Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has likened their transfer policy to Brighton and Brentford.
Smith has name-checked the pair as the trailblazers in the transfer market during a sit-down interview with University Campus of Football Business.
Smith said: "At Brentford and Brighton, they're two similar clubs, their owners both have sports betting companies so their model and what they use for their companies they can obviously use for their football team as well.
"The models that they use for their recruitment will be very data-driven, very analytical but there's always a feel as well.
"I really enjoyed being a part of that and learning something new in terms of recruitment.
"We certainly use data here at Aston Villa as well. Our sporting director Johan Lange, who was sporting director at Copenhagen as well, has been very involved in the data side of flagging players for recruitment.
"I think it's a process a lot of clubs go through but, in America, especially data analysis is used a lot more.
"I think that's now going to start to come into most clubs now within the English pyramid.
"I think Brentford and Brighton have got a head start on clubs because of their owners' businesses but there will be teams certainly trying to catch up, with ourselves certainly one of them."