Scouting for the Premier League

Writing for the OptaPro blog, Paul Carr uses TruMedia's ProVision tool (developed in partnership with Opta) to show how a newly-promoted Premier League club might use data while searching for a left-sided attacker.

"To narrow the pool of candidates, the search is limited to the just-completed European league seasons for players:

- From the Dutch Eredivisie, Belgium’s Jupiler League, Ligue 2, 2. Bundesliga and England’s Championship
- Who played as a left midfielder, left attacking midfielder, left winger or left wing back
- With at least 900 minutes this season
- Currently age 30 or younger
- Who are right-footed or use both feet equally well

That leaves 73 players on our target list, with the four selected statistics (expected goals, expected assists, defensive actions in each half of the field) scaled on a per-90-minute basis."

Full article: OptaPro blog (by Paul Carr, Director of Content Development)