Moneyball in Football Manager (Part 2: Recruitment)
It is time to use data and find some talented, unearthed gems! It's the fun part, they say!
In part 1 of this however-many-part series, I used Football Manager’s Data Hub to start a rebuild of Bayer Leverkusen, who have now been relegated to the 2. Bundesliga in the 2025/26 season. Having jumped in after 11 matches to replace the team’s former manager, Urs Fischer, I found Leverkusen was 6th on the league table while being slowly left behind by the likes of Schalke 04, Hamburg, and Darmstadt in the race for a promotion spot.
While Fischer left the team with some promising signs both in attack and in defence, the conclusion that I came to was Leverkusen should be doing a lot better than just 6th on the league table, especially considering the individual talents that they have in their team. With a new tactic and some changes to try and get the best out of the players, let’s see where I am currently at with the team currently going through the winter break!
The results
Honestly, I do not think we are doing very bad at all. The defeat to Osnabrück in the DFB-Pokal was naturally disappointing, but it was a match where I elected to play a rotated squad to give players like Filip Stevanović, Jonas Hofmann, or Marcel Wenig a bit more game time that they did not get under Fischer. Going up against a seemingly out-of-nowhere Cyrill Akono, who scored all 4 goals for Osnabrück, and a Matheo Raab that played superb in goal gave us no chance to qualify for the third round of the Pokal.
One thing that I can say that we did well, however, was that we created 4.3 non-penalty xG from 25 shots and 13 on target while Osnabrück only created 1.16 npxG from 9 shots and 5 on target. So the chances were clearly there, but I had Jordan Zirkzee (Joshua’s brother, not Joshua himself) playing up top and only Stevanović as the stand-out attacking midfielder, these players obviously had a tough time converting those chances into goal. It was also a match that started sounding the alert that my backup keeper Danill Khudyakov is the one that has been leaking goals, which I would soon find out over a month from this match.
This loss gave me the chance to refocus back to the 2. Bundesliga and fill the best players into my 4-2-3-1 formation (that is being displayed at the bottom right of the above screenshot). Being able to go unbeaten in my first 6 league matches was great because it has allowed Leverkusen to keep up with the top 3 and maintain the gap of just a point between all teams while also slowly cutting Kaiserslautern and the rest of the league off of the promotion chase.
That unbeaten streak almost got ended, however, if not for Liberato Cacace saving us in stoppage time with a great individual goal. Again, another match where I thought I could rotate the team against last-placed 1860 München to give the first team players some rest and prevent them from getting burnt out and, subsequently, get injured. But once again, I have been proven that the team’s depth is inadequate (which I will talk about in a bit) and the quality of my rotational options are not that good. This will be the main theme for the January transfer window, which is to bolster squad depth that will allow Leverkusen to compete for the rest of the season.
The data
Generally speaking, the team are performing closer to the level where the numbers expect us to be, meanwhile the top 3 are still massively overperforming so we need to maintain our level and hope that they will slowly regress to the mean. But should we able to do that, combine with a few signings in January, hopefully we will be in contention for a promotion spot and a few drop-offs from Schalke, Hamburg, and Darmstadt will give us that opportunity to jump them.
Attacking
One aspect that I have managed to fix straight away is the team’s ability to convert chances into goals. We still possess one of the highest number of shots per game in the league, but Leverkusen’s conversion rate has managed to rise from just above 8% after 11 matches to just below 14% after 17 matches. We are also not underperforming our Expected Goals by a huge margin and are only underperform by 0.98 xG, which is a good sign considering the team were scoring 5 goals less than expected when I took over.
One of the reasons for that improvement in goal-scoring ability is being able to unearth both full-backs Liberato Cacace and Conor Bradley. Both have excelled in this 4-2-3-1, especially Bradley who loves to drive forward down his right-hand side and create chances from crosses. He also scores a few goals himself as well, all four goals that he has scored this season were from the last six matches that I managed. Cacace has only scored once, but he is slowly getting better at creating chances down the left and take some responsibilities off of Filip Stevanović.
Meanwhile, I am still a bit struggling to get the best out of Florian Wirtz, whose numbers has not improved that much since I took over. In fact, his numbers have not improved at all since his open play expected assists (xA) remains all most the same from 0.18 xA per 90 after 11 matches to 0.17 xA per 90 after 17 matches. His non-penalty expected goals (npxG) has not changed either as it stays from 0.22 npxG per 90 after 11 matches to 0.21 npxG per 90 after 17 matches.
He has only enjoyed two out of the six matches that I managed, against Sandhausen where he got an assist and against Osnabrück in the league where he scored once and assisted two goals. Other than that, he has just been bang on average for the remaining four matches. While it is good that we are not relying heavily on Wirtz to create chances, I still would love to get more out of a talent like Wirtz before I eventually lose him to a different team.
