Why the model is hard to copy
The obstacle for bigger clubs is not access to data, most Premier League clubs now run analytics departments of some kind. It is that Benham and Bloom built their statistical edge over years inside the betting industry before ever applying it to football, and their clubs' entire recruitment cultures were built around trusting the model over reputation and name recognition from the start. A club with an entrenched traditional scouting hierarchy cannot simply install new software and expect the same discipline, it has to be willing to sign unheralded 19-year-olds ahead of proven names when the numbers say to, and to sell its best player at his statistical peak even when supporters want him kept.
That discipline, more than any single algorithm, is what let two mid-sized English clubs consistently beat richer rivals to undervalued talent, and it is why both clubs keep reinvesting sell-on profit straight back into the same scouting infrastructure rather than treating a big sale as a one-off windfall to bank.
