How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football’s Data Revolution

by Ian Graham

'The best book on football I have ever read' Daniel Finkelstein

'Deserves a place among the great modern books on football' Sam Wallace, chief football writer, Telegraph

The insider account of the data revolution that has swept through the modern football world written by one of its key architects, Ian Graham.

Between 2012 and 2023, Ian Graham worked as Liverpool FC's Director of Research. His tenure coincided with the club’s greatest period of success since the 1980s, including winning the Premier League in 2020 – Liverpool’s first league title after an agonising 30 years.

Here for the first time, Graham reveals the fascinating data that informed some of the club’s most pivotal moments of the past decade, from the appointment of Jurgen Klopp as manager in 2015 to the signing of Mohamed Salah in 2017. Along the way, he shares groundbreaking insight into the modern game, including how a season largely played behind closed doors transformed our understanding of a home-side advantage, or why the GOAT (greatest of all time) might not be who you think. And, in a game that is increasingly dominated by an elite few, Graham charts a path for the future where a data-savvy competitor will always find the edge.

Genres: Football, Sports, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Soccer, Business, Technology

295 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2024

Reviews

[Matt Bayliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew Keita was good for us and now I have a literal book I can throw at people to prove it

[Tom Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobooked in two weeks. A brilliant and fascinating look at the role data can play in football. Makes me want to sesh FM. Brendan Rodgers is a chump

[Courtney Goodridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have given 5 stars but the nerds have ruined football and I’m not happy about it (except when it benefits Liverpool, up the Reds 👊🏽)

[Alialiarya · Rating 4 out of 5]

با ترجمه خوب نشر گلگشت خوندم

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's rare that we get this sort of contemporary insight from someone deeply rooted in the game. I feel as if the book tries a bit too hard to be Moneyball instead of leaning into what Graham is best at which is first hand experience and behind the scenes evaluations.

Graham also falls into the common make myself look good trap where he spends inordinately more time on what they got right instead of the failures in process. There's a couple moments from the early years but as the narrative gets closer to present day Graham is loath to criticize anyone involved.

The last portion of the book had a few chapters that were wholly unnecessary (Messi v Ronaldo is a prime example) but there were nuggets throughout that gave good context to what decision making at high level football club is like.

[Emma Strawbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

first of all, what an excellent book. ian graham is a great writer, his thoughts are organized clearly, and he is doing things that are statistically interesting. most importantly he cites his sources!! barring the heinous crime that is endnotes (presumably an editor’s choice rather than an author’s) graham cites his papers and all that good stuff. what i appreciated most was that he explicitly credited his coworkers for inspiration, for pointing out his mistakes, for arguing with him, and for directly helping sign particular players. it’s an excellent description (and seems like a rather ideal scenario especially with klopp as manager) of how much cooperation and compromise goes into turning a team around quickly. he’s also very good about looking back at and mentioning his mistakes, even if they ended up being minimal. he’s specific with what the mistake was and how the team learned as well. he honestly could have skipped the acknowledgments with how thorough he was with credit and recognition of successes and failures. another thing that was really well done in this book was (again thru the credit-giving process) how graham explained the ways data fell short of a holistic player evaluation and the importance of qualitative analysis, or at the very least, what role it played and how the results of its influence had been successful or not. it’s good to hear from both sides, the eye test and the analytics people, that both are useful. “of course, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but as Randall Munroe put it: ‘It does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing “look over there”.’ (246) stats is probabilistic and ultimately a person has to decide what odds are good enough.

i read most of this book on the train from london and edinburgh and had a list of questions about football because there are SO many things that make it different from american sports that i wanted to learn more about. fortunately, a nice couple with an adorable baby were sat across from me and the dad was happy to answer my questions so shoutout to him. in no particular order, i asked about: transfers&the reporting of their fees, trades&few of them, loans (SO interesting), relegation, and what his favorite team was (chelsea). i did not get to ask about leagues being allowed to use different balls, how it was possible that man city could be accused of 115 breaches of league rules in 2023???, or why there are so many biting incidents going on across the league (i was particularly interested in this one). all in all great book and hiiii little baby sitting with me you are sooooo cute!!!

[Quincy Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely excellent. Any book that references Thinking, Fast and Slow at least half as much as this book is automatically promoted to 4 stars. It’s just the way things work, I don’t make the rules

[Harrylosborne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not win the premier league after reading this book, do not recommend.

