West Brom sporting director Andew Nestor lifts lid on new data scouting transfer approach

The Baggies' scouting system has been revamped under Bilkul's football strategy with the ownership, who recently marked a year at the helm of the club, delivering on a promised data specific approach.

Nestor, chief executive officer at Shilen Patel's Bilkul Football group, confirmed a new data team have been enlisted to crunch the numbers using 'efficient and well developed' tools in a bid to get Albion ahead of the game when it comes to transfer recruitment.

Scouting data is not an especially new format in English football, with some of the clubs to have excelled in the top flight in recent years including Brentford, Bournemouth and Brighton well established in that regard, as well as the Premier League's big-hitters.

Nestor, speaking on the Training Ground Guru podcast, said the group's system will act as a first layer when it comes to scouting before would-be transfer targets get passed to director of football operations Ian Pearce, who overseen the scouting team, and his staff.

"Over the past year behind the scenes we've brought in a data team that was not here before," Nestor said.

"That is to support our scouting process. We believe in a balanced approach. Data is really our first line of scouting.

"It's taking the various inputs around game model, style, individual positional attributes, we take it all and layer in the financial piece - what are the priority positions for signings? Are they loans or permanents? If they are permanent what is the budget for this both wage-wise and fee-wise?

"Then it's input from coaching staff in terms of what they feel our needs are to improve. From there using the tools we can scour an entire database of players globally off super granular metrics we're looking for and start to identify players we feel could be the right fit."

Nestor revived United States outfit Tampa Bay Rowdies more than 15 years ago, where he was president, CEO and general manager. He was then a key part of a US investment in Italy outfit Bologna, who he helped guide back to Serie A.

Patel's trusted confidante has a flat in Birmingham and spends much of his time in the region, with a family back home in the States. He explained how Albion's football strategy is working for three models with the club fighting for promotion to the Premier League.

There are structures ahead for life in the Championship as well as the top flight, which includes both Premier League survival and relegation back to the second tier. 

The Bilkul director explained how data would not hinder the more "soft touch" approach of scouting, with character and personality profiles and eyes-on players in action still relevant.

"It's a super efficient way of doing it," he added. "It means your modelling has to be well developed, we feel it is. This is a database built over several years taking into account every scouting tools clubs use, plus others.

"Then it starts to filter in our physical and medical data to rank players - to see how potential signings rank and stack up against what we have and others in the league.

"That is our first line of scouting. It then goes to our scouting department, who then get to work on video. That's where there's a more softer touch, an art to scouting, it's very important and I don't want to lose that.

"Our scouts are very adept at watching these players, mainly via video at first, then if a player progresses through our process we want to get physical eyes on them, start a background check, personality, culture check, all of that is extremely important as well."