“It is not the way it was”: Town midfielder expresses changes in…

Ipswich Town midfielder Conor Chaplin feels data and analysis have become an important element of modern football, but they must be used correctly to have the desired impact.

Kieran McKenna’s half-time team talks involve showing first-half highlights and discussing how to improve after the break, according to multiple players.

Although this is soon becoming widespread practice in the sport, Ipswich appear to gain significantly. They’ve won more points from losing positions than anybody else in the Championship, and they frequently show significant improvement on either side of halftime.

Chaplin claimed that this was not typical when he first started playing professional football, but his time at Barnsley demonstrated what can be accomplished with the correct data and analysis, such as in the 2020/21 season, when they finished fifth in the Championship under Valerien Ismael.

“It’s football now, really,” he remarked. “When I initially started coming through, there wasn’t anything. Analysis was important, but in-game analysis is crucial for making minor adjustments, whether they are positional or shape-related. Any minor adjustments might make a significant difference.

“I only came across it at Barnsley, and it was with foreign managers, specifically Austrian managers. At the time, I assumed it came from there. It was quite beneficial as a player.

“Coming here, it’s shifted to a new level. You can sense how it goes in a game occasionally, whether it’s not going your way or you’re performing well. If you make a change at halftime, the boss comes in and shows us, along with the coaching staff. Generally, it makes a significant difference.

Statistics are another matter. While they can be useful, they can also add unnecessary complexity to the game if used incorrectly. Expected goals [xG], for example, is a metric that measures the quality of opportunities but is influenced by factors such as game situation.

If a team loses an early goal, their xG will normally be higher because they are striving to get back into the game while the opposing team defends their lead, but this does not necessarily imply that one team is considerably better than the other.

Chaplin cites the FA Cup defeat to Maidstone United as an example. The Blues accomplished far more than their non-league opponents, but they simply couldn’t convert their chances and lost the game as a result. The xG ended up being 3.66 to 0.84 in Ipswich’s favour, but it revealed little other than the fact that they dominated the game, which was obvious to all and therefore irrelevant.