Andre Villas-Boas has admitted there were «massive, massive» arguments during one transfer window in his time as Tottenham manager and it came down to data-led scouting.
Spurs have now pushed towards more data analysis with their recruitment with the triple arrival this month from Aston Villa of technical director Johan Lange, chief scout Rob Mackenzie and head of football insights and strategy Frederik Leth. The trio have plenty of history of data-led scouting and recruitment to help unearth future stars and those current top players who will be put forward to Ange Postecoglou as potential arrivals to choose from who will fit his system the best.
Villas-Boas, who led Tottenham to their then club record Premier League haul of 72 points in his only full season at the north London outfit in 2012/13, was speaking about his first summer transfer window at Spurs while at the Web Summit in Lisbon this week.
The Portuguese had wanted two midfielders during that transfer window. One was Mousa Dembele, who was top of technical director Franco Baldini's list, and the other was then Porto midfielder Joao Moutinho, who was Villas-Boas' top pick as one of his former players.
However, the Tottenham boss had arguments trying to push through the second transfer and by the time he had convinced the club's recruitment decision-makers to go for the move, the paperwork for a £24m deal was sent through minutes too late for the Premier League deadline.
Villas-Boas used that as an example this week of a player who was not high up on data lists going on to become a star in the game and in the Premier League, with five years at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
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