The ball in football isn’t everything.
Humour me for a second.
The purpose of passing is not just moving the ball, it is also about moving the opposition.
Dominating possession is not the only way to succeed. This is what makes football such a spectacle; the clash of styles and how the game might play out.
Teams can use the ball differently. It can be quick and direct or it can be slow and precise, used to probe for openings. Or a team can choose to concede the ball entirely. How a team approaches possession gives an insight into how they try to win matches.
The Athletic has looked at how every team chooses to move the ball (or not) in the Premier League…
What are sequences?
There is a difference between sequences and possession.
A sequence is a team’s passage of play that is only ended by defensive actions, stoppages or a shot. A series of uninterrupted passes leading to a shot is an example of a sequence. Possession is a collection of a team’s (one or more) sequences.
Here’s an example of a sequence.
Liverpool’s sequence against Leeds United begins with a throw-in from Andy Robertson to Luis Diaz…
Diaz receives, turns back and passes to the centre-back Joel Matip who has space to run into…
He carries the ball forward…
Passes it wide to Mohamed Salah…
Who then returns it to meet Matip’s late run into the box…
And he scores past the Leeds goalkeeper Illan Meslier…
The sequence of play that led to the goal included four players, four passes in just 12 seconds, and it all began from a throw-in.
Sequences give better detail — the number of players involved, how fast a team moves from its initial location to the final third, the distance — for teams and the players within them.
Style of play
The graphic below illustrates each team’s approach to moving the ball using the average number of passes they complete per sequence and their average direct speed per sequence.
Each team plays differently, but sequence metrics allow us to understand better where they fall on the two extremes — fast and direct or slow and intricate.
Manchester City are in a league of their own when it comes to suffocating opponents with possession. When regaining the ball, a team like City would rather circulate it and wait for a precise opening. Unsurprisingly, Manchester City have the most 10+ pass sequences (937) in the Premier League, 225 more than their closest runner-up, Liverpool. When it comes to duration, City average the longest passing sequences (14.5 seconds) in the Premier League, too.
A team like Brighton, although in the lower half of the graphic above, have adopted a strong philosophy of a fluid 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 formation that is all about finding angles and passing options, especially using their advanced full-backs.
If Manchester City’s genre of football was orchestral, Liverpool’s would be heavy metal. Their intense pressure off the ball means when they win the ball, they do not need more than a few passes to create shots. How often they create such transitions for themselves makes them much faster than their title rivals. Their stop-start nature means they hold the highest number of total passing sequences in the Premier League this season (5,336).
Marcelo Bielsa granted Leeds’ forwards freedom to create their own solutions in the final third, but more importantly, they committed a high number of their players forward so they could construct attacks easily (a low number of passes). Bielsa looked to generate chances through possession. The caveat to this was that Leeds were bad at possessing the ball this season due to a combination of poor recruitment and an end-of-cycle squad decline, which meant they were more direct than usual.
Their new coach Jesse Marsch looks to generate chances through counter-pressure and attack at a high frequency from the central areas, which would explain their position in the graph above. We can expect Leeds to be more direct as time goes on.
Burnley, on the other hand, are well known for their low block — conceding the ball to opponents. When they do regain it, their approach is to go long to their striker. They average the fewest passes per sequence in the Premier League and the highest average direct speed.
Let’s take an example below.
Burnley begin their sequence with a long ball from Nick Pope that finds Wout Weghorst midway through the Watford half…
Weghorst’s glanced header finds Cornet in space and he shoots at goal…
From start to finish, this move involved two passes, one shot, and lasted all of six seconds.
Effectiveness going forward
As crucial as it is to understand how a team chooses to approach the ball, it is equally important to know how effective their style of play is in getting them to the final third.
The graphic below ranks the teams across the league based on the percentage of sequences that lead to the final third. Manchester City and Liverpool (unsurprisingly) come out on top — they are the only two clubs that manage to have more than half of their sequences end in the final third.
West Ham have a lower average number of passes per sequence than Manchester United but reach the final third at the same rate — they have less of the ball but are efficient when given it.
Leicester’s style of play places them in high possession but they rank relatively low across the board. This suggests they are inefficient in possession. They have the ball almost as much as a team like Arsenal but struggle with it, which may explain their drop-off this season.
Burnley have little of the ball but they do manage to reach threatening areas of the pitch at a higher rate than their relegation rivals. And while that may seem like fine margins, even the smallest percentages make a big difference when looking at such a high number of sequences.
It is all well and good getting the ball to threatening areas of the pitch, but if you fail to convert that possession to shots, it is less effective.
What makes Manchester City such a superb side isn’t just that they dominate possession, they also convert that into a meaningful volume of shots, as shown in the graphic below.
Burnley’s “route one” style of play finds them joint-bottom when converting sequences to shots. The reasoning behind it is simple — long balls have a lower probability of success, and a lower probability of leading to meaningful sequences.
Arsenal’s rise in rank isn’t just seen through points on the board. They are dominating territory in a way they rarely have over recent seasons and are creating shots from the central areas of the pitch more frequently. The exciting trio of Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Emile Smith Rowe have helped Arsenal’s percentage of shot-ending sequences rise steadily from seven per cent last season to 11 per cent.
And although Manchester United rank highly in converting possession to a relatively high volume of shots, the quality of their chances is not as good — they rank sixth for expected goals (xG) per shot in the Premier League.
Player involvement
Sequences are not just valuable for teams.
Involvement in sequences allows us to value a player’s importance and usage to the team. Manchester City use every player as a cog in an even bigger machine, meaning that each player’s contribution is important. Out of the top 20 players with the highest involvement in shot-ending sequences, nine of them are Manchester City players.
At the bottom of this table, Leeds’ standout star Raphinha continues to excel in a struggling side. He ranks the highest in his side for non-penalty xG (7.2), expected assists (6.2) and goals (10).
Looking at the game through sequences allows us to understand the many different personalities teams (and players) have on the pitch, in both frequency and effectiveness.
Possession cannot explain everything. The best teams tend to have more of the ball but it is how they move it that lifts them higher up the league table.
(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Sam Richardson)
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