What will the data tell Ineos?

METRICS MAY INFORM CHOICE OF NEW BOSS

- TYRONE MARSHALL

WHEN Sir Jim Ratcliffe spoke last week of how Ineos had made mistakes and learned lessons during their ownership of Lausanne and Nice, he might have had at the forefront of his mind a swift recalibration of the plan for the French club.

After a spell focusing on experience, there was a u-turn to looking at younger players and when it came to changing coaches in the summer, with a new sporting director in situ, they turned to the data. It's a story that might already be resonating with some at Old Trafford.

Ineos appointed Florent Ghisolfi as sporting director at Nice. Then this summer Francesco Farioli was named as head coach, after the Italian came out on top when the brains behind Ratcliffe's foray into football ran the data and assessed the metrics.

Farioli was a left-field appointment, having managed Fatih Karagumruk and Alanyaspor in Turkey's top flight for a combined total of 75 games. But overseeing a young team, stripped of the initial focus on names and experience, such as Kasper Schmeichel, Ross Barkley and Aaron Ramsey, Farioli has guided the club on the Cote d'Azur to fourth in Ligue 1 this season. On this occasion, the data didn't lie and crunching the numbers likely to be a is focus for Ineos during their time at Old Trafford, even if the scale of the challenge is considerably greater than running smaller clubs in Switzerland and France. Sir Dave Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc, two figures already familiar to staff at Manchester United, were involved in the appointment of Farioli.