It is no secret that Premier League clubs use data to get the most out of their teams. As Damien Delaney explained though, it doesn't always pan out.

Speaking on Wednesday's OTB AM, the former Crystal Palace defender spoke about a time under Alan Pardew when his training schedule was not helping the team.

"I remember under Alan Pardew he mixed the week up in a really funny way.

"We were off Sunday, in Monday, off Tuesday and then we had a three-day lead-in for the game.

"We had a couple of really good results doing it and everything was going great.

"Then he stuck with it and some of the players ended up saying to him 'We feel a touch leggy in the warm-up'", Delaney said.

Despite the initial success, the players found it hard to adjust and wanted him to change up their training schedule.

Behind the scenes 

"He wouldn't mix it up though and he said 'No we're happy with this'. Now he had his reasons for that but I don't know why.

"After a while, he switched it up and most managers now front-load the early part of the week and Friday is just a walkthrough," the former Waterford Town player said.

We often hear managers saying their team was flat and as Delaney said the data can often back that up.

"Every time a team is flat they will go back over the data. Clubs like Spurs will have 15 or 20 analysts that will monitor all the stuff.

"They will try and figure out why and whether they can marry up the data with why they played well and why didn't play well.

"This is all stuff that is going on behind the scenes," Delaney said.

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