Tom Johnson is currently the First Team Performance Analyst at Crystal Palace FC. He joined the club 4 years ago as the Head of Academy Performance Analysis, having previously been a Senior Academy Analyst at Derby County FC, where he started his career as an intern. Apart from being an analyst, he is also an under 13s coach. Tom tells us all about his journey in Performance Analysis and what it is like to work in a Premier League club.
Tell us about your background. What made you want to become a Performance Analyst?
It originally started when I was at college. I had finished school and always had an interest in football. I played recreationally but was never at that level to make it as a professional, which I had already realised when I was a child. But I always wanted to stay in football, I love watching football, love being part of football, so I decided to make the decision to study Sports Science and coach at a higher level other than just part taking.
When I was 16 or 17, I decided to enroll in a course at a local college, where I grew up in Essex, to study Sports Science and Coaching. In that time, I started coaching part-time at a grassroots club helping with the development centre in a local team Southend United. There I was getting some experience as a grassroots coach to try to learn the craft. I was then able to get into university. I enrolled in a course at Nottingham Trent University to study Coaching and Sports Science with a view to get down the coaching pathway. At this point, I had already completed my Level 1 and 2, which was the aim, and then to get my UEFA B as soon as possible.
It was whilst at uni that I was introduced to Performance Analysis. This was in about 2012 or 2013, when Performance Analysis wasn’t anything new back then. However, the publicity that it has nowadays, with the online community and how much more you hear about it now, wasn’t prevalent at the time. My first introduction to Performance Analysis was through a lecture at university, where a member of staff at Derby County talked about an opportunity that they had at their club to come in and learn and get some experience on Performance Analysis. The opportunity meant filming and analysing the academy games at the club. When the Derby County staff member spoke at the lecture about looking at football from a tactical side of things, working with coaches, working with players, it ticked the boxes in my head as that was the side of coaching I loved doing - speaking with players, talking about the game, etc - not so much on-field coaching but more like off-field coaching. I was intrigued about what it could be like so I applied to the internship. The word “internship” sometimes has negative connotations. It was more of a studentship really. It was part of my course as I was using the hours I was doing at Derby County to put towards my work-based learning.
Long story short, I gained 18 months experience from halfway through my 2nd year of university all the way through my third year. I was volunteering my time at the weekends, mainly Saturdays and Sundays. One day of the week I would also go along to the academy and learn the job. That is how it all started. At the end of my internship, I was in a really lucky position that after 18 months of volunteering, Derby’s academy went from Category 2 to Category 1, which actually meant that there was a position available in the analysis department in the academy to become full-time. I applied for the role and was able to get it.
So, really, my journey to become an analyst was pretty smooth. I was volunteering my time and showing my skills and ability on the job to eventually be able to get it. When I talk to people I say it is like an 18 month interview. The internship and the volunteering at Derby was all about meeting the coaches, getting that relationship with them, with the academy manager, with the analysis staff so that when it came to my interview I knew the guys interviewing me anyway, which was really fortunate.
How did your current role come about?
Essentially, I spent my first full-time role at Derby working with younger age groups. I had already being doing that as an intern, so the transition into start working with coaches in the foundation phase (9s to 12s year-olds) and the youth development phase (up to under 16s) was smooth. The actual analysis that was taking place at the time was quite broad. You worked across lots of age groups so you couldn’t really go into too much detail. You could go into detail but obviously not as much as you would go if you worked with just one team. It is about giving the players, especially younger players, an introduction into analysis and what it is like to watch yourself back. In academy football, they put a lot of pressure on young players to succeed, so hopefully through the use of analysis we were able to give them a football education outside of the football pitch. We had a day release program whereby the lads would come in and train in the morning but in-between sessions we would put on some analysis and hold educational sessions working on the development of individuals, getting them to set their own development tasks. That was mainly my role with under 16s age groups.
After 2 seasons, I moved up to work purely with under 18s age groups. This role is a little bit different because now you are working with an emphasis on the Saturday game, doing things like building up the opposition analysis. It looks a little more like what analysis is like in a first team level, but you still have a massive emphasis on developing the individual players. As much as you want to win games, the aim is to develop the individuals in the team to hopefully help them become professionals and play in the first team. I really enjoyed that role, working with some great coaches. For example, Justin Walker, who is now one of the first team coaches at Derby, and Rory Delap, who is also an ex-Premier League footballer. I worked with lots of them whilst they were starting or in the middle of their coaching journey. We were all on a similar position, they were developing their skills as coaches and I was developing my skills as an analyst.
