Scott Brown

Based on what I've read, I seriously doubt it's as comprehensive as you believe. The Catapult GPS system Celtic use has had issues due to the Scottish weather, our analysis isn't as far developed as clubs down south (this came from someone working within the club). Lennon mentioned data when referring to Brown, but he didn't actually produce any. I fully understand the importance of both data and analytics in modern football, but you also need the eye test of how he performs on the pitch, which is the best indicator of where he is as a player. So far this season, it's not been enough. If his sprint speeds were up to scratch then he wouldn't have had players bypassing him in numerous games.

 

As much as you make some very good points, I think it’s important to also consider that Brown’s body will take a significantly longer period of time to hit peak fitness and sharpness than that of a younger player, especially after such a prolonged break. From that perspective, the international break is coming at a terrible time for him.

The tactical shift won’t have helped him either in that he’s not playing with quite as much of the game in front of him as he’s used to.

He’s been written off a million times before and proved his doubters wrong, this could very well be just the latest in a long line.

 

There was a video that Celtic released showing an analysis meeting with youth players and it went into that detail. Distance covered, average heart rate, top sprint speed, duration of sprint (how quickly it tapered off) etc

To be fair to Lennon the specifics of that data shouldn't be published, it's for their benefit as an aid for team selections and tactics.

I agree that the training data becomes meaningless if every game is passing him by and it certainly looked like that til Hibs but there was a few elements to his game that looked a lot better on Sunday that weren't all down to fitness.

His positioning and reading of the game were a lot better, his touch was much improved and his timing of tackles/interceptions was much better. The improvement in those suggested to me that he could've got back a bit of match sharpness through the run of games.

It could have been down to playing against a Hibs midfield that had an off day but there was enough there to show that there could be life in the old dog yet. He can't be playing every game like we've been asking him to though, other guys like Soro and Turnbull need to get some minutes.

 

Aye I'm aware that there is a lot that will and should stay private, it's just that it's easy to say in an interview that the data proves Broony's legs have gone, but several matches contradict that.

Aye mate, he's certainly played enough games to be match fit so I hope he maintains the positive performances, but his overall output is objectively down on last season. He'll certainly play his part this season, but I'm not going to pretend I don't think of him as a concern these days.

 

He's had a poor start no doubt but from going 2 games a week for 13 years and 3 week pre-seasons to a 4 month lay-off with no group training or competitive matches will have some impact on a 35 year olds body.

I'm not going to say he's turned a corner v Hibs, we'll need to see that level over a run of games but there was enough promise to think he's not as finished as some thought - including myself. He was our best player outwith Frimpong.

 

It's not just that the data will be extensive, it's also that the side of his game we are all worrying about is the defensive aspect and DM is literally Lenny's field of expertise. I get that he has looked a bit off the pace, but sometimes our perceptions are not as accurate as the combination of masses of data, the advice of expert sports scientists and the eye of an expert in that aspect of the game in Lenny.

I get that some people would rather trust their own eyes that combination, but our layperson judgements are likely to be less accurate than that. To give two concrete examples, there is the standard we judge him by and the things we don't see.
Regarding the first, folk are definitely getting by him more than before; but he used to be insane at that. Just because he isn't as crazily good as before, doesn't mean he's poor now. What actually is the change in his duel percentage compared to last year? Few (none?) of his critics have access to that data, but it's exactly the kind of information that Lenny probably does have access to.
With regard to the second aspect, there's a lot of good things he's doing offensively that are going unnoticed. I have seen him accused of no longer doing things that he has done that have led to goals. Personally, I share some of the worries about his recovery pace defensively, though I trust Lenny more than my own unexpert eye TBH; but I think he's been playing better offensively than he has been getting credit for for a while now.

 

I’m not going to give a manager a free pass for playing a declining player based on the old cliche of him being a pro means he knows more. He’s previously said he’s not the greatest coach and isn’t an expert in data interpretation or analytics. Furthermore, being an expert at playing a position, doesn’t make you an expert at teaching it or coaching it. I don’t have the stats to hand just now but there’s plenty of it on Twitter and other places. My perception of him currently is backed up by said data; Broony’s output is objectively worse now. No shame in it, he’s getting older. That’s also not to say he doesn’t still have quality, but I believe playing him constantly throughout the season would be negligent and it’s not unfair to say he’s a concern.

 

I'm not asking you to give him a free pass. I'm asking you to consider the possibility that he might be right and you might be wrong. Just wait and see.

He's a good coach. I honestly think there's good reason to suppose he understands the position better than we do. Frankly speaking, there's good reason to suppose that even mediocre coaches (of which Lenny is not one) understand it better than we do. He's not an expert in data interpretation and analytics and neither are we. The big difference is, he works with experts in these areas on a regular basis to look at the data.

TBF, mate, if you want to argue against Lenny's interpretation of the data, it's only fair to ask you to show us the data and your analysis of it so that we can assess it. We already know that Lenny analyses reams of data with the help of experts, but we know nothing about what this data on Twitter implies. I'm not having a go here, we simply can't assess the validity of your argument from this data without seeing it.

It's not, mate. His defensive acceleration has been a concern for me too. I'm just arguing for patience before we jump to conclusions. Especially given what our manager has said.

