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How Every Premier League Team Presses - and What It Means - The Athletic
How Every Premier League Team Presses - and What It Means - The Athletic
How Every Premier League Team Presses - and What It Means - The Athletic
Source:PremierLeagueInsightsviaOpta
By Mark Carey Sep 28, 2023
TheAthletic
We’re six games into the Premier League season, and things are
beginning to settle down.
EPL Latest News Teams Scores & Schedule Standings
Sure, it’s still early to highlight too many trends about team
performance at this stage, but as The Athletic has previously shown, it is
worthwhile looking at certain metrics that stabilise quicker than goals
— or indeed points — which show stylistic intent from each club.
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Today, we’re looking at teams’ approaches to pressing to pick out the
front-foot fiends from the low-block ballers.
As you can see in the graphic below, the blue shade represents a team’s
share of pressures being above the league average. The more red the
shading is, the greater degree by which that club’s share of total
pressures is below the league average in that third of the pitch.
Again, there have been just a handful of games played, but there are
some interesting observations already.
When considering the share of time each team has spent in each game
state (that is, in a winning, drawing or losing position), Chelsea have
only been ahead for 12 per cent of their total Premier League minutes
— less time than Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and
another 10 of the division’s 20 clubs.
Put simply, that means Chelsea have been forced to chase the game and
retrieve the ball quickly in a desperate attempt to change the scoreline.
That said, Pochettino is a manager known for his teams’ high-intensity,
aggressive style out of possession, so it will be interesting to see how
Chelsea’s approach continues if their results pick up.
Under Antonio Conte last season, just 21.1 per cent of Spurs’ total
pressures were made in the attacking third — 4.2 per cent below the
league average and representative of their passive style upon losing the
ball. “I don’t like to play open, to concede a lot of space and concede six,
seven or eight goals,” Conte, a five-time league champion as coach of
Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan, said last October. “I won in England
and I won in my past, and I think I can teach football to many people.”
Spurs’s new coach has already stamped his style on the team after just
over 100 days in the job, shifting from being the division’s least front-
footed side to its most front-footed out of possession — with only
Arsenal having a higher share of pressures in the final third than their
37 per cent, nearly 10 per cent above the league average.
Crucially, this approach has clearly borne fruit from an attacking
perspective, with only Brighton registering more goal-ending high
regains than Tottenham’s two so far — including a memorable winner
for Dejan Kulusevski against Sheffield United.
As Anel Ahmedhodzic plays the ball out of danger in the final seconds,
Spurs’ left-back Destiny Udogie sees the opportunity to pounce…
…and get in front of Cameron Archer to sustain the attack.
It’s a goal that would not have come had it not been for Spurs showing
such aggression to win the ball back quickly in an advanced area.
At the other end of the league table, Everton might be struggling to
find some consistent results so far but Sean Dyche looks to have
embedded his style after eight months in charge on Merseyside.
With only Sheffield United (18 per cent) and Luton (19 per cent)
having a higher share of long balls attempted than Everton’s this season
(15 per cent), Dyche’s side will be direct in possession by getting the
ball forward as quickly as possible and picking up second balls from
there.
A loose touch means the ball falls to United centre-back Jack Robinson,
but Everton have the requisite players supporting Beto and pushing
high to press and recover possession.
As Robinson’s pass goes astray, Arnaut Danjuma intercepts and is able
to get the ball out of his feet…
Whether each side will maintain this approach across the 38-game
campaign is an entirely different question.
No pressure, lads.
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