Welcome to the Training Ground Guru Podcast. In every episode we bring you insights from the teams behind the teams in professional football. Thank you for listening.
Reed Shaffner: Football's AI moment - promise and pitfalls
Our guest on Episode #81 of the TGG Podcast is Reed Shaffner, Chief Technology Officer at Teamworks.
Reed oversees the engineering, design, product and data science teams behind a platform used across professional and collegiate sport.
In this Episode, Reed told us where AI is genuinely working in football and where it isn't; warned about the security and privacy risks some clubs are underestimating; and explained how and how Teamworks Player ID is learning to identify how good a player will become, versus how good they look today.
SHOW NOTES =>
0:00: Introduction
1:39: Reed's role at Teamworks, and his route in through gaming and youth sport
3:17: What AI actually is — beyond the buzzword
5:42: How widely is AI being used in football?
6:45: Where it works well, and where it doesn't
7:25: Injury prediction — why the returns are still questionable
8:24: Hallucinations, and the two athletes who didn't exist
10:20: Case study: the NFL's Digital Athlete platform
11:28: Data quality, process and the role of human expertise
12:53: Privacy and security — what should never go into a model
14:12: It's not just medical data: contracts and schedules
14:43: The questions to ask any AI vendor
15:42: Data poisoning and the fabricated eye condition
17:32: Skills as a new attack vector — and what a skill is
18:49: Build or buy: what clubs are making themselves
19:41: Scout bias detection, and Kahneman on human bias
22:00: The rise of the 'head of AI' job title
22:50: Is US sport ahead of UK football?
23:27: Tracking data, and will AI mean fewer analysts?
25:26: AI inside the Teamworks products: from reactive to proactive
28:02: Player ID — what to do when metrics disagree
29:50: Predicting how good a player will become, not how good they are now
31:11: Bespoke clubs and individualised training
34:17: The future: cameras, youth football and undiscovered talent
36:04: Worries and fears: attackers, deepfakes and social engineering
38:01: Speaking at TGG Live '26 at Old Trafford
19 Jul 2026
Anna West: Waking football to the power of sleep
Our guest on Episode #80 of the TGG Podcast is the world-renowned sleep expert Anna West.
She works with teams competing in the Premier League, Champions League and the World Cup.
Her methods have helped change the way that football thinks about sleep and recovery.
In this Episode, Anna told me how she came to work in football, about the work she does with clubs and players, and also debunked some of the common myths about sleep.
16 Jun 2026
Joe Newton: From Brentford to Spurs – life as a first-team analyst
Our guest on Episode #79 of the TGG Podcast is Joe Newton.
Joe was part of Thomas Frank's inner circle at both Brentford and Tottenham and is a new breed of analyst.
After starting as a youth player at Tranmere and Wrexham, he got a degree and Masters in performance analysis and secured a job at the New Saints in Wales.
His big break came when he was appointed first-team analyst at Brentford, where he forged a close relationship with Frank and helped the club gain promotion to the Premier League.
After that came a brief and turbulent spell at Tottenham, which ended in the sack in February 2026.
Joe told us about his progression in the game, about what makes Brentford special, why things went wrong at Tottenham and about his special relationship with Frank.
In this episode we also have an interview with Adam Ridgewell, who worked for Southampton for five years before becoming Account Manager with Genius Sports.
Adam told us how clubs like Brentford are using Genius Sports' tracking data and Performance Studio to gain an edge in the game.
Who has been a guest on Training Ground Guru Podcast
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Luke Bornn
Michael D'Auria
Dominic Jordan
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18 ratings
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4.8 / 5
48 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 32 / 100
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Social presence
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YouTube
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Engagement
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