“This job has evolved a lot. Data is taking a stronger and stronger place. You have to really argue to be against data. In a club, statistics give people the chance to exist who have little knowledge. And these numbers act as a safety guard for decision-makers who lack courage. That, yes, that annoys me.
The other problem, is that the players are aware of this trend. I ask myself to what extent they’re playing to make their numbers good, the duels they have won, the amount of kilometres they have run. It is not particularly positive: I can win 100% of my duels if I refuse to accept everything that I am risking to lose. We see more and more players fleeing the duel and I think that there is a risk that this continues until statistics count this refusal of a player to engage himself. Among very talented youngsters, the duel is a missing weapon.”
http://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/20 ... -to-exist/
Completely agree with Grimandi on this. Judging a player on statistics is completely ridiculous (apart from of course goal per game etc). Statistics shouldn't be the be all and end all of judging a footballer. There's too many different variables that can't be taken into account. Such as presence on the pitch for example. It's staggering to hear that players don't enter duels/tackles sometimes because they think they're going to lose it and don't want their stats to decrease. Tl;dr f**k stats tbh
