MATCH OF THE DATA

City sign Artificial Intelligence guru as they believe analytics will give them edge over rivals

MANCHESTER CITY’S latest signing is a Harvard University scientist with a PhD in astrophysics.

Laurie Shaw, a Manchesterborn Cambridge graduate who comes from a football-mad family, has been appointed as lead artificial intelligence scientist at the Etihad.

And it is hoped he will help Pep Guardiola reach for the stars.

Top clubs have increasingly started to use data analytics in a number of areas as they look to gain a competitive edge.

As well as helping to identify and monitor potential signings around the world, statistical data is playing a key role in things like tactical analysis, player performance and injury prevention.

City have been football’s biggest spenders in the transfer market since being taken over by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour in 2008.

As well as protecting top performers like Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero and record-signing Ruben Dias, analytics can also help when it comes to recruiting the next homegrown starlets like Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho.

Premier League champions Liverpool are also huge believers in using big data systems to gain an advantage.

Last April the Merseyside club appointed William Spearman as their lead data scientist after he had conducted research on the Higgs boson particle for his PhD at Harvard.

City have been striving to keep pace with their rivals after making Brian Prestidge their director of insights and decision technology a year ago.

Prestidge has brought in a football intelligence officer, a performance physicist and a datadriven scouting coordinator onto the staff.

But the arrival of Shaw is seen as a major coup, even though he has a brother who is a fanatical Liverpool supporter.

Shaw’s appointment – first reported by the website Training Ground Guru – comes after he spent three-and-a-half years as a research scientist and lecturer at Harvard.

He specialised in the analysis and applications of spatiotemporal data – also used to track shipping movements across the oceans – in team sports.

Shaw has also spent time developing trading systems for the £30billion hedge fund at Winton Capital Management in London.

And he later worked for five years working in Whitehall as a Treasury policy adviser.

But his real passion is football. On his blog, he confessed to being raised by a “football-mad family” and has written several articles about the impact of Brexit on the British game.

Shaw’s blog explains: “I am going to use whatever data I can get my hands on to explore interesting questions or statements, investigate some of football’s considerable store of ‘conventional wisdom’ and generally see if I can find any new or interesting perspectives.”