The attackers have also not shown that much improvement, with Iker Bravo being the only traditional #9 that I have been using throughout the past seven matches, if I do not count Zirkzee who comes off the bench more often. The Spaniard is not overperforming his numbers anymore, having maintained his goals per 90 level at 0.45 while taking more chances from tougher scoring positions with his npxG per 90 goes down from 0.52 after 11 matches to 0.45 after 17 matches.
Mohamed-Ali Cho has been thriving, but in a chance creator role on the right-hand side instead of as a goal-scoring forward. He still scored two goals, however, but also registered three assists in the six league matches in the meantime. Stevanović has been slightly disappointing, even though his output is not too bad on the surface. He has scored one goal and made two assists, but he came to me early on asking for more game time to get into the Serbia national team, which I expect him to perform at a higher level if that is what he wants. He might be a bit unlucky as he has 0.43 npxG per 90 but only has 0.18 goals per 90 after 17 matches, so I hope he can turn things around after the winter break.
Defence
Leverkusen continue to be one of the stronger teams in terms of defending with just 1.06 goals conceded from 1.03 Expected Goals against (xAG) per game. As I have mentioned in part 1, I do not see why I should divert from a strong defensive foundation that Fischer has established because that will give the attackers and midfielders more opportunities to take control of the game and play the style that we want to play.
I think our pressing numbers look more controlled even though we are still allowing the opposition play out from the back quite often. But I have noticed that our press has looked a lot better as we tended to force the opposition to play on the inside more often than out on the wings. On a few occasions, when the opposition did play the ball out to one of their wide players, our full-backs and wingers were ready to intercept those passes and create a fast break almost immediately, which has resulted in a few goals (three, if I remember correctly) for us.
But this is what I am more proud of, which is the team’s ability to keep the opposition away from our defensive third. It is an evidence that the press works because even better teams like Hamburg and Karlsruhe found it tough to create proper chances inside our defending area and had to resulted in making crosses, which we have the players to deal with aerial balls coming into the box.
As mentioned, being strong in defence gives us more opportunities to dominate teams and we have done just that as one of the top four teams in terms of final third passes for per game. It is also one of the reasons for our improvement in chance conversion because we are able to create more goal-scoring opportunities, some of which are of high quality.
Another problem that I also mentioned in part 1 was defending set pieces, which has led to quite a few goals conceded. Since then, it has gotten slightly better as we have managed to contain the opposition’s ability to create good chances from crosses or free kicks. But I am still a little bit concern about second balls coming out of the initial contacts, because even though we managed to clear the ball from the first contacts on most occasions, there were still a few occasions that we could not clear the ball out of our defensive third and allowed the opposition to recover possession quickly. At least the designated set piece coach, Damien Roden, is doing his job decently.
The performance of João Fonseca has been very promising as he has been the best performing centre-back amongst a very young group of defenders. Not the tallest centre-back by any means, because other centre-backs like Filippo Mané or Diogo Rocha are way taller than him, but he has won a decent number of headers while also being extremely aggressive in winning possession (14.59 possession won per 90) and pressing the opposition’s players (5.06 pressures attempted per 90). The media is labelling him as a wonderkid, and I am not surprised either because he looks like he has bags of potential at just 20 years old.
Another reason for the strong defensive performance is Patrick Pentz’s goalkeeping ability. He has improved significantly after the six league matches to the point where he is now preventing 1.8 xG per 90 while his save percentage has risen to above the league’s average. In contrary, Khudyakov is still a problem as we have conceded a total of six goals in the two matches that I started him. However, I am slightly happy to take that risk because he is only 22 years old and should make mistakes to learn and improve. This might become a problem later on if his numbers do not slowly improve throughout this season, though.
Recruitment (Part 1)
After the data analysis part was where I ended my previous test attempt with MK Dons on Football Manager 23, but this time will be different because I now own the full Football Manager 24 game so I can take this test to however far I want to! With that in mind, let us talk about the recruitment strategies for the January window as I will be pulling out the big guns for the recruitment stuff.
As mentioned, the main thing that I want to focus on for the January window is to bolster the squad depth since a few of the young players are not performing up to the standard of the 2. Bundesliga. If we want to secure promotion, we will need some players coming in this window to give me more options to rotate and keep my strongest core as fresh as possible. But I cannot bring in 10 or 15 players this window because that will completely destroy the dynamics of the team, so I will be spreading the depth out to two windows, with the January window focusing on the most important positions and end of contract signings for positions where there is not a huge need at the moment.
Towards the end of November, I realised the importance of depth and that most of the young players that I have might not be enough to keep the team running for long, so I looked into the free agents market and found two players who could help the team straight away.
