Stephen

data scientist @ManUtd | PhD researcher on game model eval @ManMetUni | views my own | he/him

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

had a fantastic time talking at the twelve day conference in stockholm this week!

was really cool to be up there alongside some great speakers, thank you for the invite @twelve_football 🙏

[frankie @madebyfrankie]

Daizen.

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

I’m always excited to hear from Jon on tactics, so it’s incredibly cool that he’s written a book for me about it 🥰

(but you can also pre-order!)

[Jon Mackenzie @Jon_Mackenzie]

Some news: I've written a book about how football has evolved over the last fifteen years or so.

It's called The Spectre of Pep: How Guardiola haunts modern football tactics.

It's out in August and you can pre-order it right now from this link: https://t.co/xoOBxVp3NR

[Jon Mackenzie @Jon_Mackenzie]

Some news: I've written a book about how football has evolved over the last fifteen years or so.

It's called The Spectre of Pep: How Guardiola haunts modern football tactics.

It's out in August and you can pre-order it right now from this link: https://t.co/xoOBxVp3NR

[frankie @madebyfrankie]

If you saw my Scotland x World Cup '26 cassette card fixtures designs, I've gone and put both the coloured and plain background versions on my shop! A4 and A3 landscape or vertical layouts available. Click through to get one if you like. https://t.co/Izq3cy26E9 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[frankie @madebyfrankie]

Scotland's World Cup '26 fixtures if they were blank cassette designs | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇩🇰🇭🇹🇲🇦🇧🇷

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Manchester United isn't just our name.

It's a message of togetherness, acceptance and inclusion from our club. Our city. Our people.

We stand with the @PremierLeague and @RainbowDevils in championing equality, making football welcome for everyone.

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

Suggested donation of £10 to attend, but all donations appreciated!

🔗 https://t.co/7tiEXLnQTE

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

My lovely 🎹 teacher, Gema, is hosting a charity concert for PawPurrs halfway house, a Wigan-based charity that rescues and re-homes cats in need.

All contributions greatly appreciated!

🌍 Cross St. Chapel, Manchester
⏰ Friday 20th March, 18:30
📷 gema.piano

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

Suggested donation of £10 to attend, but all donations appreciated!

🔗 https://t.co/7tiEXLnQTE

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

My lovely 🎹 teacher, Gema, is hosting a charity concert for PawPurrs halfway house, a Wigan-based charity that rescues and re-homes cats in need.

All contributions greatly appreciated!

🌍 Cross St. Chapel, Manchester
⏰ Friday 20th March, 18:30
📷 gema.piano

[Ron Yurko @Stat_Ron]

We're now taking applications for #CMSACamp 2026! Application deadline is Feb 27th - please share with rising juniors and seniors! #sportsanalytics #datascience

[Florian Schmitt @Flosch1006]

@SRFootball_ Also might want to check out the Impect Open Data repository:

https://t.co/tq19X1ZgCb

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

@nick_kapx opta are the data provider that were supplying fbref - as far as i’m aware they’re still supplying fotmob and whoscored (possibly others!)

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

FBRef no longer being able to provide free public (advanced) data is a great shame as public data is how many in the industry get started (including myself!).

Couple of tips in the thread for if you were counting on this data for sharing public work ⬇️

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

@withqwerty no idea if i’m being completely honest! wouldn’t like to speculate

[Ben Griffis @BeGriffis]

Heartbreaking to see FBRef losing advanced data from Opta

My player scouting app uses Wyscout instead of Opta, and doesn’t pull from FBRef so if you need a replacement, it could be a start. Even if it’s quite different. Always free

https://t.co/sWLe7EADwq

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

I will caveat this by saying this is from my POV as a data scientist where I want to build models / derive insight from raw data. Engineering / analysis skills may not benefit from these datasets as much, but I wouldn’t want to advise too strongly in areas I’m not an expert in!

[Stephen @SRFootball_]

Which brings me onto my final point: to show / refine your technical skills, Kaggle is fantastic. There are some sports datasets, but more importantly you can search for datasets by type (e.g. time-series) and show your ability to handle and derive insights in different cases.