Joseph Simmons on Field Scouting in the EPL

Joseph Simmonds has 10 years of experience in European football scouting. Currently working for Watford Football Club, his past roles have included being a Senior Scout at Crystal Palace Football Club, an Emerging Talent Scout at Southampton Football Club, and a Technical Analyst and Scout at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. He also works as a consultant on technical, analytical, and live scouting reports for clubs and organizations.

In this episode of the Winning With Data podcast, Joseph Simmonds talks with Jake about the field scouting process. Joseph also mentions how important analytics and AI are to giving scouts, coaches, and management back their time to do tasks that are better fit for human eyes. Even though AI is hugely beneficial to scouts, he talks about the challenges that clubs face when trying to implement data analytics platforms as mostly due to cost and trying to find the right people and the right platforms for the job. If this balance can be found, however, AI can greatly improve the player fit analysis process for any club team.