England’s success set to continue as clubs invest in youth – sports scientist

England’s recent tournament success is set to continue as Premier League clubs invest more resources into developing young talent, according to a sports scientist involved in the process.

Manager Gareth Southgate moved on after a second-successive European Championship runner-up finish, with his as-yet unidentified successor inheriting a young squad with significant experience on the biggest of stages.

Premier League and EFL clubs last year launched the Football Intelligence Platform with sports science company Kitman Labs, with the data provided used at academies within the Elite Player Performance Plan and through to first-team football.

Kitman Labs CEO Stephen Smith told the PA news agency: “You’ve seen through the last major tournaments that England have played in, the quality of the teams, they’ve got to back-to-back European finals.

“If you look at the average age of the squads, they’ve been getting lower in both of those competitions. The quality of youth talent that’s coming through that funnel is exceptional.

“I think if you look at how they’re using data to improve those talent development pathways, England has been a real stronghold in terms of talent development in youth football and it’s really impressive to watch.

“People like (Kobbie) Mainoo, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer, they’re all academy products coming through and if (clubs) can continue to use data and fine-tune those processes, the future is very bright for English football.”

The Football Intelligence Platform serves as a centralised hub for physical and performance data for first-team and academy players alike, allowing clubs searching for the next Foden or Mainoo to identify the key requirements at an early stage.

“It’s about the talent development process, collecting every piece of information from the very first day of their elite pathway all the way through to the end,” said Smith.

“That allows us to understand what aspects are working or not and also plays a huge role in benchmarking, for players to understand ‘What do other players who graduate to professionalism actually look like? How far off that are you?’.

“By having the right data, that breadcrumb trail, you can follow that backwards. You can show them, ‘Other midfielders that graduate into the professional game look like you in these characteristics but actually you’re 20 per cent off in these characteristics’.

“It gives them a real definition to take control of their career, to understand, ‘Where do I need to improve?’.”

The importance of youth development has only increased since the adoption of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules and UEFA’s Financial Fair Play system.

Palmer’s £42.5m move to Chelsea last summer is a notable example of a move generating pure profit for Manchester City, where he came through the academy.

Smith said: “At this point, as data pertains to youth development, there’s a bit of an arms race because of the impact of Financial Fair Play and things like that.

“I think English clubs will use this as a strength, if the talent development pathways continue to get better – not only will we see more players graduate to the first teams in those clubs, but we’ll see a lot of players sold globally to generate a lot of revenue for English clubs.

“Right now, the development pathways in English football and the level of sophistication through technology and data, it’s streets ahead of any other country globally.”