Nah actually quite interesting stuff about data and how anti-stats the biggest sport on earth has been, even today (when it’s quite obvious that it can help). Also interesting hearing about motivations behind certain player moves from and to Liverpool over the last decade or so.

Loses points (lol) on being slightly too self-led when it comes to setting expectations - e.g. “our data model was really good because it did X”, then next chapter “well X is actually dumb because we didn’t consider Y, therefore our new model Z is superior” and repeat.

[Aaron Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptional insight to data usage in modern football from 2010s to present day.

I now fully appreciate xG as a stat amongst some other metrics mentioned in this. The other key metric stat ‘possession value model’, explains how and why Ian Graham and his team have utilised this to determine successful club transfers prospect and true value player ratings.

Pains me to say as a united fan but Liverpool (although due to chance luck, at not signing tom ince) have dominated the premier league pound for pound in the last 8years, unfortunately for them, coincided in a pep man city era.

Some of the more technical aspects of data explanations in this, went a little over my head, with particular reference to book analysis of the ‘numbers game’ and the explanation of why goals are more important than clean sheets. But there are lots of gems in this. Data clearly and sensibly explain, data really is king.

If you rate football would highly recommend this as a read. Just wish it was united that had adopted this approach in the post fergie era

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 sehr viel gelernt

[T.M. Fairman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt like a sliding doors book

[Jonny Ord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good one to get me out of my slump

[Caspian Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, written by one of the pioneers of the data revolution in football. Made me want to work for a football team doing some sort of data analysis. Great combination of maths and football, so if you’re into those two things then would defo recommend this book

[Nicholas Bestbier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often in sport books — I find there are so many business lessons. This book is no different. A phenomenal account of how Liverpool used data science to help give them an edge that culminated in winning the Premier League. I loved the descriptions of the development of the various algorithms they used. From assessing the influence of potential managers to controlling parts of the pitch. Really enjoyable read - inspired me to think more deeply about how to leverage data science.

[Matthew Nash Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book which brings in fascinating statistical ideas to football and makes you think about it in a completely different way. Well written and has piqued my interest further in data analytics.

Anecdotes from Ian’s time at Liverpool also well worth the read. 5/5 good book to start the year.

[Jackson Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read - doesn’t really dive into any models in depth.
Love some confirmation bias towards Klopp and the kids.

[Liam Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly fascinating, but did almost slip into “norse in pub who knows everything” a couple of times.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised he didn't marry Michael Edwards at the end.

[Michael Checchia · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one at Everton has read this book

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football’s Data Revolution by Ian Graham is a really interesting inside view of how data can help football teams play better. Graham has has a PhD in physics. He worked for Liverpool in their analytics department when they won the Champions League and the Premier League.

The book is really interesting because of the perspective it gives on football analytics. Graham first worked for a firm that was contracted to Tottenham. There he and the data analytics team had to prove their worth. They faced coaches who distrusted the data and had to slowly make inroads.

Graham worked with Michael Edwards at Tottenham. Edwards later became the director of football at Liverpool. There Edwards hired Graham. Initially Brendan Rogers was the coach there and Rogers was not keen on analytics. Despite an excellent result and nearly winner the Premier League Rogers did not work out. After Rogers Liverpool hired Jurgen Klopp, who valued analytics from his time at Dortmund.

Graham does an excellent job of describing how hard football is to analyse. He points out that possession and pass completion data is insufficient for good analysis. He talks about how Expected Goals (xG) works and also its limitations.

The book has lots on how players are critical for a team and how to evaluate them. Graham makes the very startling point that most transfers don’t work. He establishes a reasonable criteria to evaluate them. He suggests starting in the team after 12 months as a good mark. He also points out that only 2 in 5 transfers meet this mark. Given the huge costs paid in transfers this represents a very poor return.

Graham goes on to describe how good metrics can help teams to get better players. But he also describes their limitations. He describes how a football director, the manager, the scouts and the analytics team need to work together to get the best players. He provides really interesting examples of where the analytics didn’t show the value of some players. Luka Modric is one.

There are also some interesting discussions of where Graham thinks statistics have been incorrectly used. He looks at how the value of clean sheets has been overstated by some authors. He also writes about how money and analytics can work together. There he cites Manchester City as an example.

How to Win the Premier League is a really interesting book. Anyone who is interested in football and analytics will really enjoy it.