As I said before, it really comes down to this. We have a good manager who knows the position backed up by experts in the field and amounts of data on Broony we couldn't even dream of. Let's just be humble enough to wait a little before we decide that what we think we see trumps that. That's not a free pass, that's respect Lenny has earned over his two spells as manager here.

 

How incredibly patronising.

 

You're casually dismissing the opinion of an expert in the field who sees him working in person every day, a team of professional medical and sports science personnel with access to reams of data and the expertise to interpret it and offered nothing more to back it up than anecdotes about individual plays, the impression you have from watching him on the telly and a reference to the existence of a few stats you've seen on Twitter (you didn't even offer the stats themselves). This is not arguing against his claim, this is casually dismissing it and explaining it away.

The bit you quote as patronising was in reply to you actually saying he wasn't going to get "a free pass" from you FFS.

It takes skill to argue against that kind of ridiculous statement without being either insulting or patronising. I am sorry that I don't have that skill. I was trying not to be offensive or insulting. But actually my complete lack of respect for that kind of statement is honestly not a lack of respect for the many people who make them (which is lucky, I suppose, because sadly I make them myself sometimes). So I didn't mean to be patronising.

So let me avoid being patronising by being blunt: with respect (because I am honestly not trying to imply you're an arrogant person and nor do I have any right to do that to anyone), is this position not quite arrogant?

Is there any other skilled profession in the world where we do this like we do with football managers? It's just mental. Totally mental.

 

In short, managers are generally in a better position to judge players than supporters are.

Managers nevertheless make foolish decisions from time to time, and supporters are often the first to recognise them; to pretend otherwise is bizarre.

 

I'm not pretending otherwise, though. That's not what I am saying at all. Managers definitely do get it wrong sometimes and supporters are sometimes the first to notice. I agree.

 

I’m not dismissing a thing. I’ll reply to you tomorrow, I’m going to sleep.

 

OK.

 

Been very critical of him this season, one thing I will say though - I’m very glad he'll be lining up for us in the Sevco game with no fans.

The atmosphere obviously won’t be what it usually is, but you can guarantee he’ll make sure everyone in that dressing room knows what’s at stake.

 

Lennon has more than three decades worth of experience, as player and manager, being highly successful in football. I've no doubt that his first hand experience and knowledge trumps ours as outsiders looking in. I expect him to continue to be successful. That doesn't mean he doesn't have flaws and that doesn't mean fans on a discussion forum can’t debate this, where there's evidence that contradicts his continual selection of Broony.

I think he's a good manager, how good a coach he is, I'm not sure. He certainly isn't renowned for player development. He's an intelligent and articulate guy and I have faith in him. I was in a minority who agreed with him post-match in Latvia. However, he has flaws and that has contributed to a monumental failure already this season, as it did at the beginning of last season vs Cluj.

Football isn't a particularly difficult subject to analyse, especially when you've been watching it your entire life and have put some effort into learning more about the game. It's a very accessible field where the main body of work is publicly viewable and readily available for consumption. Of course, I don't see Celtic's training data, but I see enough of our output and the publicly available data on our players to construct an informed opinion.

You only have to look at how the club mismanaged Tierney, to the point where he had to seriously consider retirement, to show that Lennon and Rodgers aren't always making good decisions based on the data available to them. So for all this data available, it's clear that it isn't always fully utilised.

If I wanted to argue against Lennon's interpretation of the data, then he'd had to actually provide some data along with his interpretation of it to argue against. Alas, he hasn't provided anything (I don't actually expect him to) so all I know is that his opinion is that Broony's legs haven't gone. I don't fully agree with him. The stats available from games are in contraciction with his statement, one good game v Hibs aside. I wouldn't care if you were having a go and I'm not really bothered how valid you find my argument, I'm comfortable with my perception of how Broony has done this season. I don't subscribe to Wyscout or any other data analysis as there's no need for me to, but there is still data from Wyscout and other analyst companies available if you care enough to look for it. I don't have the time to go and find every bit of data that I've read, but I'm not lying when I say that Broony's output is on the decline. I'll post some of it below but it's by no means exhaustive.

Here's a thread showing the data proving his decline.


Here's his positioning against St.Mirren



Here's a comparison to a player of the same age, so far this season.


This one shows respective performances vs Hibs.


There's a lot more available out there if you're interested enough. Very little of it backs Lennon up.

One good performance in 11, that's more than enough for there to be concerns without it being someone jumping to a conclusion.

I don't agree that it just comes down to that. There's enough credible information and data out there for people to make informed opinions, along with the perception the get just from watching him play. There's enough evidence to show that even with all the data available, they still make poor decisions. Lennon himself has conceded that Brown can't play every game this season, so even he recognises there's been a decline.

 

Also, lol at this waffle.

 

You're doing a disservice to yourself here Minty. That's not waffle.

Both yourself and @Random Review are making valid points. On the basis of what we seen before the Hibs game I would've contended his legs were gone.

You've said yourself you didn't see the Hibs game, if you had I think you would understand why some people aren't as strong on their opinion that his legs were gone. He commanded it for us and was our best midfielder on the day, even though McGregor and Turnbull looked superb.

Time will tell if he can put in those sorts of performances for us on a run of games. If he can then we'll all be delighted, if he can't then Lennon will have to make the decision to pick others ahead of him.