We also had a really good analysis department at Derby working under Steve Doyle, who is now working for Rangers FC. At the time when I eventually moved on, we had a department of about 4 to 5 full-time members of staff alongside about 6 to 7 students who came in and supported the department. I was loving working with Derby County and loved the work we were doing. We worked very closely with the first team staff, so I learned a lot and was able to bounce ideas off them. It was a great environment to work in. We shared a big office so we could constantly ask questions and bounce ideas off each other.
However, it came to a point when I was looking to progress professionally in my role. I felt that at the time my boss at Derby was comfortable in his role so I couldn’t move up within the club, so I had to look elsewhere. I grew up in the south of England, in Essex, in and around London, and an opportunity came up to work at Crystal Palace as the Head of Academy Analysis. The role meant working with the under 23s age group while also working as the Head of Analysis for the academy. This meant having a more managerial role that looked after the full-time staff and students at the club. Also, at the time, Crystal Palace were a Category 2 academy, so they were below Derby in terms of academy level. But in terms of players that they had at their disposal, South London is a hotbed for talent. I didn’t really notice the difference with Derby. If anything, the players that we were developing and were coming through the system at the time were at a higher standard at Crystal Palace.
My move to Crystal Palace was 4 years ago now, at the start of 2017. During that time, I was able to build the department which at the start was just myself and another colleague as the only full-time analysts. Crystal Palace’s academy were also going through a big push to try to get to Category 1, and I already had that experience of transitioning from Category 2 to Category 1 at Derby, which meant I was able to use my experiences. Together with the other coaches and members of staff at the academy at Palace we had a really good working environment to really push the academy along.
During the two years I worked in the academy at Crystal Palace I worked with some really good coaches with the under 23s, some of them really experienced ex-players and coaches. For example, Dave Reddington, who I am working with now in the first team, or Richard Shaw, who is now working with Watford. It is really important as an analyst to work and bounce ideas off ex-players and current coaches because that is where you really develop as an analyst. You can learn so much out of a textbook, filming and watching games, but getting that experience when talking to coaches, what they are thinking of, you start gauging where they are at in terms of tactical side of things. It is always interesting to get their ideas and their views on things.
I worked on that role for 2 years and in that time was able to develop the department as well as my role with the under 23s. In terms of how I got into my current role, the first team analysts at the time Charlie Radmore got the opportunity to go work for West Ham so he transitioned from club to club. There was then an opportunity for me. My current boss Ben Stevens asked me to move up and work with the first team. I got a call from the Sporting Director and Ben and they said that they were looking to bring me up to promote within, so I grabbed it with both hands.
I suppose that the end goal at the start of my career was to work in a first team environment, to hopefully work in the Premier League, which I think is one of, if not the best league in the world, and use all my experiences in the last 5 to 6 years to analyse games in the Premier League. I’ve now been in this role for 2 years. It was a big step up for me in terms of the intensity of the work and the pressure that the first team environment brings. Even with the under 23s age group you are looking to develop individuals. No matter if you win, lose or draw in the game day you are still trying to look at the individual performance and the development of the players. But now when you lose or draw a game on a Saturday it means a lot compared to that. There is more focus on the team performance and what that brings.
That is a whistle-stop tour on where I am now. I suppose that when I speak to other people about it now it sounds like a smooth transition. I’ve been very fortunate to be in the position I am now, but without lots of hours of volunteering initially to get to that position where I am now it wouldn’t have been possible. As lucky as I’ve been to be at the right place at the right time, you need to take some risks. If you want to succeed in anything you need to take a bit of risk. My risk was to move to Crystal Palace out of the comfort of that role I had at Derby Country. I thought “ok, I’m going to do this”. I trusted myself to be able to do it and was lucky enough to succeed at it.
What is the main highlight in your analyst career?
If you talk to a player or a coach they will always say that their main highlight is winning a trophy or a certain game that sticks out. For me, the highlight of my career is obtaining the job I’ve got today. It doesn’t happen overnight. Winning a game of football, or if you are lucky enough to win a league, cup or trophy is such a big thing and could definitely be a highlight, but it has so many different variables that go into it. For me, to be able to do the job I’m doing now is the highlight of my career.
