Book Review: Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution

by Ryan O’Hanlon

What’s It About?

Net Gains explores how data analytics is transforming the world of football in much the same way it revolutionised baseball.  That might sound like a story you’ve heard before, but this book goes way deeper without ever decreasing the entertainment value.

Sounds Good.  Tell Me More!

There has been such an abundance of football books focusing on the emergence of data within the game that, after reading Rory Smith’s Expected Goals and Josh Williams’ Data Game (illuminating, particularly if you’re a Liverpool fan) I felt there wasn’t much to be gained from reading any more on the subject.

I was wrong.

Good as those books are (and, I repeat, they really are), the book on this topic that I’ve enjoyed the most was Ryan O’Hanlon’s Net Gains.

O'Hanlon dives into how clubs are increasingly relying on data to scout players, develop tactics, and make in-game decisions. The book also delves into the cultural resistance within the sport to adopting these methods and how the shift towards analytics is changing the game at every level.

He does so by talking to some of the pioneers of the use of data in the game, tracing the roots of various ideas and sharing the challenges those analysts faced to gain acceptance. 

And that is what makes Net Gains truly special.  It does not merely focus on the stars of the data revolution but also on the early evangelists and outsiders who pushed through their ideas.  More than that, it humanises those individuals and ensures that their role in data’s rise within football is not overlooked.

O’Hanlon even challenges the traditional view of the maligned Charles Reep, bringing to light just how brilliant some of his intuitions were, given the limited means that he had access to.

For all of that, O’Hanlon never allows himself to be so blinded by the subject that he errs into crediting it with powers it doesn’t have.  Data, whilst powerful and inevitable in the modern game, cannot be the answer to all problems and for all teams.

Not many authors can retain such lucidity.

Even So…

I got the feeling that Net Gains was published with the American market in mind which meant that certain aspects of the game were explained in detail that I don’t feel a football aware audience needs.  Also, I listened to this as an audio-book and the narrator clearly had no idea what he was speaking of, as evidenced by his butchering of some team and player names.

Final Score

If you’re going to read just one book about the rise in the use of data in football, then this is it.  Why you would limit yourself to just one book, I don’t know.  But it is my way of showing how much I liked Net Gains.