Not striker or defender, Man City's winter signing is a hedge fund veteran

Laurie Shaw's resume is straight from high-brow science and finance

English Premier League soccer club Manchester City are well-known for spending big in their pursuit of trophies. Yet this winter’s key signing is not a new striker or a commanding defender, it’s a hedge fund veteran with a doctorate in astrophysics.

Laurie Shaw’s résumé is straight from high-brow science and finance. He studied such things as dark matter halos and galaxy clusters at Cambridge and Yale universities before moving to data science at Harvard via London-based algorithmic investment firm Winton Capital Management and the U.K. Treasury. Then soccer came calling.

While the marriage of sport and data in the pursuit of marginal