‘Clubs will not share data with England’
Gareth Southgate says that Premier League clubs are withholding player data from the England management, despite a prior agreement to share analysis.
Last year, the Football Association struck a deal with Premier League clubs to share certain performance and sports science data on England players at Euro 2016. But Southgate revealed that while England continue to share their player data freely with clubs, some – Manchester United being one – are not reciprocating.
“We share our data,” Southgate said. “We don’t always receive data. So, that’s where we would like to head towards, because it helps work out a training schedule when they first come into camp. But we can’t enforce it. It’s got to be an agreement, and, at the moment, some clubs are more comfortable with it than others.”
The increasing role of sports science data in the modern game has encouraged the FA to seek greater insight from clubs on how players are performing and how best to train them. But with some of Southgate’s backroom staff also working for Premier League clubs, there are potential issues over who sees such data and how it will be used.
In theory, a coach for one Premier League club might have indirect access to data on players at rival clubs. Goalkeeping coach Martyn Margetson is at Crystal Palace, for example, while assistant coach Steve Holland was at Chelsea until recently. “One of the dangers is the perception of it being leaked,” Southgate admitted.
Another issue is the nature of the data being recorded. England use GPS monitoring to track players’ performance in training, but Jose Mourinho is not a fan of the technology, and scrapped it at Chelsea and Manchester United. Instead, United use a monitoring system called Omegawave.
Southgate played down any suggestion of a club-versus-country dispute. “Relations are as healthy as you could expect,” he said.
Meanwhile, Liverpool defender Nathaniel Clyne is out of the squad with a back injury so Tottenham’s Kieran Trippier could make his international debut at right-back.