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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!

Training Ground Guru: What I learned
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Training Ground Guru Live: 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...

What it's really like being a scout

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, I've just been featured in my first book. The book is called Scout Stories: A life in the shadows and it's by Jon Cotterill. You might know Jon from Anatomy of a Football Scout - a book I love and still recommend to anyone serious about understanding this industry. For Scout Stories Jon took a different approach. He interviewed 26 scouts from around the world, from Premier League clubs to Non-League. Being...

Courses won't get you football jobs

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most people think courses and degrees are enough. They're not. Last week, Brian McDermott joined us for an industry expert session in the Recruitment Room. Premier League manager, director of football at Hibernian, Arsenal scout, former professional player. His message was simple and brutal. You have to actually do something. The Uncomfortable Truth Brian's breakthrough came from picking up the phone. He spoke...

The analyst job that won't exist

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Everyone's asking the wrong question about AI. They're worried about whether robots will take their jobs. They're reading headlines about AI replacing football analysts entirely. They're missing what's actually happening. Here's what I told an analyst who booked a 1-2-1 career breakthrough call when he asked about AI's impact on football careers. The Truth Your job is changing. Not disappearing. I've been...

The 3 types of clubs that use data

FOOTBALL PROGRESSION PATH Helping you create opportunities in football Hey Reader, Most clubs say they “use data in their recruitment process.” Here’s what they actually mean - and why understanding the difference could change how you approach your next application. The Three Types of Data Clubs After years of working with different organisations and hosting Recruitment Room community sessions with industry experts and key decision makers, I've noticed clubs fall into three distinct...