Smarter, Faster, Sharper: How Salford City transformed recruitment operations with the Twenty3 Toolbox

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By Will Evans

In the high-stakes, fine-margin world of League Two recruitment, Salford City needed a solution that could deliver clarity and speed without sacrificing rigour. With Twenty3’s Toolbox, they found exactly that – a bespoke, high-performance platform built to scale their recruitment operation and sharpen their competitive edge.

Working closely with Twenty3, Salford set out to modernise their recruitment process, make faster, better-informed decisions, and maximise the impact of every scouting cycle.

The Challenge

In lower-league football, every recruitment call matters. A single player can define a season – but identifying the right fit requires speed, accuracy and alignment with tactical and financial realities.

At Salford, recruitment workflows were effective but heavily manual. A key part of the process was an internally built spreadsheet that generated weighted performance scores for players based on selected stats — a clever and valuable tool that aligned closely with the club’s thinking.

But maintaining it came at a cost. Every week, analysts had to manually collate, export and upload data for thousands of players just to keep the model current — a repetitive process that took up around six hours of valuable time.

The goal was clear:

  • Automate a high-value but time-consuming scoring system
  • Refine the underlying performance model to be even more robust and reflective of club priorities
  • Surface top performers more easily, with tools to track their progress over time
  • Integrate everything seamlessly into day-to-day workflows without disruption

Salford didn’t need just another off-the-shelf scouting platform. They needed a partner who could understand their in-house methods, preserve what worked, and build something stronger around it.

The Solution

To solve these challenges, Salford implemented the Twenty3 Analytics Toolbox — a flexible, modular platform built around their existing approach. The Toolbox replaced the manual scoring spreadsheet with an automated system that refreshed data in real time, powered by a more sophisticated and club-aligned performance model.

It also provided a custom dashboard that made it quicker and easier for analysts to identify top performers, track their development, and share insights across departments — saving time, reducing friction and enhancing the rigour of every recruitment decision.

Key Deliverables Included:

  • Automated Shortlists: We worked closely with Salford to translate their internal KPIs, tactical principles and budget constraints into a set of custom filters — effectively codifying their recruitment criteria within the Toolbox. This allowed us to build automated shortlists that update dynamically based on live data, replacing hours of manual spreadsheet work with a process that surfaces relevant targets in minutes.
  • In-Context Player Analysis: With tools like Football Lab and Event Lab, analysts now deep-dive into technical, physical and tactical attributes in a structured, intuitive environment.
  • Custom Visualisations: High-impact visual content makes it easier for scouts, coaches and senior staff to engage with the data and understand exactly why a player fits the club’s profile.
  • Bespoke Integration: We mapped the Toolbox outputs directly to Salford’s existing processes — from syncing with their internal databases to ensuring compatibility with their legacy performance model and reporting formats. This meant the recruitment team could adopt the new tools without changing how they worked day to day, enabling a smooth transition and immediate impact.

This wasn’t about rolling out an off-the-shelf product. From the outset, it was about understanding how Salford already worked — what they valued, how decisions were made, and where time was being lost — and then building tools to support and enhance that exact process. 

Every element of the Toolbox, from the scoring model to the dashboards, was shaped around Salford’s internal logic and day-to-day needs. That collaborative, bespoke approach was key to delivering something that added value immediately and felt like a natural extension of their existing setup — not a disruption to it.

The Impact

Salford’s use of the Toolbox has redefined what’s possible within a lean recruitment department:

  • Time Back to Analyse

Automated shortlists and player dashboards have significantly reduced manual processing — freeing analysts to spend more time interpreting data rather than collecting it.

  • Clearer, Faster Decisions

With a unified view of every candidate — including tactical fit and contextual performance metrics — Salford can now make more confident, data-led decisions under pressure.

  • Streamlined Workflow

The Toolbox is now central to the club’s recruitment operations, improving communication between scouts, analysts and coaches while removing process bottlenecks.

  • Scalable Structure

Thanks to IMPECT data integration and a modular design, Salford’s system is built to scale — ready to grow alongside the club’s evolving recruitment ambitions.

What Salford say

“Twenty3’s Toolbox provides a unique solution to our recruitment requirements. It’s obvious how beneficial it’s going to be over the remainder of the season.”

  • Matt Neil, Recruitment Analyst, Salford City

“We’re delighted with the solutions they’ve provided so far – they’ve shown a keen interest in how we operate and what we’re trying to achieve.”

  • Karl Robinson, Manager, Salford City

Doing More with Less: A Blueprint for Modern Recruitment

Salford’s journey shows that innovation isn’t about resources — it’s about resourcefulness. With the right tools, even clubs outside the top flight can build world-class processes tailored to their unique constraints and ambitions.

Through collaboration, customisation and clarity, Twenty3 helps clubs like Salford move faster, think smarter and recruit with purpose.

If your club is ready to modernise its recruitment model, we’d love to help.