At the recent Manchester United game at West Ham United, the visiting analysts sat in front of the press box, watching videos and cutting clips on their laptops. They wore Manchester United tracksuits and were joined by coach Travis Binnion.
Discretion is part of their job, just as it is at Old Trafford where three or four analysts sit in a line before disappearing towards the dressing room a few minutes before half-time. A coach will often be with them — frequently it was Darren Fletcher who did so before his role changed. The analysts and a coach sit high up since the elevated position offers a better tactical view. It’s challenging to judge distance and see tactical play from pitch level.
The analysts will have already dissected the opponents and been a part of the game plan and strategy, plus team and individual instructions. In conversation with a player, interim head coach Michael Carrick will then usually frame this information as advice. “I’d suggest you could do this, it could be great for us,” he might say to a player.
The analysts arm a manager and his coaches with details from which instructions will follow to players for the different phases of the game, from the build-up with the goalkeeper, the second phase against a medium block, the third phase when United are in the opposition half, the transitions, defensive phases and set plays. All will have been discussed before the game. Some are general team principles, others are game-specific ideas or details.
During the game, the analysts will be watching whether the opposition are doing what has been expected. Their formation may change from what was predicted, an opponent may go direct when they were expected to go short. Or perhaps an opposition player is in a different role to what was anticipated. Deviations will be reported to a coach on the bench (or in the stand like Fletcher or Binnion, who will be connected to those on the touchline).
The intention is to produce suggestions which can potentially affect the live game: a detailed filter process so far removed from a coach merely telling his players to go out and enjoy themselves, as Sir Matt Busby often did.
Ultimately, the coach decides if the information they are getting is enough to force a change on the pitch. Carrick may agree with the observations but may choose to wait until half-time, where he has the tactics board, video and the players’ full attention. It is not easy to get a message to a player on the other side of the pitch during a game, though one may go down injured, and then tactical instructions can be received. The analysts must know everything that is going on during the game in relation to what has been prepared and what the players were expecting.
There are five analysts for United’s first team (there were six last season when they played 60 games as opposed to 40 this time) and they are led by new arrival Ben Parker. The others are Luke Lazenby, who is now the longest-serving and most experienced member of the team, Luke Wright, Lewis Rhodes and Kaita Hasegawa. In addition, United have also worked with Eduardo Rosalino, who was brought in by Ruben Amorim, plus Pieter Morel and Kevin Keij, who were recruited by Erik ten Hag and integrated into the existing team. Some Premier League clubs now have up to 10 analysts working in the first-team setup.
These are professionals known within their industry but seldom to the outside world. They keep a low profile, happy to work hard (hours and travel can be unsociable) in the background, to be the unrecognised faces leaving the team bus holding a piece of equipment. The technology and software is always changing.
Much of their time goes on analysing video, information and data, then working with the coaching staff to improve players and the team’s performance and preparation. This covers post-match analysis, training analysis, opposition and pre-match analysis and live/in-game analysis is fed from those seats near the press box to the bench.
Hasegawa, 27, was name-checked by Carrick recently.
“Jonny (Evans) has had his eyes on set plays and Kaita, the analyst,” said Carrick after Bryan Mbeumo scored the opening goal in the win against Tottenham Hotspur from a move worked out on the training ground. “It is great when things come off. We obviously all have different ideas but the lads have carried it off great. Bruno (Fernandes), Kobbie (Mainoo) and Bryan put it away, so I am delighted with that.”
Bryan Mbeumo scores from a set piece against Tottenham Hotspur (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Evans is a household name to football fans, not so Hasegawa. One of the few Japanese nationals working in the Premier League (he played childhood football with another, Brighton & Hove Albion’s Kaoru Mitoma), Hasegawa joined United as a first-team performance analyst in November 2022 after nearly eight years at Everton, where he worked under coaches including Carlo Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez.
Before that he studied sports science at Liverpool John Moores University, which has multiple alumni now working in football. John Murtough, who became United’s football director, studied there, while the Liverpool connection helped the club sign Javier Hernandez in 2010.
Chief scout Jim Lawlor had been tipped off about the striker by the former Mexican international Marco Garces, who had spent four years studying for a sports science degree at the university. He became friends with Lawlor, who worked there before joining United. United followed it up and signed Hernandez.
While Evans is a coach who contributes to set plays — just as Carlos Fernandes did before leaving with Amorim — Hasegawa is an analyst who does the same. These roles are not set and analysts who work on set plays change, but Hasegawa had long impressed United.
“When we’d played Everton previously, he’d always come across as professional and friendly when we bumped into him as a counterpart,” explains Paul Brand, United’s head analyst until he moved to UEFA in 2025.
“I’d heard good things about him from people who knew him and who had worked at Everton. When we interviewed him for the role he was extremely likeable, interesting and warm. His work was not only detailed, thorough and of a high quality, it also looked very stylish, engaging and was presented extremely well. After employing him, those traits were consistently present, fitting in well with the ethos of the department and other analysts — his character was a perfect add for us.”
Brand moved on in October after 12 years at United working under nine managers. Analysts also change clubs and move roles, as in any industry. They make connections and earn the trust of managers. Tom Green, a senior performance analyst at United, left to join Besiktas under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a year ago as lead analyst, a more senior role.
When The Athletic broke that story, one source, who is familiar with Green’s work, told us: “Tom’s a good football analyst and Ole needs that at Besiktas, someone who can produce and do the dirty work, create the pre-match analysis, lead the manager into a match and make sure Ole has all the data on his iPad.
“He’ll have to make sure the coach has the game on his computer after the match, that all coaches have analysis clips pre, live and post-match. In his role, he’d send individual clips to players before and after the games showing their actions. He’ll be important for Ole and his staff — it’s a risky, brave, bold move and he must be admired for doing that after seven or eight years at United.” Green was at Besiktas for nine months and left when his boss Solskjaer did.
At United, Brand stayed to help find his replacement, Ben Parker, who is in the same team as Hasegawa. They are important cogs in Carrick’s support network.
It is the coach, rather than any analyst, who gets the most praise (and money) but they also have to deal with the most criticism. Carrick brings the personality that the players must buy into. He (and his coaches) have the ultimate decisions: instructing the team, deciding the tactics and selecting who should play or not. Their remuneration reflects their importance but there is a team behind the team and those analysts keeping their heads well down out of the spotlight play a key part.
