#player-recruitment

#player-recruitment

The NWSL still lacks a unified academy system, but with the college draft being abolished and combines -- including a youth combine to scout talent as young as 13 -- age is not holding recruitment back as it did in years past. Now, more teams are increasingly identifying young players who can make a difference -- and several already are, in big ways.

Expected goals (xG) is a metric used to determine how likely a player is to score a chance and to calculate how many goals a team is expected to score in a match. The metric was invented in 2012 by Opta's Sam Green and has become commonplace across football analytics. In xG, every shot a player has is given a score between zero and one.

It would be wrong to get too far ahead of anything on this one. But it was impossible to ignore the alternative reading: Spurs did not want to be drawn into a battle with their rivals over one of the most exciting talents on the market. Spurs were fearful of that, and for good reason. They had to know that, given the choice, Eze would go for Arsenal over them.

The whole system is lubricated by agents: how they work and how they make things work. At my club, we have closed the door to that now.

West Ham United are aiming to appoint Fiorentina chief scout Antonio Tramontano to improve their recruitment and scouting as they prepare for significant changes.

Thomas Frank's appointment as Tottenham Hotspur manager signifies a new direction for the club, emphasizing a need for experienced players to complement the current squad.