Manchester City's Alex Greenwood used data report to get lucrative new contract | OneFootball

Alex Greenwood signed a new three-year contract with Manchester City in December.

The 29-year-old, who was part of the England team which won Euro 2022, first moved to the club in 2020.

She has since been an integral part of the squad, winning the 2019-2020 FA Cup and 2021-2022 Continental Cup, and helping the team through a severe injury crisis last season.

Greenwood’s new contract subsequently seemed like a straightforward procedure, but The Athletic has revealed that she actually produced a data report to ensure she secured the best possible deal.

Why did Alex Greenwood use a data report to secure a new Manchester City contract?

According to The Athletic, a number of Europe’s top clubs were interested in making a move for Greenwood after Euro 2022.

The defender wanted to stay at Manchester City, but also wanted a contract which would reflect her ability.

As a result, Greenwood and her agency Rept Sports sought the services of football data company Analytics FC, who have previously worked with teams from the Premier League, Women’s Super League and Frauen-Bundesliga.

Analytics FC produced a report based on Greenwood’s statistics from the 2019-20 and 2020-2021 seasons, detailing the impact of her absence on Manchester City’s team performance if she were to leave, and how much it would cost the club to purchase a replacement.

The report found Greenwood to be the best performing centre-back in the Women’s Super League across the two seasons, with her strengths lying in “build-up play, progressive passing, line-breaking passes and ability to carry the ball upfield”.

Why did the report compare Alex Greenwood to Virgil van Dijk?

Analytics FC’s report also determined Greenwood’s Goal Difference Added (GDA), which “evaluates every action in a match and calculates the total contribution of a player per game towards the goal difference of their team”.

The Manchester City star was compared to some of the best defenders in men’s football, and was found to have “contributed greater than +0.1 GDA per game more than Virgil van Dijk did for Liverpool across the same two seasons.”

While there are limitations to comparing male and female footballers, Analytics FC chief executive and co-founder Jeremy Steele explained why it was beneficial.

“Figuring out the relative value of the most elite centre-backs in the men’s game in comparison to top forwards was important to aid the benchmark process in the women’s game,” he said.

With such impressive statistics, it is no wonder that Greenwood secured the contract she was after with Manchester City.

1 of 20

Who scored the winning goal for England in the Euro 2022 final?