AI is becoming increasingly common in football, with clubs using it to process vast amounts of data that would be impossible for staff to assess manually.
Rather than replacing coaches or scouts, AI can be used to identify patterns, support recruitment, monitor fitness and assist tactical planning.
Modern AI systems can analyse millions of data points in a matter of minutes, helping clubs assess performance, injury risk and opposition tendencies.
By using AI effectively to improve key areas, including recruitment, clubs can close the gap on rivals with bigger budgets – and that is what Solak expects.
“We invested a lot of money in making an AI suite that could give our analysts an unbelievable amount of information within a few minutes,” said Solak.
Mark Bitcon (right) is head of the club’s health and performance (Image: Stuart Martin)
“So I really don’t understand why we needed to go and watch over the fence! But okay, that’s something for me to figure out in the next few months.
“Because in my opinion, I look at our pre-game preparations and I’m amazed at what type of information we have and what can actually be done.
“Tonda [Eckert] is a great coach to use all of this because he’s very methodical and goes into every little detail. Every player against his opponent.
“All the little tiny things of every game. Then we have a very advanced AI within our science and medical department with over 215 million data points.
“It’s probably more now, but when I was there, we looked into the medical data, and we had 215 million data points on the medical status of our players.
“Our AI agent sometimes needs four minutes to give us the full report on one player, as there is so much data, but this is where I want to develop our club.”
Head coach Tonda Eckert regularly praised director of football operations Mark Bitcon, who leads the performance department, last season.
Bitcon was formerly in a similar role at Man City’s academy and England Rugby before he came to Sport Republic and Saints during the 2023/24 term.
The German thanked him, his staff and the medical department for having what he deemed to be impressive player availability throughout the year.
Mads Roerslev missed most of the season with an Achilles injury, but the majority of his key players, including Ross Stewart, were always options.
Mads Roerslev was one of few players who suffered last season (Image: Stuart Martin)
It is one example of an edge Solak believes Saints can gain, as they operate within a budget more than five times smaller than some top clubs.
“We don’t have the funds that are available to Man United, and it was the same when I was running my telecommunications business,” added Solak.
“We were competing with Deutsche Telekom, and these world telecoms were like multiple times bigger, so we always tried to be smarter and faster.
“We had to use our agility and size, if you want, to do things better than them. I think that Southampton represents a very similar type of challenge.
“When I look towards the big clubs in the Premier League, and we have to find a way to be more agile, smarter, but we have to have the same ambition.
“We cannot live on less ambition than Manchester United. Our guys have to have this ambition to be better than Man United, in a different environment.
“With all due respect to all of the hard-working people at the club, we are a football club. Everything has to end up in the team. That’s our main engine.
“The guys in marketing have nothing to market if you don’t win games. If we are losing games, whatever we do well in IT, who is going to respect that?
“As long as we play good football, the rest will work.”