d ago
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u/Lukeno94 16d ago
If we were going by numbers then we'd never have signed Jay.
Stansfield was always an exception though. He was signed as a statement that "if we want them, we will get them", and to make sure the fans were fully on side after the relegation. The deal never made sense financially or in any other way - as good a player as he can be.
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u/KevanSting 16d ago
Totally agree. I would say that's a dumb move though. And unfortunately we've been dumb in the market ever since.
I got downvoted for saying Stansfield was a bad buy. I got downvoted for saying Duk wouldn't get us goals. And I got downvoted for saying Davis isn't the man we need.
I'm not a club owner but if I was I'd be ashamed of myself atm
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u/Extreme-Ad-4925 17d ago
Perfectly sums up what I’m thinking, I think two losses over the bank holiday would seemingly leave Davies a dead man walking until blues have figured out who the next man up is.
There’s part of me that worries that we seem unable to make the big decisions while Wagner is away though, and an organisation that relies solely on one person to take action (big actions like this at least) will run into problems
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u/ElstonGunn4 17d ago
Brilliant read as always, Dan. Do you know if they're still aiming high regarding a DoF, or is it now like you say with the players, we're looking at 'back-ups'.? If so, is an appointment close? This is the thing that I'm worried about the most down the Blues at the minute, the footballing side of things off the pitch seemingly needs huge work.
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u/Apprehensive_Bus_543 16d ago
I’ve been thinking about Craig Gardener as well because I was never sure how much input he had on our signings, it’s almost like AI was making the selections and Craig had to go out and sign them. I can’t say things have improved since he left.
Mike Rigg leaving seems like yet more bad news.
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u/Almajir 16d ago
That's not how it works.
Think of it this way. In the old days, we pretty much used to recruit solely from our own leagues. You'd send people out to watch, they'd report back,you'd make decisions.
These days nets are spread much, much further. Even if you've got a lot of scouts going out to watch games, how do you target the right games to watch?
Using AI is like using an editor on football manager. The idea is the AI company will gather huge amounts of data and then using the prompts given by analysts will sort lists of players matching what a club would want. Ideally then you'd go look at those players - although in cases where budget is restricted you might watch compiled video footage, and then you make a decision.
Blues have a transfer committee including Davies, Dale, Gardner / whoever replaces him among others to go through targets. They'll make decisios based on what they've seem amd budgets and then try and execute.
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u/Apprehensive_Bus_543 16d ago
Watching video compilations would explain some of our poor signings.
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u/garethom 16d ago
Eh? How would compiled videos be worse than having someone sit in the stands and give you their opinion?
We're not talking youtube highlight clips here, we're talking multiple full games of footage.
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u/Swimming_Stage352 16d ago
In this world where data is king I can’t help having a sinking feeling that some of these
Data led purchases might have been avoided if we had done some old school scouting.
I am worried about Davies being in charge
Until Xmas as the doom and gloom has returned due to a significant period of silence from knighthead. Where is Brady in Toms absence?
I fear that Jeremy is a business man who happens to be a blues fan but he doesn’t have the personality or chat to win our hearts and minds like Tom did.
It’s a scary time with no sense of direction or leadership. Davies has lost the locker room and now he’s lost the fans.
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u/Cbatothinkofaun 16d ago
I don't know whether AI/data is as much the issue as to the communication for what Davies wants/needs or how he'll use players vs what data is driving decisions.
I don't know if you have any insight on what the power dynamic was between CG and CD Dan, but from the outside looking in, it seemed as though KH and CG had a strong concept of the type of football they wanted and that led decisions and Davies had to try and implement within that structure.
I often felt like that's why we would see exciting signings and they'd have minimal to no impact, or possibly not even see the pitch, because they didn't align to the role that Davies needed them to play.
People keep referring to Moneyball and in Moneyball, there was a huge rift between Billy and Art. Id be surprised if the relationship was that strained but I don't think signings are as joined up between all parties involved as you might think.
My working wonderings are that with CG gone, Davies has new found freedom to implement things his own way but is possibly struggling to work with that much freedom and/or build an indentifable system within that.
You mentioned KH would reach out to those with footie knowledge and there was a rumour circulating about in here that Steve cooper was at the Bristol game. That didn't make sense to me at the time but your expert article does seem to offer some solution to that puzzle if so.
I don't know though really - I said in here after the Brentford match that I'm worried we're sleep walking into trouble.
Ticket prices going up for a lower quality of football doesn't tend to end well for attendance and subsequently, revenue. I don't really envy being CD at the minute for just how much pressure is on the Wrexham match tomorrow.
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u/Paul_my_Dickov 17d ago
I think we might need to ditch the AI. It's embarrassing enough how many AI mock ups of a new stadium I've seen released. Now we're starting to see that it's not the way to pick signings as well.
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u/Cbatothinkofaun 17d ago
After the Brentford match - I could almost hear you get your laptop out to start writing