Slept on it..
49ers are a data driven sporting organization and they'll have done the models for every role and player at the club.
Majority investors are 49ers, Redbull & The Westfield Family - they eat data for lunch.
49ers have not put a foot wrong with transfers and loans in IMO, Largie maybe (?) at face value?
And let's face it they're new to football, but they do know how to model and make calls using data, no different to American rules football or running Amazon.
We can see there's typically two types of newly promoted PL clubs, Brighton (Fulham/Bournemouth) and Ipswich (Southampton / Leicester).
Possibly a 3rd type if you add Forest in there, but they're a bit rogue, overspending and then happy to take the reductions, so let's look at Ipswich and Brighton for a minute.
Now apparently, 49ers are using the same specialist data team as Brighton and as we saw with the sale of Rutter, Cree and Gray, they're not afraid to offload and made 150m as a Champ club.
They're not into holding on to lucky talisman players if the price is right, because they're into the data, not just P&L, but massive amount of player and scenario data.
Say, "Rodon, bleeds, white, yellow & blue, and has had a great season," but know, if Milan come in with a 45m offer at the end of next season, we'll more than listen (after sending out a rumour via our man at the Mail).
What that means is if someone like Tanaka blows up and plays well, and then someone comes in with a 40m offer, he's off, as they'll have the data on the next Tanaka, who'll be cheaper but with the stats and potential to be better..
I know all our lot had these release clauses, but I would argue 49ers were happy with that, but then played it the other way in the press to show, we're the good guys, last owners were dicks for writing such contracts. Let's also remember, the 49ers were onboard when all of those deals were inked and as investors had sign-off I assume.
With Farke, they'll have run similar models, quantitative (track records, projections, add in the players we need, factor in some injuries, seasonal data, weather data, you name it, it'll all go in there).
Then the qualitative PR data. You test "feelings" with a rumour, like that one in the DM yesterday; what's the sentiment, how's everyone feeling, can we get the majority onboard, what are the talking heads saying, do we look cut-throat or businesslike?
Seems like the market went with "that's pretty savvy, if a little bit thug life, but we like it.."
It also felt there were a lot of bots out there amplifying the same message, I'm not up on these things, so it could simply be a bot assuming the personality of Leeds fan as it continues to build its persona with a dash of "Ted from Belle Isle," whilst also commenting on Miami Dolphin draft picks, or was it much more calculated and orchestrated by someone who gets the data and media, i.e the 49ers sent the bots out to back up what a great idea it was?
This "sentiment data" scraped off social media, podcasts, phone-ins, websites, OMJ, lets them make the call on, is there an appetite for a whacking, looking at the the responses, could there be a data analyst out there saying, "Parag, the numbers look good, go for launch in, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, soss Daniel!"
I think Farke knew something was up, he seemed subdued at the celebration and dropped a clanger about not being able to spend in January (maybe they held the draws and slight wobble against him and he countered with "I wanted to spend"). He's normally such a company man, doesn't like to talk about business until it's done. I think that comment was a tell.
If the 49ers do want to do a Brighton, which I think is the model they want, it means spending big and a manager could very well be on that wish list, backed up by the data and all the "what ifs?"
Welcome to the big leagues, innit!
