the article is right, those who can quantify the contributions made by their players will have an advantage over those that don't. it's probably more difficult to do so accurately in football - it's relatively simple in baseball and even basketball, because there are so many possessions and points scored and relatively few players on the court.
generally, those who are suspicious of quantitative analysis in sports have got the wrong idea about what sort of statistics the clubs are using or what it all means. it's only natural that when more money and glory is at stake, people will invest more effort in getting things right. i'm not really sure why the spectator would care.
burnsy's right about the charts, though. rubbish from a practical standpoint, it's pure eyecandy. i guess it does the job of sexing up an article about stats.
