Summer mercato 2012

[ACMILAN1983]

I wish Galli is doing and acting like Billy Beane, b.c if that's the case, guys Like Slowdorf, Mexes and Bonera will be long gone by now. Money ball, essentially is figuring out the basic cost for winning. In football, it is extremely hard to do, bc football is not a statistics game.
But let's try to do it for fun here. For example, a defender job is to keep the ball away from the area, since the chances of scoring within and near the area is a lot higher than 30yards out. Someone like Bonera and even Mexes are completely expandable due to being mistake prone at least once a game. A stat that defender should have is how often opponents attacked their side and how many times they managed to get near and inside the box, whether by dribbling or passing. The lower the number the better the defender should be.
A striker job is to score goals. But scoring in the 85th min in a game which the team is winning 2-0 is a lot of different than scoring the first goal of the game in the 88th minute. Thus to judge a striker value will all depends on when he scores and how often he scores. Afterall, you can't win games without scoring.
Midfielder value will be a combination of both stats.
While injuries will also be consider.

If Galli signed Nocerino during the summer instead of signing him bc of Flamini injury, I would say that's a great signing. Since it is not, I would just check that as lucky signing.

We can't do what Billy Beane did because as you say, football isn't a statistics based sport, it's too fast and fluid.

However, we can take inspiration from moneyball, like the use of some statistics to build our squad efficiently. For example, with technology these days we can draw up charts as to which areas a player covers on the field when they play, their natural movements on the field and how they run. We can go a step further and see how well they position themselves in correlation to teammates or how quickly they get back into their defensive role when an attacking move breaks down.

Using such stats would allow a coach to see how individuals might fit into their squad and system.

Whilst we can't do the same, we can look to employ our own technical approach to selecting players who fit our squad.