I love and hate stats.
They've embedded their way into tactics, made players and teams more efficient at the expense of making them less entertaining and fun to watch. Chaos can be beautiful. Why wouldn't clubs use them if they exist though? They're at a disadvanatged if they don't in a world where everyone else does. I'm a bit saddened by the stats revolution in that sense.
Don't know who would want tospend time arguing over why player A is better than player B anyway. What do people get out of that if they're not scouts? It doesn't matter. Great for scouting departments though as
@JediSith already mentioned. Clubs can't watch every player in the world, particularly those teams on smaller budgets. They can flag up which players might be worth going to watch if your analytics people know what they're doing. You need both stats and eye test.
They can be great for gambling, but maybe more so in the past. See Brighton's and Brentford's owners. Think the edge was actually having stats that weren't widely available at the time, compiling them themselves. If not that then being the first to to see patterns within the stats that were out there before others, including betting companies. Can't really do that as easily now. Still, those are two clubs that have a great record in finding bargain players too, often using data.
I like them for Fantasy Football. The scoring system is based off stats so you need to look at the relevant stats that you're hoping your players will hit.
Always been interested in data and numbers. I think the entire world or universe could be explained through numbers if we had enough understanding and computer processing power. I'm Jekyll and Hyde though.
When I'm watching a game I don't care at all and am not remotely aware of what's happening with them or tactically. That's the time for the entertainment. Singing when I used to go to games, yelling encouragement when a promising counter on looks on, even if it's just on TV. Sometimes I might even be drinking. Don't give a shit what someone's pass completion rate is, or how many interceptions a defender made then. Before and after though, I do have interest in them from the point of view of trying to understand what I saw and hopefully trying to see positive things in a bad result, or to contextualise a win so I don't get too carried away.