I enjoy working with the elite coaches and players. I’ve come from first starting to work with players under 9 and under 10, and while that is enjoyable it seemed so far away from the top, a little detached. That’s not to say that those young players are not going to go on and be professional. So many of the young players I’ve worked with are now playing at a senior level, which is a massive highlight for any analyst or coach working in grassroots or even academy level. The highlight is seeing them 4 or 5 years on making their first team debut and playing in the Premier League. That was definitely the highlight of when I was working in academy football, seeing players flourish and develop. However, by no means I’m saying that I had a hand on what they’ve done, they’ve done it for themselves, but you feel part of the process. As an analyst, you are a small part of that process and it’s great to see these players flourish and kick on. It’s a holistic process and you can’t pin it down to one person that has made that player’s career possible, but I feel that as a whole you are part of that process.
At Derby County I was very lucky. In the current first team squad they’ve got probably 7 or 8 players that were in the under 15s, under 16s and under 18s at the time when I was there. They’ve had an amazing list over the last couple of years. They’ve really pushed lots of young players through. For example, Jayden Bogle and Max Lowe have gone on to play for Sheffield United. Derby currently has got Jason Knight who was also only 15 when he came over from Ireland when I first started working there. There is also Max Bird. Also young players like Kaide Gordon who has just left Derby and gone to Liverpool. It is a real big pool of players that Derby are pushing through, which is excellent to see. I speak to some of my ex-colleagues now and they are saying that the talent they had in across those age groups is second to none. It is great to see. You see all these players and remember watching them when they were 12 years old. That is probably the biggest highlight having worked with younger players.
At Crystal Palace now, I’ve been lucky that when I first joined the club Aaron Wan-Bissaka was already playing in the under 23s. He had just transitioned to start playing right back. When I joined 4 years ago they had just had a discussion that he had been a wider player, a winger, but that they should transition him to play right back. To be honest, I can’t say I had any impact at all, it was the coaches just before I arrived that made that move. Then for the first year working with the under 23s he was a great asset to have in that group. He was training with the first team most days and then the rest is history. He made his debut and never looked back and now he’s gone to Man Utd. Also, currently at Crystal Palace we’ve got Tyrick Mitchell who has come on to the first team at the end of last season / start of this year. He’s another full back who is doing very well. Similar story with Tyrick, he was on the under 18s when I first joined and it has been great to see his pathway come through.
These are players that when you work with them in a younger age group and you then see them come through you talk to them outside the game and see how they are getting on. No necessarily put a shoulder because the coaches and the rest of the staff do that, but you just have a conversation and see how they get on. I would say that the biggest aspect of the role having worked in the academy is seeing younger players come through, make their debuts and hopefully go on to have careers. There are plenty of other examples out there. I am currently working as a coach with the under 13s as well and we tell the players that the chances of you becoming a professional in the Premier League are so slim, but what we really are there for is to make these under 13s footballers, or whatever age group, better people outside of football. Hopefully we can do that. If they then get a career in the game that’s even better, but it’s making the person as much as making the footballer. It’s great to see that I’ve been part of so many success stories, and there are other success stories that have gone on to make it at other clubs, gone out on loan or maybe stepped out of academy football and play in non-league. I see those as much as a success as some of the top names I’ve mentioned before.
What are the most challenging aspect of the role of an analyst?
Other analysts that I speak to and some good friends and ex-colleagues of mine who are now working in the Championship have ridiculous schedules of 46 games. For me, the biggest challenge I found from stepping from my previous role into this role working with the first team is the intensity of it. It’s almost like there are no days off. Not in terms of physical days off but almost that you are always watching, always focusing on the next game. One game is finished and you are onto the next one. The intensity can be quite stressful. You can’t have a day off or have a day when you are not on it because of the type of content that we are having to produce for the coaching staff and players, if you do you are going to get found out straightaway. For me, the most challenging aspect was that intensity and having to pretty much bring myself up to speed. To make sure to work and produce every single day and that the work is of certain acceptable standard that the coaching staff want.
I’ve been in my current role two years this month. I came into the role at the end of the 2018/19 season. There was a handover period with Charlie who later moved clubs but from the start of the 2019/20 season it became my first full season in the first team. I am always learning, that’s a given. You are always learning from other people. My colleague Rob Weaver has been working for the club for about 5 years, so when I first moved here I learned so much from him because he was so up to speed with the way coaches wanted to work. I think that is so important as an analyst. You almost have got to be their go-to person. They always come to you or you go to them. You have got to know what they are thinking before they are thinking it. Rob had all of that knowledge from the 3 years he had worked previously with the current staff before I joined the first team, so it was me bouncing off him and the coaches to get up to speed. I definitely feel I’ve progressed in the last two years, but there is no slowing down. You are constantly learning, taking different bits of information from them to develop yourself as a person and an analyst.
What are the most important skills for an analyst?
