Is possession soccer dying? The tactical evolution reworking the Premier League
In the highest half of the present Premier League desk, six groups common lower than 50% possession. One of these groups, Hull City, common solely 33%. And whereas the highest three sides have dominated the ball, the standout efficiency amongst them was Brighton’s 3-0 win over Arsenal, a urgent masterclass through which Fabian Hurzeler‘s staff recorded solely 40% possession.
This could shake out over time. It’s solely been six video games. Hull could recede to the decrease reaches. Tottenham (nineteenth, 59%) often clear up and stumble residence in seventeenth, like a functioning alcoholic. But the early success of low-possession sides is greater than a random quirk, and follows a pattern through which the shut relationship between factors and possession is weakening.
Between 2016 and 2024 – the primary eight years of Pep Guardiola within the Premier League – on the 16 events when a staff received not less than 80 factors, 12 of these 16 sides averaged not less than 60% possession, and three extra averaged greater than 58%. Teams who dominated the league dominated the ball. Possession was nine-tenths of the regulation. The solely exception was Antonio Conte’s Chelsea who received the 2016/17 title with wing-backs, though even Conte’s staff had 55% of the ball.
Advertisement
Yet there was a shift over the previous two years. Last season was the primary for 20 years through which extra Premier League video games had been received by the staff with much less possession. You may even see it in the latest title winners – Liverpool and Arsenal – who each received the league with considerably decrease common possession than Guardiola’s City managed within the earlier 4 seasons.
Was that just because Arne Slot and Mikel Arteta weren’t as obsessive as Guardiola when it got here to preserving the ball? Well, partly. But even Guardiola veered away from his possession-heavy fashion in his last season as a result of he realised the sport was transferring in a brand new path. He developed City right into a narrower and direct staff in his last months, constructed largely round Antoine Semenyo, a participant who would have appeared positively un-Pep solely a few years earlier.
The numbers are partly skewed by sure golf equipment and people, such because the departure of Jurgen Klopp and The Spurs Phenomenon. But there may be undoubtedly a wider motion away from managed possession in the direction of deliberate sabotage, away from breaking groups down in the direction of baiting them right into a lure – and, in Brighton’s case, mastering each arts.
Advertisement
Perhaps that is all only a pure response to years of Guardiola’s rigorously stage-managed positional play, more and more resisted by well-drilled low blocks, disrupted by orchestrated urgent and dismantled by unpredictable motion. We have heard a lot in regards to the Premier League’s improve in quick breaks and counter-attacks. Managers now use phrases resembling “depth” and “verticality” to explain the groups they’re creating.
“Today, trendy soccer is the best way Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool play,” Guardiola mentioned final season. “Modern soccer is just not positional, it’s important to experience the rhythm.”
The query now’s, the place is that this all main? Is counter-attacking soccer and quick transitions only a part, a pure antidote to what some may see because the curse of possession soccer, a recalibration of the sideways cross to the ahead one? Or may preserving the ball turn out to be retro in the long run? Could a staff quickly win the Premier League with a minority of possession?
A glance past England means that is perhaps a means off. Of the 48 groups in Europe’s top-five leagues who completed final season with lower than 50% possession, solely two managed to attain greater than 50 objectives. One was Brentford, who scored 53 objectives and completed ninth within the Premier League underneath Keith Andrews. The different was Villarreal, who maybe provided the most effective blueprint of what might be achieved with out the ball.
Advertisement
The supervisor, Marcelino, constructed an athletic staff who defended in a compact 4-4-2 block, sprung intense five-second counter-presses after dropping the ball, and performed rapidly to their forwards after they received it again. Villarreal scored 71 objectives whereas averaging solely 44% possession, and completed third in La Liga, three factors above Atletico Madrid.
There had been examples of comparable tactical ploys on the World Cup, significantly in counter-pressing. “Winning groups regained the ball on common 4 seconds quicker than groups that misplaced,” Tom Gardner, head of efficiency insights at Fifa, tells The Independent. “It’s very clear that the groups who had been capable of counter-press efficiently went additional within the event.”
Counter-pressing wasn’t all the time distinct from a high-possession fashion, and in Spain’s case it strengthened their dominance. “Spain knew as quickly as they misplaced the ball they had been going to counter-press, they had been going to attempt to drive a regain, after which they had been going to make use of that second the place the opposition defensive construction was unsettled to attempt to counter-attack in a short time.”
Low blocks had been additionally in vogue this summer time, and never simply amongst your Cabo Verdes and your Curacaos.
Advertisement
“Nineteen out of the 26 groups that performed in each Qatar and North America spent extra time in a low block in 2026 than they did in 2022,” says Gardner. “Teams had been much more compact. Argentina and France had been each very fascinating examples the place they had been in a low block however they all the time left one participant up – Messi and Mbappe. The greatest groups utilised that low-block construction as a technique for fast attacking transitions.”
The greatest groups both hunted the ball to drive errors or sat deep to frustrate opponents. Either means, defending was weaponised on the World Cup, and groups who tried to assault patiently typically walked into an ambush. But the truth of the World Cup, just like the latest historical past of the Premier League, was that the most effective ball-keepers, Spain, nonetheless received the event.
How will the following decade of the Premier League be outlined? Set-pieces? Defensive solidity? Counter-attacks, pace, physicality, relentless duels? Could it go in a completely new path? Liverpool have invested closely in technical gamers over bodily profiles, a daring transfer that has, thus far, probably not labored.
Advertisement
What we all know is that the Premier League has ratcheted as much as a tempo that does not all the time lend itself to a gentle build-up. The helter-skelter nature of the sport proper now makes each cross a possible mistake, and conceding possession is being extra readily uncovered.
Whether that could be a good factor comes down to private choice. Some see the hegemony of Guardiola’s possession play as an issue for the sport to resolve, a method that shackles ingenuity and promotes robotic soccer. Others see what is going on within the recreation now as probably worse, a gear change in the direction of pace, endurance and energy that squeezes out the creatives.
But it serves to stress a long-held reality in soccer, that not all passes are equal. Quality will all the time trump amount. It’s nonetheless simpler to be a possession staff than to not be one. But it is also true that, within the trendy Premier League, there has by no means been a extra harmful time to have the ball.
