{"id":36112,"date":"2026-09-14T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=36112"},"modified":"2026-09-09T15:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T14:50:14","slug":"how-to-make-better-performance-decisions-in-football","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-to-make-better-performance-decisions-in-football\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Better Performance Decisions in Football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 14 Sep 2026 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How to Make Better Performance Decisions in Football<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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AS Monaco\u2019s Head of Sporting Insights, Vignesh Jayanth, explains why strong sporting organisations need institutional memory, clear decision frameworks and the ability to combine football expertise with evidence and organisational context.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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During his almost three years as Head of Sporting Insights at AS Monaco, Vignesh Jayanth\u2019s remit has evolved from ensuring continuity in the club\u2019s analytical processes to contributing across a much broader set of sporting questions.<\/h6>\n

\u201cWhen I joined Monaco, one of my initial priorities was ensuring continuity in the club\u2019s analytics processes,\u201d he tells the Leaders Performance Institute. \u201cOver time, the remit expanded significantly. I became involved in questions across coaching, athletic performance, recruitment, player development, academy integration and longer-term sporting planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evolution brought greater visibility and accountability. Jayanth admits that the transition was not always comfortable. \u201cWhen you start taking on roles where you are more exposed, it can feel lonely at first. There is a temptation to go back to the safe place where you are not the person expected to contribute to the difficult questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Jayanth, however, the most useful lesson has been that better sporting decisions rarely come from one discipline or one source of information. They come from creating a structure in which different perspectives can be brought together, the relevant trade-offs made explicit and the reasoning behind decisions retained by the organisation.<\/p>\n

Building a longer organisational memory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Football, Jayanth argues, often suffers from a \u201cshort memory\u201d. Results can change quickly, coaches and staff move on, and the reasoning behind longer-term sporting decisions can disappear with them. A new coach may arrive with different preferences, but the club still needs to understand why previous decisions were made and which principles should endure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organisation needs a longer memory than any one individual,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is about systematising the process: these are the points we discussed, these are the things we felt confident about, these were the risks and trade-offs, and this is what we can revisit later when new information becomes available.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Leaders Performance Institute first sat down with Jayanth in 2024, he emphasised the power of asking good questions. \u201cNo coach wants to be told what to do,\u201d he said at the time. That principle still guides his approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are never going to know the whole truth from a single piece of information,\u201d he says. \u201cYou are trying to bring different perspectives together to build a more holistic picture of the question you are trying to answer. Sometimes what people tell you can be genuinely surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n

That matters because sporting decisions are made with incomplete information. Performance specialists, recruitment staff, coaches and senior leaders may view the same challenge through different lenses. The objective is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to identify what matters most.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we identify the three or four considerations that are most important, they become the basis on which we make the decision,\u201d says Jayanth. \u201cThere will always be things we do not know. The important part is being clear about what we have chosen to prioritise, what the trade-offs are and what risks we are accepting.\u201d<\/p>\n

His role, he adds, is not to replace the decision-maker. \u201cYou share your perspective, the trade-offs and the risks. Eventually, whoever has responsibility for the decision makes it, and then you accept it together as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask rather than tell<\/strong><\/p>\n

This philosophy also shapes how Jayanth thinks about people, roles and organisational design. His work has contributed to decision-making around players, coaches and sporting staff, where the question is not simply whether an individual is talented, but whether that person can create value in a particular environment.<\/p>\n

He uses the example of a set-piece coach, an increasingly common specialist role in elite football. Set pieces can be difficult to evaluate because a routine may be well conceived and executed without producing a goal. Judging the role therefore requires looking beyond the immediate outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important is understanding whether a new idea or role will actually work within the existing team environment and culture,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can have ambitions to build certain things, but you still need to ask whether they fit the organisation, how they will be received and what conditions are required for them to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same principle applies when evaluating performance. \u201cHow does someone motivate players? How do they respond during a scoring drought? You might go four or five games without scoring from set pieces. What happens during that period? Is value still being created and the team has simply been unlucky?\u201d<\/p>\n

The numbers can help frame the question, but conversations provide context that may not otherwise be visible. \u201cIt helps explain an outcome, regardless of whether the result was positive or negative. There are always other factors \u2014 personality, relationships, timing and things beyond our control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond analytics<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Jayanth, better decision-making is inherently collaborative. When possible, he conducts meetings and interviews alongside a colleague so that different interpretations can be tested rather than relying on a single viewpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all trying to solve the same problem,\u201d he says. \u201cSomeone else may challenge your interpretation, or they may notice something you missed. You have to be comfortable with that. There is a degree of humility required if you genuinely want to improve the quality of the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

His experience in France, he explains, has also reinforced the importance of relationships and cultural adaptability. When he first arrived at Stade Rennais five years ago, he spoke no French.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would sit in meetings and not understand what was being said,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAfterwards, I would have to ask someone to translate, and that was incredibly frustrating because I depended on another person every time I wanted to contribute. So I took lessons and attended classes, and after about two years, I was able to start speaking the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

The investment changed the way he could operate. \u201cPeople looked at me differently because I had made the effort to learn the language and could communicate directly with everyone. That creates a different level of trust and respect. The relationships I have been able to build as a result have been invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n

From insight to sporting leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Jayanth wants to continue broadening his contribution to sporting leadership while retaining the curiosity and structured thinking that shaped his earlier work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to continue developing as a sporting leader and deepen my understanding of how the different parts of a football organisation come together to make decisions,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me, the interesting questions are increasingly organisational: how a squad should evolve, how recruitment planning connects to a club\u2019s broader sporting direction, how player development links to first-team needs, how clubs think about coach selection, and how you maintain coherence when people or circumstances change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The objective, he says, is not to make football predictable. It is to help organisations make better decisions despite uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are never going to have perfect information. The challenge is to create a process that brings together football expertise, evidence and organisational context, makes the trade-offs clear, and gives the people responsible for the decision the best possible foundation. Then you learn from what happens and make the next decision better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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