milo
Jack L. Jones
There's been some articles about the kind of statistics used by football managers and scouts, I can't remember where to find any of them now, but I'm almost certain the stats that are being used go beyond basic whoscored.com stats and that they're used to inform decisions. I don't think it's right that "Stewart Downing was signed for the fact he had the most crosses in the league the previous season"
Personally I think Stuart Downing was signed as part of a Dalglish gameplan including Andy Carroll and quite possibly Henderson crossing from the right. A gameplan built around a big traditional centre forward. I don't think it was a particularly bad signing from that perspective although it obviously didn't work out.
I'm not sure how much of that was Comolli to be honest. Seems rather out of character compared to the player types he signed for us and of course the Arsenal system he was a scout in.
I can recommend this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0670922242?pc_redir=1398797109&robot_redir=1
there is fair amount in there about the analysis clubs use to identify and target players. Downing is used as a case study and it goes a lot further than just the number of crosses.