My name is Ross Hall and the most important things I can tell you about myself is that I’m a husband, a dad to 2 children and a professional football scout. I’m still very much in the infancy of this journey having spent over 20 years working in finance but having decided on a change of career I followed my passion into football and started on the coaching and talent ID pathways with the Scottish Football Association.

I’ve started this website in order to fulfil the second meaning of FTR (For The Record). I wanted to have a place where I could document and share my thoughts on players I’ve enjoyed watching that is away from the club I scout for. I’ve often shared my own player reports in various forums and on social media but this is my next step to building up my own portfolio of work that will hopefully be an interesting read for anyone who finds themselves here and useful for me as I look to progress in my scouting and analytics journey.

I work in a very specific but flexible way of how I look at players to build my reports:

1 – Understand the team I’m watching. The tactical setups, the roles within that setup in the 4 key phases of play (Secure possession / Defensive Transition / Attacking Transition / Opponent in secure possession) and last but not least the ethos and values of the club.

2 – Understand the players role within the above and the skillset required to fulfill that role

3 – Stress test the player over multiple games. Looking at his performances against a mix of opposition both home, away and where applicable in continental competitions

4 – After the eye tests outlined above I look at the data available for the player using tools like Wyscout and also doing a search of fan forums and social media as I believe that often the best insights you will get come from those who have been watching a player regularly for a period of time

5 – Build the report and make sure that it gives a fair representation of the player so when it’s read by you (my audience) hopefully it paints a picture of what this player is like

Last but not least we have K.N.O.W and this is my ethos. The basic standard I want to hold myself to when doing reports or analysis.