[Samuel Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting-ish. Nothing hugely insightful. Was an hoping to be surprised by the quality of the analysis but that wasn’t really the case.

The author does the thing that all good analysts do of making their models sound more impressive than they really are by using jargon. Not a knock on them, that’s just what happens and is necessary in a book like this.

I guess it emphasises to me that the big advantage Liverpool had was the data itself and the decision-making processes. What matters is not the complexity of the model but the ability to collect accurate data (something which economic policymakers in this country are grappling with) and interpret it in a sensible way.

Liverpool benefited from being able to do this. It’s sort of shocking that other clubs (I.e. United) didn’t have processes in place to do this simple analysis. It sounds like they could have benefited a lot from an even just a few smart undergrads.

Having praised Liverpool, I would just say that if your model says Naby Keita is a good player, then your model is wrong. The guy’s first touch and decision-making were so inconsistent.

This is the second football book I’ve read this year which makes Brendan Rodgers look completely incompetent.

[Merijn Backx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. An example of how data analytics, when used well, can make the decisions of even the best coaches in the world, like Klopp, better. We are all subject to bias and the human brain can only consider so many data points - teams of people can only consider so main data points - trusting the insights from tools & teams like this in your decision is what makes all the difference. Fascinating (and no surprise) that Klopp was willing to listen where others would not. Also encouraging to read how much challenge from football ‘leaders’ had to be overcome by the analytics teams. Modern technology, like visual imaging and automatic interpretation, offer millions of data points more; this will completely transform how we select players (and managers). Those who do not follow will never catch up (or simply run out money buying the wrong players too often).

[Daniel Barrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite look into the data revolution within soccer. Almost like a lite version of Moneyball. It’s fascinating to see the parallels and differences between baseball and soccer’s different data revolutions being a fan of both sports. Soccer’s is much more convoluted as Ian admits, which makes it feel as if their turn to advanced analytics has taken much longer than baseball’s has, but the more and more access they get to the data they need to make this complex analysis the more we’ll see it in the future. Highly recommend this to anyone who is invested in sports and how front offices work, especially if you like analytics.

Also, can we get anyone at BlueCo to read this? For the love of everything holy stop ruining Chelsea and buy some dang players like this!

[Udayan.rathore · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the past 15 years, football has witnessed a data revolution. From a few static data points per game, the sport has evolved to complex tracking data that provides on and off the ball information for players within seconds. The objective view of a passion driven sport (business) provides a channel for mid and lower rung teams to counter the incumbents and state owned behemoths who have monopolized footballing leagues across the globe. Simultaneously however, access to large pools of data comes with the risk of biases in analysis and difficulty in separating signal from noise. A great read for football enthusiasts.

[Nanthasuth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was more interesting than I thought it would be but I think it’s most because I’m a Liverpool fan and I enjoy reading about the back room working process behind the scene as well as their decision making.

However, I’ve listened to many podcasts that Ian Graham went to before this so this book was mainly spoiled for me.

I enjoy the Liverpool part, however, the stuff that’s not related to Liverpool was ok. It was informative nothing more than that. It’s good to know but doesn’t give me joy. I still think football as more emotional rather than numbers as im a die hard fan.

[Fraser Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever reading these books on stats in football, I'm always struck by how basic the "what" is. I'd never pretend that I understand the "how" of data science but the simple stats which were not previously available or considered, or which were dismissed by traditional football is always surprising

Much of the focus on Liverpool was beyond my interest level and there's quite a bit of repetition but interesting throughout

And lol at Brendan Rodgers. Very much enjoyed the evisceration

[Andrew Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting insight into data analysis and how it’s put to use… as a Liverpool Fan the insights into the club were really good to read and even the Messi v Ronaldo debate was really good (seen a few comments saying they didn’t see the point but I found it confirmed a lot of what I always thought!).

Really enjoyable read!

[Daniel Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read on the “Moneyball”-ification of football, especially the parts around building up Possession Value and Pitch Control models. I liked the parts about the philosophy of data analytics, and why data without context and reasoning is pretty useless.

[Andy Sherwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5. This book is great for the intersection of soccer geeks and statistics geeks (me). The most interesting parts were the stories based on his time at Tottenham and Liverpool. I generally don’t like reading sports books if I know the general story, but Graham added some interesting perspective

[Helena Zahar Vaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5