Where does Marinus Dijkhuizen’s Brentford sacking leave the football analytics revolution? Adam Bate looks at events at the club that continues to divide opinion...
It's not easy being a poster boy. The hopes and dreams of others are soon transposed onto you. Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers tells a tale to that effect in the brilliant new book about football management Living On The Volcano. "There's a guy I really respect in the coaching fraternity in youth development," says Rodgers.
"He was delighted when I moved from that area into management at Watford, but when I got the sack at Reading I could see the pain in his face. He looked at me and went, 'We all really wanted you to succeed'. It was as if he was hurt for himself and the modern breed of coaches who are coming through."
It's understandable if football's analytics devotees are feeling a similar sense of deflation this week following the news that Marinus Dijkhuizen has been sacked by Brentford. It's just the latest setback for a club that had put itself at the forefront of the game's data analytics revolution.
In some circles, there is little sympathy. Football does 'I told you so' better than most and the decision not to renew Mark Warburton's contract, despite him guiding the Bees to within two play-off ties of the top flight for the first time since 1947, baffled many. Subsequent events have only supported that view.
Warburton thriving
Having won his first 11 games in charge, Warburton is thriving at Rangers. Meanwhile, Dijkuizen, brought in on the basis of strong underlying data from his time with Excelsior in Holland, departs Brentford with the club just one point above the Championship's relegation zone. It's an irresistible contrast.
For Brentford, it's been a miserable start. Although styled as a club concerned with the details, summer drainage work on the Griffin Park left the surface "a disaster, awful and unbelievable" according to Dijkhuizen and club-record signing Andreas Bjelland duly suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury in their first game on it - a 4-0 cup defeat to Oxford.
Bjelland has formed just part of a crippling injury list with new signings suffering more than most, while the club-record sale of Andre Gray to Burnley last month - after having scored in Brentford's first two games - only added to the sense of disruption.
The February statement had justified the parting of the ways with Warburton in terms of differing "football philosophies" but it's Brentford's focus on hitherto unconsidered key performance indicators and mathematical modelling that's under scrutiny now. And the views of sporting director Rasmus Ankersen still feel subversive.
Radical
"We redesigned the club based on a question," Ankersen told Michiel de Hoog of De Correspondent. "What would a football club look like if it had no human eye and ear? Of course, it turns out you need a human element but if you say from the start it has to be a combination of stats and humans, you won't be radical enough to make a difference."
In many ways, football in Britain with its accepted wisdoms, tired truisms and flawed logic remains ripe for radicalisation and Brentford's initial success hinted that the gains that could be made by taking an entirely fresh approach were not so marginal.
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