I thought this part from the article was pretty interesting.
ranted, money is a big factor in laying the foundation for a successful team, but it’s not the sole component in building a winning side. After all, having more money in the bank isn’t a guarantee to find more value in the market.
Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger used to be one of the best, perhaps the best, buyer/seller in football. For years he raided the continent for the best (and equally as cheap) talent, only to sell them at a massive profit. In 1997 he bought 17 year old Nicolas Anelka from French side Paris Saint-Germain for a meager €760,000, and sold the youngster to Real Madrid for €35 million just two years later. More recently Wenger green-lit the transfer of Robin Van Persie to league rivals Manchester United for €30,7 million, after acquiring the Dutchman for €4,5 million in 2004.
In his heyday the Arsenal gaffer was the closest thing to Billy Beane, the MLB manager who is one of the pioneers of sabermetrics. Nonetheless, the ‘Moneyball’ approach isn’t really applicable in football. While Baseball is more or less static, the game of football is much more nuanced. Unlike Baseball where the formation and indeed player positions are fixed, a football formation is shaped by its tactics. For example, a 4-3-3 formation can be either a defensive system with 2 holding midfielders, or an attacking set-up with two creative players in the middle.
I agree and Arsenal is trying to be the Oakland A's of baseball but money ball doesn't work of course the Man City approach does not work as well we've seen that Sheik Mansour threw all of that money but not that much was gained out of it. There should be a middle ground spend money but don't go over the top basically the theme is don't spend Arab money but don't be Arsenal at the same time, there is a middle ground here. I also agree that football is different you can have a defensive 4-3-3 formation or you can have an attack 4-4-2 formation and you can have your LW and RW guys go on the offensive when you are attacking so there are a multitude of things you can do in soccer that you really can't do in baseball it's a completely different game and money ball works in baseball because that is a stats game. You can get good players for cheap and build a team like that
