And you thought MLB was top heavy

One of the best articles written on The Bleacher Report summarizes how Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics general manager, is attempting to help English soccer teams play their own version of "Moneyball" -- using statistical anaylysis to get the most value on the field.

Tottenham Hotspur are one of the first clubs to look into the possibility of adapting the approach of the Oakland A's to the boundaries of professional football, working with Beane himself, who admits to "falling in love" with the game during a couple of months he spent in England in 2006.

Beane is exploring the possibility of adapting the model to football with professor Bill Gerrard of the University of Leeds. It is hoped that such a model will expose similar imperfections in the labour market for professional footballers to those identified in baseball.

All of which will be of benefit to professional football clubs, allowing them to sign suitable players for a lower cost, and could have the impact of breaking the dominance of the Premier League by the "Big Four."

There are many difficulties associated with the development of such a statistical model for football though, namely, the choice of the key performance indicators that will be used.

Because soccer is not as statistically driven as baseball (it's not even close), The Bleacher Report points out that the accurate analysis of soccer is much more difficult. Good read, nonetheless.

Here's presumably where they got the story in the first place.

Fantasy Analysis: If Tottenham win the Premiership any time soon it will be a shock. Chelsea and Man U have enjoyed a stranglehold on the top in recent seasons. Martin Jol is gone, though, so who knows.