Stat’ll do nicely for new UNited performance analyst Clifford

The Sky Blues have taken their preparation for matches to a whole new level with the appointment of Clifford Adams as a sports analyst.

The local man had previously held the role of reserve team manager at the Showgrounds but his love for the statistical side of the game has seen manager Glenn Ferguson promote Clifford to work exclusively with the first team next season.

“I was always interested in that side of the game and I did a few bits and pieces on a voluntary basis shortly after Glenn took over,” Cliffy told Times Sport.

“I actually found it quite addictive and wanted to take it further but wasn’t really sure how to go about it.”

A quick internet search turned up the name of Jason Lear, a training and development consultant specialising in people performance management, with a particular interest in the sporting sector.

With the only recognised qualification in sports performance analysis being a weighty Masters degree, Jason designed a more vocational-based course and after completing that course, Clifford is now the holder of Level 3 Award in Sport Performance Analysis.

Clifford’s role involved him videoing game and then reviewing them to identify individual players’ performance, for example in terms of passes made, and within the first few weeks, it turned up some pretty staggering facts.

“We were able to see that one particular player was slower in moving out than the rest of the back four and in 45 minutes of one game, one particular player only touched the ball four times.

“In the opening 20 minutes of one match, a player gave away possession with the majority of his passes but when it was pointed out to him at half-time, he only misplaced three passes in the second half.

“Of course the boys have already nicknamed me ‘Statto’ but they have taken to it really well. It has actually reached the stage where individual players are asking me ‘what were my stats like last Saturday?’.

“It can be time-consuming, watching and re-watching the videos and getting the data on each player from it but it’s a perfectly legitimate way of improving the performance of individual players when it is pointed out to them on a screen what they’re doing right and doing wrong and you could see the gradual improvement towards the end of last season.

“The analysis can also be used in terms of gaining information on how other teams perform, for example, how they line up at free kicks, their variation of free kicks, which players make which runs etc - if you’re going into games with that information, it’s a big help.

Jason Lear explained: “In a survey a while back conducted among professional sports coaches, they could only remember 30 per cent of events that took place during games so it’s a very useful resource to be able to go back and look at specific moments in matches.

“When Brendan Rodgers took over at Liverpool, he took his backroom staff with him, including his performance analyst - that wouldn’t have happened five years ago.

“A good analyst actually become more of a facilitator than actually driving the programme - you will probably see next season Ballymena players coming to Clifford and telling him what information they require of him.”

United boss Glenn Ferguson said: “Cliffy comes into the dressing room at half-time with all the information from the first half and it gives us a very good idea of the areas we’re doing well in and the ones where we need to improve in the second half which is a huge help to the coaching staff.

“We try to do things as professionally as possible at Ballymena and if we can mirror some of the things that the top cross-channel sides do, it should be to our advantage,” added Glenn.