First up, my new defensive pressure maps for all the Premier League teams. They are in order of highest pressers in the final two thirds so City play the highest block (shock) and Newcastle play the lowest block (often sitting on the edge of the area to defend). Colour code: The redder the zone, the…

Build up through Umtiti and Pogba has gone wider far more often than it does through Varane and Kante where it stays narrow. Griezmann has struggled to have a positive impact. There has been no incisiveness in his passing yet, and penalty apart he’s struggled to get involved in front of goal in good areas:…

My children (both Primary School age) often ask Dad what on earth he’s doing looking at lists of numbers to do with football. “It looks boring.” And then one of them went to Coding Club at school, started knocking about with a Raspberry Pi, talking about Python and writing a program to turn a bulb…

The first part of this week’s blog was inspired by the following tweets: The passing model part of Ted’s first tweet there certainly resounds with me. Tiago’s tweet makes me think this is maybe a thing. I’ve spent a lot of time messing about with this. Like a years worth of messing about. With the…

It’s probably best if I explain the ‘why’ of this piece with a series of old tweets. If you like the relentless clapping of a demented seal, then please follow me on said twitter medium: Against the lesser teams, playing Rooney deeper has worked pretty well. Against anyone decent, his physical decline looks painfully obvious.…