Football Manager expert helps BBC on transfer deadline day

Twice a season there's a transfer deadline day, where the media goes into a frenzy and players move clubs all across Europe. It's a day of intense speculation, manufactured drama, and transfers - lots and lots of transfers.

Yesterday was one such day, and as per usual the BBC had a liveblog detailing the rumours and deals that were struck up and down the country (and even further afield). In amongst the twitter posts, opinion and quotes from players and managers, there were updates from a couple of people you might not have expected to see on BBC Sport liveblog.

Alex Stewart and David Bytheway are, first and foremost, football fans. Both also are expert gamers, with Bytheway a renowned FIFA player, and Stewart hugely knowledgable when it comes to Sports Interactive's Football Manager series.

We reached out to Stewart after reading his thoughts on the BBC's liveblog, and asked him how he got involved with this January's transfer merry-go-round:

"There is a strong on-line community of FM bloggers who write about tactics, players, or construct narratives around games they're playing, sometimes fictionalising it or writing straight, factual accounts. There is a real appetite for this and a lot of forums where such material is shared and discussed. A few of us, Iain MacIntosh especially, also write for sites or magazines professionally on the game."

He continued: "I started by applying stats analysis and the Moneyball theory of recruitment to see if it would work in FM and the series was hugely popular. I've also written an imagined account of a season with Manchester United for Pickles magazine. The BBC approached me on Iain's recommendation to provide analysis based on my experience of using certain players or to show how players developed. The game's database is hugely comprehensive and compiled by a mix of professional and amateur scouts who submit data on real players. Many players who come to prominence in real life are tipped for success in FM several years before."

"Gaming is getting bigger each year and the past 2 years people have started to take a bit more notice of FIFA," Bytheway added. "The database on the game is huge and EA try to make it as accurate as possible. After watching a lot of Wolves games I don't think the database is as accurate as what it should be. However, it's still pretty close."

For those who like to play football games, a viable way of advancing through the ranks - especially when managing the smaller teams - is to scout unheralded players and build a team around young but talented individuals. For those who like to play that way, it means scouring the databases of FIFA and Football Manager for young players.

"I think the attraction of using this material is that stats and knowledge of obscure players is becoming popular in football coverage and FM offers a uniquely accessible way of learning about the game for oneself. Also, players become remarkably invested in their games and develop a really detailed knowledge of real football from it. The BBC thought this crossover would provide light-hearted but informative insight into more obscure footballers, as well as appealing to the gamer community," Stewart explained. 

Overall Stewart thinks it was very successful, however, there was some people that didn't agree: "There was some backlash on social media from people who objected to what they saw as a trivialising of something which is, let's not forget, a game itself. On the whole, though, people saw it as a fun way of engaging with transfer deadline day and a fresh perspective to sit alongside, not replace, more expert punditry."

For more in-depth Football Manager analysis from Alex Stewart, you can either follow him on Twitter or read his blog right here. You can find out more about FIFA player David Bytheway over on Twitter.