Tottenham boss Villas-Boas: Football statistics are useless

25-Feb-2013 3:20:00 PM

The Portuguese coach says he prefers not to rely on performance-measuring tools such as Prozone and instead judges himself whether a player is fulfilling his tasks

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas says he considers performance-measuring football statistics to be "useless" and prefers to rely on his own judgement.

Many coaches, such as Sam Allardyce of West Ham, who Spurs play on Monday night, value tools such as Prozone when analysing a player's contributions.

But Villas-Boas claims that those systems do not always give players credit for tasks he asks them to carry out within the team unit.


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"I don't use it because I don't believe [in it]," he told reporters. "Normally players are related to tasks and certain tasks might not achieve specific physical data that rewards premium efficiency in terms of a physical performance.

"But if they do the tasks properly it's what you want as a football team. You always have to be very, very careful with statistics.

"It doesn't mean that we negate them completely; we just don't use them to the extent that people might think.

"For me it's useless, but it depends from coach to coach and it's different, different approaches. The mind and how the player feels is much more important for us, rather than statistical data."

Tottenham have the opportunity to move ahead of Chelsea into third place by beating West Ham but Villas-Boas acknowledged the test that awaited them at Upton Park.

"It's a difficult game at a difficult stadium," he admitted. "Full of passion and emotion.

"It's not going to be easy but we are on a good run. Hopefully we can get three points and be third at the end of the week."

The Portuguese boss dismissed fears that the club's continued participation in the Europa League, where they will face Inter Milan in the last 16, would distract their focus domestically.

"It won't really be difficult," he insisted. "I think the boys are really committed to their Champions League objective and [they] will be up for it. We have done well after the European ties.

"We have a good week ahead with West Ham and Arsenal, games that are maybe easier to prepare in terms of motivation for the players."

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