JENKINS DISCUSSES ACADEMY RECRUITMENT UNDER AISCOUT

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

Burnley pioneering the use of new technology to find footballing talent

2021-09-28T15:53:50.597Z

JENKINS DISCUSSES ACADEMY RECRUITMENT UNDER AISCOUT

Burnley pioneering the use of new technology to find footballing talent

2021-09-28T15:53:50.597Z

Burnley pioneering the use of new technology to find footballing talent

This summer it wasn’t only the men's first-team signings, such as Maxwel Cornet, that represented a new direction in recruitment for the Clarets.

Burnley Football Club have been at the forefront of an ongoing revolution in the recruitment of young players.

AiScout is a worldwide talent scouting software system, which uses artificial intelligence and data to assess footballers.

Earlier this year the club became the first in the Premier League to launch an open global talent search using this software. But how does it work?

Richard Felton-Thomas is the COO and Director of Sports Science at AiScout, and explained his role in helping the club's youth recruitment team.

He said: “I work closely with Paul (Jenkins, Academy Director) and his team to understand what they need and how best they can utilise this tool, to make a difference to strategy.

“From the sports science point of view I run a team that understand the science around the football drills we put into our application.

“This allows us to find what makes a good player at a certain drill, and every level below.”

Paul Jenkins' role at the club changed earlier this month to Academy Director, giving him the task of overseeing the mission to bring through talented players capable of reaching the first team.

Vastly experienced in the academy structure and coaching youth players, Jenkins is already well-aware of the challenges the Clarets face when it comes to competing for the best young players.

He explained: “Geographically this is a massive challenge. With all due respect to the other clubs, it is a highly competitive market. It is highly competitive not just at 14, 15, 16, but clubs are now bringing in players from six and seven years old.

“That is how challenging this is. So we are trying to be more innovative about he we recruit. We have to be forward-thinking."

This is one of the reasons the club has utilised the AiScout programme, with

Jenkins spearheading the programme and talent search when first joining as a technical consultant earlier this year.

“The owners saw the potential of AiScout, saw the potential of how positive it could be for recruitment,” Jenkins said.

“Since I have come on board we have tried to marry together the conventional way of recruitment, with artificial intelligence.

“Through the process and information Richard and his team put together, it will allow us to tap into that market.”

The app’s detailed analysis allows the club to examine players with very specific attributes.

Felton-Thomas explained: “We want to gather as much about the player as possible, but broadly speaking we split things into three categories – physical, technical and cognitive.

“In the trials used by the club we focused on physical and technical. You can filter this down to dribbling, passing, technique but within each of these there are very fine details.

Young Clarets pick up second consecutive win with victory over Magpies at Gawthorpe

“For example on first touch, it’s not simply about receiving the ball, it’s about body position, position on the pitch etc. So we get a lot of micro-information from each drill.

“We learn every time we do those with a club, and can compare those on trial with our current academy players.

“We are the filter. So if we can reach millions and set some criteria on what Paul needs from a player, we can find those players that match exactly what he is asking for.

“At that point the scouts can be more targeted in their approach. It also saves time and emissions on travelling to watch a potential player, who was never right for the club in the first place.”

Whilst using this technology has undoubtedly been a huge step for Burnley, academy boss Jenkins hasn’t lost sight of the single most important factor the drives the success of every youth set-up in the country.

“You just want the best players. Generally the most successful academies are able to get the best players," he admitted.

“Even the best coaches in the world get the best players, obviously that is not rocket science. But always getting those best players is tough for us, so we have to find that niche in the market.

“We have to find the part of the pond where nobody else is fishing so to speak.

“Every club in the land is trying to get the best players and it is as simple as that.

The earlier we get the best players, the better it is for Burnley Football Club. We just have to be open-minded about how we recruit.”

So don’t be surprised if, in the future, you see a player running out for the first team who was found by the system.

Felton-Thomas added: “The end journey is someone being found on AiScout that wasn’t seen before, then playing football for Burnley.”