Team Focus: Analysing the Correlation Between Possession & Defensive Organisation
When discussing the concept of possession football there will always be those for and against the ideals it propagates. How often do you hear generally uninformed ‘pundits’ use the phrase “I don’t really like statistics, but…” before highlighting a side’s possession figures to illustrate their apparent dominance of a the nay-sayers to the importance of possession will preach it’s not how long you have the ball, it’s what you do with it that counts. That, of course, is as true as it is obvious but, in general, it has been found that in the majority of cases the team that has more possession will generally have more attempts at the opposition indeed, possession always seems to be grouped with attacking intent, either when praising or criticising the premise. It strikes that far fewer of us consider possession as a defensive tool, despite the old adage spieled throughout football at any level that ‘if you have the ball the other team can’t hurt you.’In theory that’s another truth of the game but are there instances of possession having little impact on how effective a team is at limiting chances from the opposition? We’ve pooled the data from each side in Europe’s top 5 leagues this season to find out, drawing comparisons and highlighting differences between the the main thing to point out at first, however, is that it is clear that there is some correlation between possession and the number of shots a team concedes. Outliers are not uncommon though, and it’s these sides that will be discussing here.Premier League
As the above graph shows the polar opposites of the possession-based game in England are Crystal Palace (37.8%) – with the lowest average in all of Europe – and Manchester City (59.9%). The difference, though, in the number of shots that each side concedes is arguably not as significant as one might predict. Palace, with 13 per game, actually match the overall average of the 20 Premier League teams in terms of shots conceded, while three sides have conceded fewer than City. The frequency with which the Eagles concede chances is indeed almost identical to that of Everton and Spurs despite the fact that their possession average is inferior by around 19 and 18 per cent the two aforementioned Europa League competitors are among the worst in the league when it comes to conceding a high volume of shots despite generally controlling possession. They, however, are not as far from the trend line as the likes of Swansea and Sunderland – the latter having conceded the most shots in England’s top-flight despite having averaged more possession (45.9%) than 5 rival the most impressive at the other end of the spectrum, falling furthest