Japanese international Yūki Sōma was brought in to provide a backup option to Filip Stevanović at the left winger spot, but he can also play as a left wing-back in a back five so he will also act as a backup for Liberato Cacace if we switch to a back five. Former Manchester City midfielder James McAtee was someone that I did not expect to find on the free agents list this late into the season, so I had to snap him up straight away. He can also play as a winger so that gives me more options out wide, but most importantly, he can rotate with Florian Wirtz for the #10 spot and allow Gustavo Puerta to be experimented as one of the two #8, particularly at the half back spot.
For the window, we do have a lot of money to spend but I do not want to go overboard and use all of that money, which can potentially put the club in a worse situation than before. I am setting a limit of 20 million Euros + one big transfer which will potentially be getting João Fonseca to stay at Leverkusen beyond his current loan move. I will also have two long shortlists that I will be considering players from.
The first one consists of players who are either coming to the end of their contract and have not played a lot for their current team, or players who are currently transfer listed. It is slightly harder to use data for these players because they are likely to have not played a lot for their team so they will not come up very high in the data tools that I will be using, but there are a lot of good players in this list who are available for a cut price, so I simply cannot pass up the opportunity to at least consider them.
The second list will comprise of players that have been found by the Moneyball tool by FMDatalab. This is where the Moneyball comes in because I am hoping and expecting to find young players who are good, have played regularly, and are available for under 10 million Euros so I can bring them into the club right away. I can and have the skills to develop my own tools, but again, I cannot stress this enough but this is supposed to be a game so I do not want to spend weeks developing a tool that has already existed and only for this single save. Both of these shortlists will be supported by the data and charts provided by the Mustermann skin, so this is full-on data-driven recruitment.
Squad depth
One look at the squad depth and there are a few positions that I want to address straight away. Fischer has left me with a few proper talents like Flo Wirtz, Exequiel Palacios, Conor Bradley, or Mohamed-Ali Cho, but the rest of the squad is only just above average or even too raw for the quality of the 2. Bundesliga. While there are also quite a few versatile players in the squad, that also means there will be less options for some positions if I want to lock players like Jonas Hofmann or Filippo Mané in for a single position.
First couple of positions that I have to quickly address are the full-backs. While I am very happy with how Libby Cacace and Conor Bradley are currently playing, they just do not have anyone who can step up to rotate with them and give them a rest. I have been playing Hofmann at left-back to cover for Cacace while I have promoted a promising player in Henri Shima up from the U19 to cover for Bradley. But because both players are just not that good to play at full-back, I will be looking for a left-back and a right-back to provide cover for Cacace and Bradley while also have some potential to develop into a squad player in the Bundesliga.
I will also looking to replace the current loanees in the squad since I might not be retaining two out of the three loanees. There is already a bid worth around €35 million Euros for Fonseca as I think he is worth the money and value, and because he is only 20 years old, there is a lot of potential resale value for him. Meanwhile, Diogo Rocha and Eyüp Aydin might not be that good and I do not think their respective value represents their current ability. So that will be a centre-back and a defensive/central midfielder on the shopping list.
There is also the need for replacing players who want to leave like Wirtz and Cho. Once they leave, I am unsure players like Gustavo Puerta or James McAtee can step up to replace them if we get promoted up to the Bundesliga. Similar situation for the striker position, since even though I am happy to give Iker Bravo more time to develop, he is not the striker that I want for the long run. That’s another couple of attacking midfielders to the list, along with a starting striker right now.
To recap, this will be the shopping list for the upcoming window:
At least one young, rotational centre-back either on an end-of-contract transfer for the summer 2026 window, or on a fee right now but will come in after this season.
A starting defensive midfielder who can also play as an #8 on a similar situation as above, but I am open for him to join right away if he is good enough for the current squad.
At least two attacking midfielders who can start but also has rooms to develop into a good Bundesliga player. They can come in straight away if they are available for a low fee, or they can arrive after their contract finishes after the 2025/26 season.
A starting striker who can lead the team in both the 2. Bundesliga and the Bundesliga while also be a good mentor for Bravo and can join straight away in the January transfer window.
To keep things a bit short and precise, I have decided to end part 2 here because I can imagine me going through the shortlists that I have will take quite a bit of words. But having used Football Manager’s Data Hub to help with assessing Leverkusen’s performance and find weaknesses that need to be fixed, things are going quite well with the changes that I have made. We have won the first six league games that I was in charge and are going into the winter break just one point outside of the promotion group.
We have also established the need for a recruitment drive in January and the positions that we will be looking for in the market. This will be where the Data Hub comes short because it does not provide a lot of tools to actually do data-driven recruitment, which we will be looking at FMDatalab’s Moneyball tool and combine that with Mustermann’s skin to properly use data for recruitment. But all of that will come in part 3 of this however-long-this-takes series!