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Liam Henshaw

I am a data analyst and scout working in professional football. Subscribe and join over4,000+ newsletter readers every week!

The time excuse that's costing you
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The time excuse that's costing you

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most people who want to break into football think they need full days to make progress. They don't. I've spoken with over 200 people trying to change careers into football. The same excuse comes up every time: "I don't have enough time." They're waiting for two full days a week. A Sunday morning with nothing else on. A free afternoon of empty hours where they can finally sit down and build that portfolio or...

Future-proof football jobs: What AI can't replace

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Everyone's asking the wrong question about AI in football. It's not "will my job disappear?" It's "am I building skills that survive the shift?" Last week, someone in the Recruitment Room asked whether the technical skills they'd spent years learning would be redundant in 10 years. The question sparked a thread that cut through the AI panic and landed on something more useful: clarity about what actually...

What Championship clubs actually look for

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Last week in the Recruitment Room I sat across from a technical scout at a Championship club and shared something most people won't tell you. "I shook hands. We agreed terms. And then he ghosted me completely. Haven't heard from him since." This wasn't some entry-level rejection. This was after persistent pursuit from the club. After meetings. After they'd sold him the vision. Full agreement - then silence....

Your work fails in 5 seconds

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most scout reports and data visualisations I see from analysts fail before anyone processes a single metric. The insight's there. The data's solid. But the layout works against how human eyes actually move across a screen. The Z-Pattern Reality Your eyes follow a Z across any image or document. Top left first. Then across to top right. Diagonal down to bottom left. Finally, bottom right. That's it. That's the...

Training Ground Guru: What I learned

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Last Tuesday, I spent the day at the Training Ground Guru live event in Manchester. Clubs, data companies, scouts, experts from across the globe - all in one room. And while everyone's still debating which metric matters most or which market to scout next, I noticed something else entirely. The real opportunity isn't in the data. It's in the room. What Actually Matters Here's what stood out: Francisco Belo from...

Why going alone kills football careers

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most career advice feels like shouting into a void. Apply here. Network there. Build your portfolio. Post on LinkedIn. All true. All necessary. But there's something missing that nobody talks about - and it's the thing that actually changed everything for me this year. The WhatsApp Group I Didn't Know I Needed In January, I started building the Recruitment Room. A membership community for people who want to...

Job security in football: It doesn't exist

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Everyone talks about breaking into football. Nobody talks about staying in it. Last week I shared something brutal on LinkedIn that got more engagement than anything I'd posted in months. The hard truth about working in football that most people don't want to hear. Job security doesn't exist in this industry. Actually, scratch that. Job security doesn't exist in any industry unless you're the owner or founder....

Stop perfecting work - start posting more

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Here's what I hear constantly: "I'll share my work when it's perfect." Wrong approach. I watched someone spend three months perfecting one scout report for LinkedIn. Three months. Meanwhile, another analyst posted rough analysis twice a week for the same period. Guess who got noticed by clubs first? The one taking shots. The Volume Paradox Quality over quantity sounds logical. It's also limiting your career....

What breaking into football really takes

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most people wait for the perfect moment to begin their football career. They tell themselves they need more qualifications. More experience. More connections. More of everything except what they actually need: the willingness to start. Mark Njiriri proved this wrong. The Permission Trap A few months ago, Mark was stuck. He'd studied at UCFB, worked in recruitment for nearly 10 months, and felt further from...

Data visualisations are too complex

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most football analysts are making their visuals harder to read, not easier. I learned this the hard way when I spent three hours building an interactive dashboard with five different chart types, only to watch the Sporting Director squint at it for thirty seconds before asking: "Can you just show me the numbers in a table?" That moment changed how I think about football data visualisation. Here's what's...