'Other clubs are way ahead' - McKenna on Town's use of data for player recruitment
Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna admits that the club's use of data when it comes to player recruitment is still 'very much a work-in-progress'.
The Blues have signed 39 different players over the six transfer windows that McKenna has overseen so far and only one of them - Jens Cajuste on loan from Napoli - has come from a club outside of England.
A striker and right-winger will be on the shopping list heading into January, but recruiting domestically will provide a limited pool of players who could make a difference to the Premier League relegation fight ahead.
Asked if the club could emulate what the likes of Brighton and Brentford have done, in using data to uncover hidden gems from abroad, McKenna replied: “I don’t know the ins and outs of their systems, but I get the gist of it. They've got people who have done it for a large number of years and have probably got a market advantage because of that. Look at some of the recruitment that they’ve done from international markets and some of the value that they’ve found. They’ve done a fantastic job.
“For us, we’re on our own journey with that. Other clubs are way ahead. It’s for us to build a system up, but that takes time. It’s something that is still very much a work-in-progress, to be honest. There’s certain data aspects that we’ve utilised from a recruitment point of view, but it’s very, very early days for us."
It has been reported that Ipswich had been paying to use Brighton owner Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics system, but that the Seagulls brought the arrangement to an end once the teams became Premier League rivals.
“That’s something not at my level, to be honest, it’s club discussions,” said McKenna, when asked whether that was the case. “I’m not sure what is public or not public. That’s a level above my pay grade that one.”
At a Fans' Forum back in September 2023, McKenna was asked if he might consider recruiting from abroad. He replied: “It’s something that we are having a lot of ongoing discussions about internally.
"Most football clubs would agree that it's great to have players from the local area, like we do, and it’s great to have a core from your country.
“But to take the team and the club to another level, we need to be really vigilant of players outside our market because the premium on British players is really high. There are only so many players who fall into our catchment and there is a lot of competition for those players.
“Bringing in international players who tick the four boxes that I spoke about ( 'young, hungry, athletic and technical') is something that we’d like to do, but it’s not a process to take lightly. It needs to be right.
“We spoke about it a lot in League One, and there were some options we could have taken, but we made a conscious decision as a club that it was a really hard division to integrate international players into. We feel that the Championship is a better league to do that.
“You have to consider how long they will take to settle and what sort of period of time you can afford to give them. You have to be set up from a logistical point of view. You could have players coming over with children, or it could be a younger player who has to settle into a new country and learn the language.
“It’s an area that we want to be increasingly competitive in. It’s now about making sure that everything is set up as best we can so that when we do recruit from that market we can give the players that come in the absolute best chance of succeeding."
Town’s chief executive Mark Ashton oversaw several foreign signings at previous club Bristol City, many from the French leagues, to varying degrees of success.
Ipswich's chief operating officer Luke Werhun, who worked alongside Ashton at Ashton Gate, said: “We’ve had experience in the past where we’ve had players come over, very, very good players technically, but really felt homesick, didn’t feel integrated, part of the country and it’s failed.
“With domestic players you generally know what you’re getting but there’s a premium to that, so we’ve got to try and strike the balance between the two.”
Ipswich hired Sam Williams as the club's new head of recruitment in April 2022. He previously worked as first-team recruitment analyst and academy scout at Manchester United alongside McKenna and his assistant Martyn Pert.
Williams returned to United back in February though to become lead scout for 17-21-year-olds and Will Stephenson was promoted to head of first-team recruitment.
IPSWICH SIGNINGS UNDER MCKENNA
JANUARY 2022
Christian Walton (Brighton, small fee)
Nick Hayes (Hemel Hempstead, small fee)
Tyreeq Bakinson (Bristol City, loan)
Dominic Thompson (Brentford, loan)
SUMMER 2022
Freddie Ladapo (Rotherham, free)
Dominic Ball (QPR, free)
Greg Leigh (Morecambe, free)
Marcus Harness (Portsmouth, £750k)
Leif Davis (Leeds, £1.2m)
Richard Keogh (Blackpool, small fee)
Gassan Ahadme (Burton, £300k)
Panutche Camara (Charlton, £500k)
Joel Coleman (free agent after Rochdale release)
Tyreece John-Jules (Arsenal, loan)
JANUARY 2023
George Hirst (Leicester, loan)
Massimo Luongo (free agent after Middlesbrough release)
Nathan Broadhead (Everton, £1.5m)
Harry Clarke (Arsenal, £1m)
SUMMER 2023
Jack Taylor (Peterborough, £1.5m)
Cieran Slicker (Man City, small fee)
George Hirst (Leicester, £1.5m)
Axel Tuanzebe (free agent after Man Utd release)
Omari Hutchinson (Chelsea, loan)
Brandon Williams (Man Utd, loan)
Dane Scarlett (Tottenham, loan)
JANUARY 2024
Jeremy Sarmiento (Brighton, loan)
Lewis Travis (Blackburn, loan)
Kieffer Moore (Bournemouth, loan)
Ali Al-Hamadi (AFC Wimbledon, £1m+)
SUMMER 2024
Omari Hutchinson (Chelsea, £18m)
Ben Johnson (West Ham, free)
Jacob Greaves (Hull, £15m)
Liam Delap (Man City, £15m)
Aro Muric (Burnley, £8m)
Conor Townsend (West Brom, £500k)
Sammie Szmodics (Blackburn, £9m)
Jack Clarke (Sunderland, £15m)
Dara O'Shea (Burnley, £12m)
Chiedozie Ogbene (Luton, £8m)
Kalvin Phillips (Man City, loan)
Jens Cajuste (Napoli, loan)
