There was an interesting piece in the front pages of the newspaper the other day, talking about how hospitals are likely to start using AI to predict bed occupancy times amongst patients, using a huge and varied data set. This, it's hoped, will allow NHS staff to accurately manage space, and cut down on a significant inefficiency. It all sounds a very good idea, until that point you remember that trying to predict human behaviour through data alone is a very precarious business. Data is king, as the Zuckerbergs of the world will tell you, but humans are squishy, odd things, and even if you have a huge set of data points to work with, all those imponderables like emotions, biases, getting out of the wrong side of bed, can make all your data points end up looking a little bit silly when push comes to shove.
Two threes are six, three threes are...err...nine
Football fans are a fickle bunch, and despite the general agreement amongst the Saints' contingent that it was time for Ralph to go, having been bled dry by the demands of keeping a severely limited squad in the world's toughest league, there was an almost universal feeling of shock (and to a large degree, shock's bedfellow horror) when Southampton announced Nathan Jones as their new manager.
Regardless, the fans took a big gulp of air and scrabbled around looking for the positives, whilst Jones himself worryingly told us that he had come top in "the data metrics" (back to that later), which is why he'd been the clear number one choice. He was aware that in the main, nobody was expecting him to be the name that new owners, Sport Republic were going to choose, and frankly was nobody but Sport Republic's first choice. But hey, what do we fans know, he is certainly hard working, energetic, has done a good job with Luton and, well, he has great data, right? Plus he would have a six week period to shape the team to his ideas and philosophy, so after the world cup finished, we should get to see a new, revitalised team.
Oh.
Two games into the new reign (discounting the Liverpool match directly after he joined) and we look a team utterly bereft of not just confidence but ideas, and most worryingly, an understanding of what Jones wants his players to do. Though it's absurd to even think about judging a new manager after only two games (let's call it the De Boer Conundrum), the reality is that we look a far worse team already than we did even under the worst parts of Ralph's tenure. We could, and probably should, have lost to League One Lincoln, and low-scoring Brighton could pretty have much scored however many they liked, such was their dominance. The Brighton match was particularly galling, as they looked exactly like the team we once were, utilising the style of recruitment we were once most famed for. Credit to Tony Bloom and his team - keep bottling that magic, as it can so easily go missing.
Frank de Boer. Also not very good.
Okay, so Jones was smart enough to realise the problems in-game, and changed formation no fewer than five times in the match itself (smart or desperate, you decide...) but having had six weeks to work with the team, surely part of that homework would have been watching where things had gone wrong in previous games. With that in mind, starting with Diallo, Djenepo and Lyanco was...curious. In fairness, Lyanco wasn't awful, but he's still more meme than footballer. Remember the famous Einstein quote regarding madness? And now there's talk about getting the universally derided Jan Bednarek back. Great.
We're now going into a massive January for the club. Without significant reinforcements coming in, including that much missed goalscorer, we are almost definitely headed for the Championship next season. The problem integral to this is that almost every other club, and certainly all the others around our level, are looking to recruit a goalscorer this window as well, so why is a talent going to choose Southampton over Leicester, Wolves, Everton etc? The truth is, they're not. And a large part of that will be as a result of employing a manager that the data likes more than the humans. Nobody ever joined a club because they fancied the look of the manager's metrics...
Cody Gakpo. Definitely not joining Southampton
When Sport Republic took over the club, there was a general relief at the closure of the Gao era of nothingness. The new owner had some money, and we were sold the dream of having a "football man" in Rasmus Ankersen back in charge. Supposedly hugely connected in the game, Ankersen came with a moneyball reputation - the data man. The driving force behind yanking Brentford up into the Premier League by sitting and analysing banks of data. All well and good. But with it seems to have come a real sense of arrogance in the approach of "we know best", and a counter-narrative approach the like of which our own Matt Le Tissier would be hugely proud. The departure of Matt Crocker and the mysterious situation with Romeo Lavia's fitness are hardly helping an already hyper-sensitive fanbase settle either.
Rasmus Ankersen
It may well work, in which case, I take it all back, and Rasmus you are some kind of magic genius. If, as seems more likely, Nathan Jones is the Liz Truss to Ralph's Boris, well then there are some very real questions that need to be asked. Data will tell you that our xG was higher against Brighton than theirs. Much as it may have it's uses, to rely on it is folly.
Off to Fulham we go. Surely it can't get much worse, can it?