QPR Recruitment Analysis Report — Where Are The Players Now?
Background
Earlier this year, I created a right back recruitment analysis report based on QPR FC as part of my postgraduate degree’s assignment. The report was purely data-driven, and I developed my own methodology to formulate coefficients that contributed to measuring players’ overall ratings. Then I came up with a three-player shortlist which I would recommend QPR to sign, but the question here is, where are the players now?
As I was working on the project, QPR were in really poor form and they were 19th in the EFL Championship after 38 games, in which they only managed to pickup 42 points from 38 games (1.11 points per game) and they had the leakiest defence at the time, conceding 59 goals in 38 games (joint most with Wigan Athletic). So our assignment was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current squad and pick a position for recruitment, and I picked right back as it was the position where QPR had the most rotations on.
Ethan Laird, Osman Kakay and Aaron Drewe were the three players that had played in right back position for QPR in the first 38 league games of the 2022/23 season, but Kakay played as a left wing back for most of the season and Drewe not being featured in top professional leagues before this season. So based on the data gathered from Statsbomb, I managed to create a database with over 1000 right backs age ranged between 16–25 (my recruitment target), and after filtering leagues that QPR are allowed to scout in, and also filtering players who had played at least a certain number of minutes, it left me with 297 right backs to analyse. In which the dataset only included Laird and previous QPR wing back Bright Osayi-Samuel, so they would be used to compare against the recruitment targets.
How Do I Create Player Ratings for Comparison?
Attributes to Consider
This should be the question in mind, as Statsbomb provided a lot of variables and with the amount of players I had in the original dataset, it made my laptop crashed a few times while trying to do data filtering. In such case, I identified three main key attributes to consider for a right back, which are defending, attacking and physical, and under these key attributes there are sub-attributes.
For defending it would be ability to stop crosses, 1v1 defending, aerial ability and ability to press. Some key variables include ball recoveries, blocks, clearances, interceptions, opposition half ball recoveries, tackles %, aerial win %, counter-pressure regains, etc.
For attacking it would be ball progression and crossing accuracy, with some key variables include number of goals and assists, passes into box, forward passing %, ball carry length, etc.
For physical I would be considering their stamina/energy based on their number of pressures and minutes played over the past seasons.
Coefficients & Standardisation of Data
Then I used the general method of how Electronic Arts gave ratings to players in their previous FIFA gaming franchise, by applying coefficients to different key attribute as multipliers to the respective ability out of 100. For example, if defensive awareness weighs 0.12 or has a weighting coefficient of 0.12, a player with a score of 58 will then be multiplied by 0.12 and this applies to all other attributes and their respective coefficients.
But to get the player score for each attribute, data was standardised by adopting z-scores and t-scores calculations as they formulate the basis of my ranking coefficient system (See pictures below), then the leagues power rankings give extra points to the players if they play in a more reputable league or a more competitive league, and if the player comes from a nation with higher FIFA world ranking, they get extra points too. The sum of attributes multiplied by coefficients, league points, and nation points equals the overall rating.
Results
As a result, I came up with a preliminary seven-player shortlist which featured some big names such as Feyenoord’s Lutsharel Geertruida, Ajax’s Devyne Rensch, and Benfica’s Alexander Bah as they had some of highest overall ratings in the dataset. However I had to remove them from the final shortlist as they were too unrealistic for QPR to sign, so only 3 of those 7 players made it to the final shortlist, and they were Boavista’s Pedro Malheiro, Go Ahead Eagles’ captain Mats Deijl, and Genk’s Angelo Preciado.
Pedro Malheiro had the 12th highest overall rating (76.49), and his playing forward ability was 3rd compared to Championship right backs, and he was 12/297 in the dataset in such attribute. His 1v1 defending ability also stood out, as he was 2nd overall when compared against Championship right backs. He also had 6 assists in 2022/23 Liga Portugal. But he is seemed to be weak in the air and has very average defensive ability.
Mats Deijl had the 4th highest overall rating (78.10), and he came 1st in forward-playing ability when compared to Championship right backs. He also seemed to be one of the top all-rounders in the dataset as he was in the top 33% for almost every variable. Even though he recorded 2 goals and 2 assists in the 2022/23 Eredivisie in an average Go Ahead Eagles, he is relatively poor in crossing, 1v1 defending and applying pressure.
Despite Angelo Preciado only has the 29th highest overall rating (72.88), he was my top choice because of him being an experienced and established international for his country, Ecuador. He has one of the highest crossing scores (10th overall in the dataset) and he came 1st in overall defensive awareness and 6th in 1v1 defending, he was also 2nd best in applying pressure when compared against Championship right backs. However, his scores in ball carries and progressive passes brought his overall rating down, and his price tag might be a bit too much for a financially tight QPR.
The dashboard below was created to display comparisons between transfer targets, Championship right backs, and the right backs at QPR.
Where Are They Now?
Expectedly, none of them signed for QPR as they were only my personal recruitment recommendations and realistically, recruitment analysts at QPR would definitely have different recruitment criteria and methodology than what I had. Last week on 26th September, QPR did sign a right back who played for Boavista but it was not Pedro Malheiro, but the American Reggie Cannon who terminated his own contract and became a free agent then joined QPR.
Malheiro still plays for Boavista and he is in great form, as he already has 2 goals and 1 assists in 5 games, helping Boavista to sit in 4th place in the Primeira Liga after 8 rounds. Mats Deijl has 2 assists in the Eredivisie so far and they are currently 8th in the table with 5 points ahead of the Dutch giants, Ajax. Angelo Preciado completed his transfer to Sparta Prague in September and is yet to make any goal contributions for the Czech side, but he started in both Sparta Prague’s Europa League games against Aris and Betis, having 7.2/10 rating for both games on Sofascore.
It might be a big claim to say my recruitment analysis was successful, but I hope they do well this season to prove my report right.