First and foremost is organisation. As an analyst you cannot do the job if you are disorganised. If you are not organised you can miss deadlines, and you can’t afford to do that unfortunately, it’s a simple as that. We are quite lucky in that in this job you know what you are working towards. You’ve got a game day, you know that the game is on a certain date, so you’ve got a timeframe to work towards. When you are playing every Saturday, the schedule can be quite simple. But when they chuck in a mid-week game, or when you’ve got the Christmas period, that always condenses the timeframe right down. Because of that, organisation is massive.
Communication in terms of speaking to people like the coaches and other colleagues is important. Constant communication, whether talking about the game or talking about the plan, is very important. I don’t think you could do the role if you are a poor communicator. You’ve got to get your ideas across. You’ve got to listen as well. Communicating is a big part of the role.
Finally, the ability to work under pressure. With the intensity of the role and the level of detail you are having to produce, the ability to work under pressure is massive at this level. Even with condensed schedules, expectations don’t change. We’ve just had the Christmas period and we’ve had the January fixtures as well. I am also hearing they are moving a fixture next week to compensate for the FA Cup. It doesn’t really slow down. Also, this year is unique in the sense that we missed a few weeks at the start of the season because of coronavirus. It’s a unique situation and because of that we’ve had so many games in such a short time. But the quality of the work cannot dip just because you’ve got two games in a week. It always has to be to the same standards.
What data and analysis do you use and how is it perceived at the club?
It is an interesting question because whoever you speak to will have so many different answers. Every single coaching staff and club have a different process in the way they perceive data and the way it is used in their processes each day. Currently, I’d say that my role, and it will likely stay like this, is video analyst. My colleagues and I work 90% of the time with video. That’s how the current staff want to work. They do not rely on the data, which is not to say we don’t use it. We currently use more video and really just back up what we are saying with the data. We won’t necessarily go to the data first and come up with our game plan or analysis off that. We would do the video side first and if there is any data that backs up what we are trying to say we would input it there.
That’s not to say we are neglecting it, we are very much in touch with what is going on with data analysis. At the club we have two Data Analysts that primarily work with the recruitment side of things. However, they also work alongside our team producing some of the data for the opposition reports we do. Any kind of bespoke analysis we need, whether is looking for a certain team and run some data on them that is outside of what we already collect on every team, then we would go to the Data Analysts for their expertise. At the moment, some of the algorithms and processes they use are way above my head but as an analyst I want to develop those skills over the next few years so that I can have a better understanding of how they get to their final conclusions. I understand the data once it’s given to us, but it’s the how they get there that is the interesting part for me.
In terms of how data is perceived at the club, like I mentioned, the current regime are heavily video based. You find that a lot of coaches and ex-players would always tend to gravitate towards video because that is what they know, it’s the game, it’s how it looks like. Some coaches you may hear them talk about data in the press conferences and in public, but our current regime is heavily video based. This suits the way Rob and I work at the minute, but if we had to use data more, if that come into our workflow, we are ready to incorporate it.
What are the main tools and technologies that you use in your analysis?
In terms of the technologies we use, Hudl SportsCode is my best friend. There is not a day that it is not open on my laptop. We are heavy users of the Hudl umbrella of companies. We use Hudl SportsCode, Hudl Replay as the technology on a match day when we send the stream down to the bench, and the Hudl online platform to share clips with the coaches and players. We heavily use Hudl platforms and systems every day.
The illustration tool that we use at the club is CoachPaint, which is a big part of our workflow. Once we have decided the clips that we want to show to coaches and players we then paint the story and put any kind of detail onto the clips with CoachPaint. Also on our day to day we use Keynote to produce presentations and dossiers because we work on Macbook applications to produce our work. We use Apple products to do that rather than PowerPoint and Word.
We also use other platforms to get our footage. We use DVMS, which is the sharing platform for the Premier League. The Premier League provides us with the footage of each game. Once you are a Premier League club you get access to every single game in the Premier League from 8 different angles. We also use Wyscout for video footage, mainly for anything outside the Premier League that we need to collect.
In terms of data, we also have access to Opta. We use their different platforms, like the query tool or the portal. We are able to get all our data that we need from Opta. Also, Scout7 is also used quite a lot as well, which is part of Opta. That is more for our scouting systems and to do reports on players or if we ever need to read up on players that we have not seen before. For example, a new signing from abroad. We use all of these different types of platforms to come up with the final product for coaches and the staff.
What does the future of Performance Analysis look like?
