Following the recent Merseyside derby, Steven Gerrard described Everton as playing long ball football in a style similar to Stoke and claimed Liverpool were the only team that tried to play football.
Liverpool Captain: Steven Gerrard
Looking back at the statistics for the match, Everton did indeed play more long balls – 55 versus the 46 Liverpool played. However, this works outs out at only one additional long ball per 10 minutes of match time.
Liverpool Captain: Steven Gerrard
A long ball style of play is often associated with long aimless punts down the pitch so it could be presumed that Everton would have a greater percentage of passes being played forwards with a lower accuracy too, but again there is little difference between the teams. Overall, both teams passing accuracies were virtually identical with Everton actually making more passes overall during the game.
| Long Ball Match Stats | Everton | Liverpool |
|---|---|---|
| Total Long Balls | 55 | 46 |
| Long Ball Accuracy % | 58 | 52 |
| Passes Forward % | 39 | 48 |
| Total Passes | 399 | 314 |
| Passing Accuracy % | 78 | 77 |
It is difficult to draw too many conclusions from an individual match so it is also worth looking at the performances over the season to date. Again, both teams have performed similarly in terms of long balls with Everton averaging just 1.33 more long balls per match than Liverpool. In fact, if we compare statistically the number of long balls played this season using Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) there is no difference between the two teams (p=0.065) at the 95% confidence interval. This means we can be 95% certain that Liverpool and Everton play the same number of long balls per match.
| 12/13 Long Ball Stats | Everton | Liverpool |
|---|---|---|
| Total Long Balls | 498 | 486 |
| Long Ball Accuracy % | 55 | 66 |
| Passes Forward % | 36 | 36 |
| Total Passes | 3663 | 4663 |
| Passing Accuracy % | 81 | 85 |
One area where the teams differ though is launches. These are defined by OPTA as:
According to OPTA, Everton made 24 launches during the match compared with 19 from Liverpool. Overall this season Liverpool has performed just 118 launches, second fewest in the Premier League only to Swansea, while Everton has made 252 launches, currently the joint third highest in the EPL behind Reading and West Ham and more than Stoke! This suggests that Liverpool’s long balls are primarily passes to their own players while Everton’s long balls are hit forwards with the hope of the attacker getting to the ball and challenging the opposition for it.
Is one style of play superior to the other? Not necessarily, but it does lead to the question of when does a 50 yard pass into space become a long ball hoofed down the field?
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.
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Categories: EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, Everton, Liverpool
Tags: EFC Long Ball Stats, EFC Stats, EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, Everton Long Ball Stats, Everton play like Stoke, Gerrard claims Everton play like Stoke, LFC Long Ball Stats, Liverpool Long Ball Stats, Opta Stats, premier league, Premier League Long Ball Stats, Premier League Stats, Steven Gerrard
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Excellent first article on the site Martin. I enjoyed the read and the stats from the game are pretty even which negate what Gerrard’s viewpoint was however the “launches” stat over a season is a little worrying – Everton are 3rd in the league for most launches…
Take from another website which seems to be this same everyone elses but here :
While Everton attempted a total of 450 passes and Liverpool a comparatively meagre 352, the damming statistic is that 17% of Liverpool’s passes were long passes.
Your Figures don’t add up mate.
These stats are from our stats centre which is as in-depth as you will find any where on the internet and all the stats inside the article are verified and correct. Remember these are in-depth stats.
The stats quoted in the Echo (that everyone must be sharing/using and are probably the ones you are talking about) included goal kicks and throw ins which very much dilute the official stats figures. The figures above are for open-play passes and long balls which is what the whole of this article is about.
I have seen your foul-mouthed comment which was picked up by our Spam bot – thankfully as it has forced you to reply in a decent manner above – hurrah for the Spambot!.
I’d advise that before you go on a hate-ful rant (your spam comment) about the author (who doesn’t support either team by the way) that you first kindly ask why the stats were different because there will always be an answer.
So a “launch” is where the opposition has challenged for the ball
and a “long pass” is when the opposition has backed off looking for the 2nd ball ? but at the end of the day they’re very similar long ball stats ?
Isn’t it funny Statto that Stevie Me has retracted his statment because he was wrong as are you.
Everton were incensed by Gerrard’s comments following Sunday’s 2-2 draw at Goodison Park, particularly as stats for the game showed they made more passes (448 to 314) and enjoyed more possession (56 per cent to 44 per cent) than Liverpool
Taken from the Mail.
Stats can easily fudged and it seems EPL Blog did in favour of Liverpool why was that??
How is an EPL Blog in favour of Liverpool? I stated clearly in the first comment that the stats “negate” Stevie’s comments i.e. he was wrong.
The stats over the season were something we added in for context – as far as Stevie’s comments went the stats said something else. Looks like you’re trying to cause trouble!
Statto,
Can you address Gerrard’s specific comments with statistics, please?
He said that Everton’s keeper hit it long every time. I got the impression that both keepers varied their clearances, sometimes long, sometimes short.
The other comment was that Liverpool are a small team compared to Everton who are big and physical. It looked to me that Liverpool had more players over 6ft than Everton.
Fred
Fred – According to the OPTA stats Tim Howard played 15 long ball during the match compared with 20 from Brad Jones.
Unfortunately we don’t have physical stats of players – just the performance based ones. Regarding the keepers:
Tim Howard played 4 short and 12 long.
Brad Jones played all 20 LONG!
So Stevie was wrong there too – Brad Jones hit more longer balls than Tim Howard.
I have to agree with John on this one.