Arsenal scout Gilles Grimandi is dead against the 'Money Ball' method.

More and more Premier League clubs use statistics and computer analysis in their transfer policy.

"Stats take a greater and greater role," he told L'Equipe. "You really have to put your case forward to argue against the numbers. In a club, stats give the possibility to exist to people who have a very limited knowledge.

"These numbers give security to people who don't make brave decisions. That really annoys me. The other thing is that players are conscious of this change.

"Sometimes I wonder how much they are playing for the numbers: how many tackles they have won, how many kilometres they have run. It is not necessarily positive. I can win 100 per cent of my tackles if I don't go in for ones I risk losing.

"I see more and more players run away from tackles and I think that is something that will carry on until stats start counting pulling out of tackles.

"Some young players who are very talented don't have tackling in their armoury."