Analysis has come a long way from when I first started. For instance, things like SportsCode or the ability to have an iPad on the bench was unheard of before. You would always have to do stuff post-match and now so much analysis is done live. Where do I see it going? I definitely see that as a profession you will have a lot more coach-analysts. It is not something that is not out there already. In a lot of clubs you have coaches that are watching a lot more video and you’ve got coaches that are doing the analysis themselves. Coaching staff are coming with manager, assistant manager and first team coaches who are essentially analysts that also coach on the grass. I think there is definitely a shift in the role of the analyst.
Where I see the processes going? I suppose AI is being spoken about in terms of the coding process. There will be less emphasis on having to watch games and sit there picking through what things you are looking for. If you are looking for certain trends in the game you will be able to use the data and AI to do that for you. Still, I don’t know where I sit with that. Of course, having an analyst sitting there and watching the game is important. I will still go back to the eye and always want to watch it for myself, but we’ll see. Things have accelerated so much in the last 10 years, it’s been amazing. In 5 years time we might go back and think “remember what I was doing in 2021?”. I feel that’s constantly what we are doing. It’s exciting but it’s also difficult to keep up with technology at times. Keeping the finger on the pulse is difficult, but it will continue to develop as long as the game is being player at top level.
Another aspect is that when you go back 2 or 3 years you had Hudl, SportsCode and Nacsport, or other kinds of secondary platforms, but now you’ve got more and more technology companies trying to push different technologies and platforms to compete with these. It’s a good and healthy thing not to have companies monopolising the industry and the more options we have to go off the better.
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into Performance Analysis?
I’ve got many people asking me whether I’ve got any opportunities. It is difficult to get that first foot in the door, but there are also many things that as an aspiring analyst you can do to get into the industry. First and foremost, it is important to invest your time. That may be going out and volunteering at your local club. To become an analyst you don’t have to be working at a Premier League club, or even at a football league club in this country. You can go and work at your local grassroots team as an analyst. You also don’t need Hudl SportsCode to be an analyst. You can literally go back to basics and get a notepad and a pen out and stand at the side of the pitch and provide some sort of analysis. Now, obviously if you wanted to work at a club level and a professional level you are going to have to learn the technology at some point, but getting that kind of experience at grassroots or even academy level, if you have the opportunity at your local club, is invaluable.
I’ve also talked about communication and organisation skills. That’s where you learn that kind of thing, on the job, to then apply the experience later. Even though you might not be learning the technologies or intricacies of analysis, by working at a local club and with coaches, you are building the key foundations to become an analyst. Then, once you’ve got a foot on the door, say at a local academy side or with a college program that has funding and access to video cameras, you can start producing some video analysis.
I think it important to ask questions. You need to use your experience and your volunteering almost like a job interview. You use those to become full-time employed if that’s what you are aiming for, or part-time employed if that’s possible. Treat every experience you are doing as an opportunity to learn and develop yourself. For me, that is the most important advice. Not every opportunity you are going to get is going to be paid. See every opportunity like an internship, even if it’s not officially an internship or a studentship. Make some phone calls to your local grassroots club and say “can I come along with a camera?”. Nowadays, even an iPhone has the ability to film a game of football. You don’t need a top of the range camera. You probably just need an iPad or an iPhone if you’ve got one and start filming games and producing some sort of analysis to then build up from there.
I’ve been lucky enough to study at university. I did Coaching and Sports Science and then went on to do a Masters in Research in Performance Analysis. If I’m honest, I’d say you don’t need to be Masters degree educated to be an analyst. I know a lot of jobs say that they require an MSc or a BSc to do the role. I disagree with that in a way. They probably do it to vet the field of applicants. However, there are definitely examples of analysts out there that I know that haven’t had their education through university. They’ve come from a practical side of things, where they’ve been a coach and then gone on to become analysts. Don’t get me wrong, you probably need more experience to do it if you are not coming through university because university is where the opportunities open up to you, but don’t see it as a ‘be all or end all’.
Coaching certificates are also becoming more and more apparent. I am currently doing my UEFA B now. The reason I wanted to do that is that I have been coaching previously and I saw it as a bit of CPD for myself. I think they are definitely going down the route where analysts are going to be judged on their ability to deliver and coach off the field, so coaching badges can be important. Even by doing your Level 1 or Level 2 coaching badge that is definitely going to get you recognised within the football environment, as they can see you’ve got some sort of understanding of the game. Whereas if you have just done the academic route, people within football could question whether you have an understanding of the game. You might do and might be well educated in terms of football, but having both the academic and the coaching badges will always help.