Brighton CEO Paul Barber has reassured Seagulls supporters that the departures of Paul Winstanley and Kyle Macaulay will not see Chelsea benefit from too much of the south coast club's insight. The duo are just two members of staff that have made the trip to west London as Graham Potter and Marc Cucurella were joined by coaches Billy Reid, Bjorn Hamberg, Bruno Saltor and Ben Roberts.
Despite the expertise and working relationship of Winstanley and Macauley departing the club, Barber is convinced that it is Brighton's data itself that sets the club apart, and that is protected, outside of specific areas of knowledge. The deputy chairman also believes Brighton are protected due to the different capabilities of the teams, suggesting Chelsea will be looking in other areas for players.
The Seagulls still hope to uncover quality young stars in the mould of Cucurella, who Chelsea spent in excess of £60million to prise away from the Sussex side. Though the Blues will undoubtedly hope to uncover gems of their own.
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Barber told the Albion Roar podcast: "The data is totally protected, they [Winstanley and co] don't have access to our main database. They get access to data for specific players that we are looking at. Largely speaking Chelsea will be fishing in a different pond to us, at certain different levels of the market, so we have no concerns about that
"When it comes to young players there are always going to be risks that knowledge is transferred but not data. And in any case, probably the world's top 100 players are known to many, many different clubs, and what people won't necessarily know is the key attributes that those players broken down from a statistical data point of view by the type of systems we use, that is the uniqueness. The individuals and data are not unique, it is how we interpret it that is unique.
"That is something that can't be moved and will never be moved. From that point of view, we hope to continue to unearth the [Marc] Cucurellas, the [Moises] Caicedos, and the type of players that you are seeing coming in like [Julio] Enciso, [Jeremy] Sarmiento, and [Facundo] Buanonotte, all of these sorts of players have not been unearthed just by a human being, they have been unearthed by a series of systems we use to recruit the best young talent we can."
While, Barber focuses on the the influence of the system and data, Chelsea are seeking quality human beings too. In each of the announcements that have been released when Shields, Stuart and Winstanley have joined the club, Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have firmly emphasised the collaborative approach they are looking for. That focus on cohesion was a key part in seeing Graham Potter arrive in place of Thomas Tuchel.
Chelsea's ownership noted they wanted to assemble 'a deep and collaborative management team' when Shields was appointed, a 'deep sporting team that will collaborate closely' when Stuart arrived and acknowledged that Winstanley reflected their philosophy.
While the intricacies of Brighton's data would surely provide something that has benefitted the Seagulls, Chelsea would have been naive to expect that. The club have 'a clear plan and will adopt a modern and data-driven philosophy, focused on elite emerging talent' in their own manner and are drawing on expertise from a number of different areas.
Quick results will be expected from many areas but the Blues are putting together a team that look to build sustained success in a mould suited for Chelsea.
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