Liverpool began their season with a disappointing result against West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns. Much has been made since Brendan Rodgers’ appointment about his passing philosophy, so the focus here will be upon analysing how Liverpool passed the ball against West Brom. Passing network analysis One method of analysing passing by a football team [...]

In some recent interviews, Simon Kuper has suggested that Liverpool established a data-driven style of play focussed around crossing last season. He theorised that Liverpool attempted to cater to Andy Carroll’s heading strengths by buying players with good crossing statistics, such as Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson. Kuper then goes on to state that such an approach [...]

The key is to control the game. If we have the ball, he’ll participate less and cause us fewer problems. The above quote by Gerard Piqué about Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of the semi-final with Portugal summed up Spain’s approach during Euro 2012. In a typically excellent piece by Sid Lowe for the Guardian (from which [...]

One of the more interesting innovations from an analytical standpoint at the current European Championship has been the measuring of the amount of time that a player spends with the ball per game. This measure of player involvement has in particular been applied to forward players, such as Mario Gomez. Gomez managed to score 3 [...]

Brendan Rodgers’ appointment as Liverpool manager has prompted some fascinating discussions about his overall playing philosophy and how it might be transferred to his new club. Swansea’s impressive passing statistics have been much quoted in this context; only Manchester City attempted and completed more than them last season. An intriguing aspect of this preference for [...]