"If you ask me about data, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer that makes sense because I don't deal with the data – I don't understand it," Paterson told BBC Sport.
"I am a person who works quite simply on the football side of things. I don't pretend to have skillsets that I don't."
"I've worked at clubs, for instance at Barnsley, where they are completely data driven in terms of their recruitment, so the players turn up and they are the best players according to the data and we coached them.
"Here it's a more collaborative conversation between the head of football, myself and then the owners - we are all together making team decisions.
"You will find everybody uses data now days, we have some really big clubs in the Premier League that are solely data.
"I don't understand it [data] and how they can figure the best players within it, but what I do understand is that when players are brought to me, it is facts that they are telling me about the players – 'this player is good at this, he scores goals, he defends well' - and then we select the best out of the three that they give me."