Having risen from League One to a Premier League team over the past decade, Brentford FC have based a significant part of their strategy on data, in the wake of the club’s owner, betting entrepreneur Matthew Benham. The Guardian reports that in the past two years alone, the Bees have spent a staggering £16m on their research department. Training loads, running intensity, positional play… These are all topics that performance director Ben Ryan (a former rugby player who coached the Fiji sevens team) and his teams have studied, the results of which have been used by head coach Thomas Frank. To conduct this research, the club recruits half a dozen PhD students each year in collaboration with leading academic institutions.
Brief
The head coach Thomas Frank is using results of Brentford's research department / ©Icon Sport