Everton have hired the founder of a data company and are hoping to bring in the man behind David Moyes’ superb Everton recruitment in the 2000s.
The club has hired Chris Howarth, founder of football data company Sport Insights, as Head of Strategy, and wants to bring back James Smith as a replacement for outgoing Head of Recruitment Dan Purdy.
The excellent Paddy Boyland at the Athletic shared the news today in a fantastic article outlining Everton’s latest steps to overhaul the club ahead of a massive summer transfer window. You can read the full article here.
Smith, who has been director of recruitment at Manchester City for a decade, worked under David Moyes at Everton from 2003 to 2013 before a year at Manchester United. Known as one of the best data-driven recruitment experts in football, he was one of the brains behind Moyes’ famous transfer white boards.
Under Moyes’ first spell at the club Everton’s recruitment was almost flawless, with multiple bargain buys from abroad and lower leagues sending the club into the top half of the table despite chaos behind the scenes and severely limited funds.
David Moyes’ famous recruitment boards were the secret to Everton’s incredible success when it came to being competitive on a budget – and Smith was the scout behind the success.
There were four boards in the system. The first listed foreign players flagged by the early data systems in place. There were always 1,000 names on there that had been identified and were deemed to be realistic recruits. The next board contained a narrowed-down list of targets actively being tracked with colour coding identifying those available on free transfers and loans.
A third board featured players personally identified by David Moyes and his staff. The rules stated they had to be under the age of 26 and realistic for Everton’s budget. A fourth features the Everton squad with ages, contract details and where they stand in Moyes’ preferred starting team.
Other boards feature potential players from the Championship, League One and League Two, while a final board is the ‘live’ tracker featuring players Everton were actively pursuing.
Under the system, Everton identified the likes of Leighton Baines, Tim Cahill and Seamus Coleman, while players such as James Rodriguez, David Silva and Gary Cahill were followed before moving on to other clubs.
James Smith at the time said: “We can’t afford to get it wrong. If Manchester City waste £20 million, which they’ve actually done at times, it doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things. So 20 on Jo, 20 on Roque Santa Cruz. No problem. But if Everton waste £20 million, we’ll wait a long time to get anything like that again. David Moyes spends the money like it’s his own.”
The result was a recruitment operation that punched above its weight and was the envy of the league, years before Brighton and Brentford became the data darlings by taking the idea and evolving it to suit the modern game.
Smith, who followed Moyes to Manchester United and then ironically was signed by Manchester City to revamp their recruitment, was clear about the glass ceiling within Everton’s recruitment between 2003 and 2013.
According to Sports Discovery, he said: “At Everton at the moment we’re still very much in a world of GCSE math.
“We look at averages, we look at benchmarking, we are in the world of bar charts. At the moment we are not doing more sophisticated regression analysis” – a statistical process used for predicting future outcomes – “but we know that is probably the way forward and that’s where we hope to be before too long. But at the moment that tends to be the bigger clubs, the better-resourced clubs really.”
Moving to Manchester United (briefly) and then on to Manchester City has clearly given Smith the ability to better build data to benefit recruitment.
Here is where there is good news at Everton. Chris Howarth, who owns data company Sport Insights, has already joined the Everton staff. As confirmed by Paddy Boyland, Howarth is Head of Strategy at the club and will be bringing his industry-leading data and statistics modelling to Everton’s recruitment department.
It means all of the limitations of Moyes’ first time at the club are gone. Everton have the financial power and access to the data that will allow them to be cleverer and more efficient in the transfer market, all while working seamlessly with David Moyes to improve the squad with a single, focused strategy.
The move to appoint Howarth is a drastic overhaul in Everton’s recruitment philosophy. It is a sign Everton are finally moving into the modern era of data-driven recruitment while still keeping football experts such as Moyes as the final word on who ultimately joins the club.
If Everton can tempt back James Smith from Manchester City it represents a huge win for the Friedkin Group. It will be a move supported by David Moyes due to their work together in the past while still recruiting from a place where recruitment and data is best-in-class.
The Friedkin Group’s biggest challenge at Everton is to somehow bridge the gap between a veteran manager who will want to be in control and the modern need for analysts, scouts and a club strategy to all be in sync to ensure longevity when that manager leaves.