We didn’t have the Fink Tank to rate footballers in my playing days. We had the weather.

After every game for Marseilles, I’d pick up the local paper and pray for sunshine. Their ratings were a little unusual: instead of stars next to our names, we were judged using weather symbols. If the sun had got his hat on, I could walk the city’s streets with my head held high – until the next game, anyway. Thunder and lightning? You’d been a shower. Overcast? Passable, just about.

Not quite as scientific and thorough as the Fink Tank’s ranking of 400-odd Premiership players. This was published in TheGame on Tuesday and provoked a huge response from readers because of some controversial findings. Cristiano Ronaldo, the best player in the country over the past season: no argument there. But Kevin Davies, the worst?

It’s not just readers who get hot under the collar about this sort of thing. A huge number of players take newspaper ratings very seriously. Too seriously, probably. Especially the England boys. At international level, those marks are always in a big, bold typeface, making that three out of ten especially painful. To me, their main appeal was as a weapon for dressing-room banter.

“You got five out of ten!” Player looks glum. “Nah, don’t worry, they don’t know what they’re talking about . . . ” Player looks happier. “ . . . You weren’t that good!” The Fink Tank is much more sophisticated, of course, but no system is perfect.

There’s been an explosion in statistical analysis in the past few years and that’s good, but technology has not reached the point yet where findings are gospel. The stats are a useful aid, but there’s no substitute for the old-fashioned way: going and watching a player in the flesh.

Take passing as an example. One player might have a pass success rate of 80 per cent; another, 65 per cent. Doesn’t make the first guy a better passer. He might play nothing but safe, short-range balls that get his side nowhere; the second player may play killer passes that really hurt the opposition. That’s what really matters – the player’s split-second decisions, to what extent the team’s tactics and personnel are dictating what he does. The only sure way to judge that is by watching the games, not a spreadsheet.

Once, Jack Charlton, the Ireland manager, told me not to win any headers when we faced Germany. He wanted me only to distract defenders, not flick the ball on and risk giving away possession. I was doing my job, but the raw statistics would not have done me any favours. The same is true for a side such as Bolton Wanderers, who tend to direct the ball into areas as much as to feet.

As for working out how far a player has run during a game, which is very trendy right now: well, this is football, not the marathon.

So, someone ran 10.8 kilometres over 90 minutes. Maybe he’s a headless chicken. Maybe he only needed to run 7km. David Beckham was rightly praised for his performance for England against Greece in 2001, but his endless charging all over the pitch reduced England’s formation to rubble.

Systems such as the Fink Tank are getting better at considering context all the time but there is so much to take into account that no one has nailed it yet, if it’s even possible.

We might have to wait until players have microchips in their heads.

Even then, the human element will still be vital. Is he carrying a knock? What’s his personality? How’s his understanding with his team-mates?

Many managers have embraced modern methods, but if they’re spending their Mondays sitting in their office staring at figures on their computer while their assistant takes training, there’s something wrong. Especially if the weather’s nice.