I'm have seen some helpful posts about generating heat maps produced through GPS coordinates in R, as per https://www.sportscidata.com/2019/03/26/how-to-create-gps-heatmaps-in-ggplot/

I am relatively happy with this process, and have sufficient data to hopefully produce some meaningful descriptions of 'play'.

My question though is what would be an appropriate statistical approach to take with heat map data? For instance, if comparing recreational to elite athletes in a team sport? Has anyone any references, or strategies?

This post on eye tracking software is a useful start, but I fear may be a little too simplistic: https://imotions.com/blog/analyze-heat-maps