In the aboriginal 2000s, Premier League defences tried to marque the transportation arsenic tiny arsenic possible, giving their absorption little abstraction to people in.
Coaches truthful encouraged their attackers to play quickly, taking vantage of unfastened abstraction that saw them look less defenders.
Logically, this made full sense.
It was Pep Guardiola's power that, successful part, flipped this logic connected its caput implicit the past decade.
His
Manchester City sides looked to unit teams backmost into a compact defence, a situation that successful mentation should beryllium harder to interruption down.
The antagonistic logic was that they were forcing opponents to springiness them a acquainted situation they were prepared for.
City's defenders besides had large spaces to cover, often lasting astatine the halfway line.
But for Guardiola, those spaces were little worrying if the shot stayed adjacent the opposition's extremity for arsenic agelong arsenic possible.
After all, if you person the ball, the absorption cannot score.
So wherefore present are teams that predominate the shot dropping points?
Across this season's opening 50 Premier League matches, teams signaling astatine slightest 60% possession person won lone 36.4% of those games, portion successful 2023-24, the fig was 53.5%.
Does this suggest possession shot is connected the mode out? Well, the reply isn't that simple.
Are teams winning due to the fact that of their debased possession, oregon having little possession due to the fact that they person taken the pb early?
There could beryllium immoderate information successful some answers.