Scouting
In the Scouting section members get my detailed assessments of on pitch performances from a Football Index perspective. A standard match report can tell you if a player had a good game in general, my reports tell you whether he did the right things for FI purposes. That can sometimes be very different!
I spend many hours each week combing through every eligible game of football across all 5 leagues to pick out the notable performances both good and bad. Within 1 or 2 days of the matches, members can expect to see my analysis appear in the Scouting section. There is often a big update on Monday to cover the weekends action for example. But I also do midweek updates when there are midweek games.
What about the Summer? There are no competitive games after all unless there is a tournament. But actually, this tends to be when I work harder than ever. There will be pre-season games to analyse and setting up our portfolios for the new season is crucial to a great year of FI profits. And, as discussed further in the transfers section, there will be a lot of updates there during this time.
As I run through all the games each week, the important notes and observations are added to the scouting section.
For a team, that could be a tactical change or a major change in form that is going to have an impact on performance scoring.
For a player, it could be particularly strong or weak underlying performance relevant stats or an important positional shift. Anything that will change the likelihood of a player performing strongly in FI scoring.
Performance scoring is very sensitive to tactical and positional changes.
Therefore, it is no use relying on historical performance scoring from a data service, the reason for those high scores in the past may well have changed and often do. Equally, previously terrible players can improve due to a positional shift or similar.
I focus on the real match statistics across the last 1-6 matches, which means I can see an improvement or a decline in a player often before it filters through to the FI performance scoring.
We need to do that for optimal profits because once a player has already hit a high score and everyone knows about it, the best value is gone. We need to be there waiting.
Because of the need to keep things short and concise, I use a lot of short hand like “good overall involvement” or “high goal threat”. But really, I am boiling down complicated analysis into simple terms to avoid overly wordy analysis. But you can be assured that I look at every aspect on the FI points scoring system (given here for easy reference) when assessing each player.
I can do this because I pay for access to highly detailed stats used by scouting and coaching professionals. It goes well beyond what is freely available. (I cannot share access to this system, sorry! :), but you benefit from it whenever you read my analysis.
This is my way of highlighting players who are showing exceptional statistics in the last 1-3 games. They have a strong chance of challenging for performance wins in the next games.
A player does not get on this list easily and it will mean they have exceptionally high goal threat (for their position, defenders have lower expectations obviously) or strong goal threat coupled with high overall involvement in recent games leading to solid baseline scores.
If during my scouting I note a change that is consistent and will effect the players performance suitability going forward, they will be added to the improving or declining section.
So, whilst scouting can pick out something interesting that happened in just one game, a player appearing in improving or declining has likely had a fairly big change that has caused me to update the site player ratings.
The note will give the reasons and then show how the Current and/or Potential player rating has changed out of 
.
These player ratings are explained later on in the guide.
Transfer Centre
In the Transfer Centre I analyse the big potential moves and highlight some of the lesser known hidden gems.
Each move is analysed with discussion on what might happen to the price depending on different outcomes. I also share my thoughts on any strategy for the trade. Each trade is put into a category which indicates how much attention it could receive, and rated for how likely it is to happen. More details on this are in the drop box below.
The frequency of the updates varies depending on the time of year. If the transfer window is far away, it may be updated just once or twice a week. As the window gets closer, I’ll update it much more frequently. However, I cannot for obvious reasons keep on top of changes in real time. Transfer news breaks fast so as much as I’d like to, I can’t offer a free pass to ignore the news during transfer season! 🙂
But you can rely on me to comb through them regularly and highlight the changes, as well as providing analysis that covers the different options.
In this section I highlight and analyse transfers big and small, with a focus on performance suitable players both known and unknown. I also include any popular players even if they aren’t that great for performance.
Each rumour has a rating out of 
to indicate how strong the rumour is and the likelihood of the transfer. 5 stars being the strongest, 1 star being a weak rumour and unlikely to happen.
The positive transfer rumours are categorised from A to D, with A being the really big ticket moves that will get a ton of attention, and D being quite low key moves. It is worth noting that, often, some of the most profitable trades can be in C as they can start at very low prices that quietly get a lot of capital appreciation.
I take a lot of different sources into account including the number of stories, the source of that story, and then the practical things like the contract end date as well as the tactical fit in the team and whether the financing of the move is realistic.
Category E has unfavourable rumours which means the player is notable and probably performance friendly, but he looks like heading to a club where he will not be able to make much impact on FI.
This can change fast, though. For example, Youri Tielimans in the picture is in Cat. E at that time because he is expected to sign for Leicester where winning will be a tough ask.
However, he was also starting to pick up very loose rumours of a move to a bigger club, which if true, would move him from E up to probably a B.
Players sit in the category which reflects the most likely move I think they will make and that can change.
Unfavourable rumours also get a 5 star rating for likelihood/strength, same as the rest, it just happens to be red to match the background.
When a rumour looks to be dying, or if a popular player who might have moved becomes highly likely to remain at their club, they are added to Dying Rumours.
They have a 
negativity rating out of 5.
The more bars are filled, the more negativity there is on the transfer and the less likely I judge it to happen.
Cat. A – On trend, performance suitable high profile player incoming to the EPL, OR a major move for a global star. Likely to result in major short or long term media potential.
Cat. B – On trend performance suitable player incoming to a big club in the EPL OR very strong performance player linked to a big club in the 5 major European Leagues. EPL transfers should get decent media attention. Transfers outside of the EPL may not see huge initial gains particularly if the price is already high, however there should be strong interest in the player by late June/July at least due to strong performance prospects for next season.
Cat. C – On trend performance suitable player going to any big club in the big 5 European leagues. Unlikely to get much media attention but should be a strong player for next season. Or, a mid tier performance player coming to a big club in the EPL.
Cat. D – Average or weak performance player going to a big club in the big 5 European leagues. They still may get buying for the transfer but they may not succeed at the new club or generate much media interest.
Cat. E – Performance suitable player who may be off trend or going to middle/low ranking clubs in the big 5 European leagues.
Next: Part 3 – Understanding Player Ratings
All views expressed on this site are my personal opinion and not financial advice. You are responsible for any decisions you make with your own funds and you should be wary of following any guides, tips or advice from any source without thinking it through for yourself.
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