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Using data and analysts in modern football is great. I was always the first to check my Prozone stats as a player. But when it comes to the new army of specialist coaches creeping into the game, it smells like a box-ticking exercise to me.
In fact, by bringing in extra voices to dissect throw-ins, set-plays and defensive shape, you risk giving players mixed messages. I'm not saying teams shouldn't work on specific aspects of the game.
But let the manager and coaches you already employ take responsibility for them. Asking players to respect a different, unproven voice more than the capable full-time people they already work with is nonsense.
Liverpool throw-in coach Thomas Gronnemark (second right) helps with their organisation
AFC Wimbledon have started to use a specialised substitutions coach too, but Sportsmail's Danny Murphy believes too many coaches will confuse players and send mixed messages
There was a strong reaction when I questioned on Match of the Day the benefits of specialist coaches. This column gives me the opportunity to explain my position.
I've spoken to successful managers and coaches who agree with me. They feel people are being drafted in because it sounds cutting edge when the regular coaches are fully able to do it themselves.
As a player I reaped the benefits of managers working on detail to gain those small advantages. Sports science was developing and Gerard Houllier left no stone unturned at Liverpool.
He would use all the information available but the difference was he would see it as his job, and that of
