The team behind the team!

Adam Collins spent a solitary season with the club back in 2006-07, as Rovers secured a top 10 Premier League finish, reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and the knockout stages of the UEFA Cup, whilst also qualifying for Europe for a second successive season.

A little over 15 years later and he has returned to Rovers, as our new Head of Performance Analysis, with ‘unfinished business’ to attend to.

A former professional footballer with Northampton Town, Adam held various coaching roles before getting his big break working with Manchester United’s first team for two years as a full-time Prozone consultant, at a time when analysts roles didn’t exist at clubs.

He then spent a hugely successful season working under Mark Hughes at Rovers, before joining Manchester City, where he created the Analysis Department for their Academy from scratch and was a member of their Academy management team over a seven-year period. Adam then spent a further seven years working in a broader role for the City Football Group, delivering projects and methodologies at a number of the Group’s clubs all over the world, before gaining experience across multiple sports whilst working for data analytics company Skylab.

He now heads up a new-look three-man department, who are tasked with delivering analysis support and education across all areas, whilst also implementing a consistent approach from the senior setup right through the Academy, to ensure that the club’s young players have the right character, understanding and decision-making skills to play in the first team.

“It’s great to be back and it does feel like I’ve gone full-circle,” he said. “It certainly felt like I had unfinished business here. I was only here for one season, but it was a great season – top six in the Premier League, playing in Europe, semi-final of the FA Cup – and I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, so I always felt like I had a good affinity with the club and it feels great to be back.

“There’s still some familiar faces from 15 years ago and it’s still got that same family feel and a healthy culture to it. The club have made some great senior appointments, with Jon (Dahl Tomasson) and Gregg (Broughton), and there’s some really good structure and foundations here, which will hopefully enable us to kick on and get back to where we all want to be.

“Back then, I was a one-man band, so I would cover pre-match, live, post-match, training and any individual player analysis that I had time to prepare for all on my own. The main evolution over the last 15 years is the man power and the depth of detail clubs can go into now. There’s now multiple roles and focused roles within every club, where each of the different aspects of analysis can be covered and delivered to support the coaching staff and the rest of the performance team.

“Jon puts huge demands on us, as he does with all staff, but he also puts a lot more demand on the players as well, which is something I really like. There’s a lot of ownership put on the players. We do a lot of player-led analysis, they do a lot of feedback and peer-to-peer sessions, where the players will sit down individually or in pairs with an analyst, review a game or review training, and then feed back to the rest of the team.

“Jon wants the right messages and principles to be put across, but it’s very much the players who are driving those sessions, with our support. And I’ve always been a big believer that a player-led culture creates the best learning and the best decision-making, and when you do things peer-to-peer is when you get the best retention of information.

“So it’s not about us barking orders and saying what the principles are, it’s do they understand it, can they articulate it and have they got it in their minds when they’re trying to make snap decisions on the pitch? And I think the approach that Jon and everyone here tries to adopt really maximises that.”

Adam is ably assisted in the department by Liam Holt and Ollie Slater, who have both impressed and progressed through the Rovers ranks over recent years.

Whilst studying a coaching course at UCLan, Liam gained his first experience within analysis during an internship at Blackpool’s Academy, which then led to a season working with their first team. After finishing his degree and starting his Masters, Liam spent six months working at Manchester City, assisting their Under-23s analyst, before being offered a job at Rovers’ Academy in 2019. He has since worked his way up from Under-18s to Under-23s and has been working with the first team since November 2021.    

“The past three years have been really good because I’ve been able to see the whole club really,” said Liam, whose main area of focus is team preparation and opposition analysis.

“Seeing what analysis looks like and how it’s implemented from the Under-9s and then all the way through the phases of the Academy and then with the Under-23s and now with the first team.

“Getting the chance to work under two different managers has been brilliant and I think analysis is one of the fundamental processes to how Jon likes to work. The attention to detail – whether it’s the opposition, whether it’s individuals, whether it’s things that are required on matchdays – it’s nice to see how it all links together, from pre-match to live to post-match, and to see how all different departments pull together and how everyone is valued, it’s really good and we’re getting the rewards with where we are in the table.”

Formerly of Liverpool John Moores University, where he studied Science and Football BSc, Ollie’s first footsteps into analysis experience came with Atherton Collieries, before he was offered an internship at Everton’s Academy, which was cut short due to Covid.

He then started his Masters at Chester University in Performance Analysis, before being offered a job at Rovers’ Academy in December 2020. Like Liam, he started out with the Under-18s, before spending a season working with Mike Sheron at Under-21s level, before making the step up to work with the first team in September.

“Analysis in football is absolutely essential now and you see it at every level,” said Ollie, whose initial role with the first team was focused around individual player development, but it has since expanded into other areas including post-match meetings and set-plays.

“Jon is really big on it and there’s been a big buy-in from the coaching staff. That’s brought with it an increased demand, but that’s definitely getting the best out of me personally and the best out of the department. I’d say that performance analysis is at the centre of everything that we’re doing this season. Everything is reviewed, from training to matchdays to set-plays, and I’d like to think that the work we’re doing is paying off given our league position.

“For me personally, coming in off the back of University, I had a lot to learn, but thankfully there’s some really good people down at the Academy and I learnt a lot from the different coaches. I’ve been fortunate with the opportunities that have come up that have enabled me to progress, but I’ve just thrown myself into those opportunities and I feel like I’ve benefited from working really hard at the club over the last two years and now I find myself working with a really good head coach and a really good team, so I’m really enjoying it.”