Terrifying long throws are taking over the Premier League!

0:22happy halloween everyone welcome back to a spooky studio Spooky studio. With Moose or Konga. Moose or Konga. And Ryan Hun dead. Ryan Hun dead. The Haunted Hun. It's a haunted podcast. Scary. It's actually not. The fixtures weren't that scary. They weren't the spookiest actually. Considering. The fixtures. Considering the season. Considering the results we just had. A couple of spooky outcomes. They were scary hours for a few sides. Yeah, Schalke for sure. We'll get into that, we'll get into that. It got a bit spooky in Wolverhampton for a while. It did, it did. It wasn't exactly the most chill at Anfield either.

1:13Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, welcome along. It's a Friday episode of Stadio. Before we get going, we hope everyone's staying safe and well, wherever you are. A quick bit of admin, don't forget, London listeners, we are entering the final almost a month to get your sounds like quite a long time but there's not a huge amount of tickets left for our first show at the Southbank Centre on December the 4th so if you want to go and get a ticket for the Southbank Centre go and get them now the link is in the description other bits of admin if you are listening to this on the free feed come and join us on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Stadio you can sign up for the Stadio Social Club which if you're listening to this Friday morning we are having a Discord Hangout on the Stadio Social Club Discord Friday evening.

1:55So if you want to come and hang out with everyone sign up now, come and join us. If you just want the podcasts you can also just get a podcast membership. Nice and easy. Patreon.com forward slash Stadio and thank you to everyone who has signed up so far. Today we're going to do a quick one. We're recording this actually on Thursday but this is going out Friday and we're doing a quick round up of some stuff this week. And also because it's, you know, Halloween I thought we'd talk about the terrifying trend because everyone else is talking about it and we just ignore the general the general football populace we are going to talk about long throws yes because i'm not sure if i find it what i find more entertaining the fact that football is like really or the premier league specifically the premier league has fallen back in love with long throws or the fact that it is kind of to use a counter-pressed ism, the fact that it seems to have boiled so many noggins Alright,

2:56so just a little bit of context, so this season in the Premier League, according to Sky Sports, the number of throws into an opposition box has more than tripled. Apparently last season there was an average of 1.52 per game, this season albeit we're what, only just a quarter or so into the season it's 3.85 we've already seen a few things about how little you know ball in play time there's been this season in the premier league um how a lot of people are getting more physical big men up top long throws and it's not just it's not just one side that's doing it it's like everyone's doing it yeah basically i mean there's two sides of it there's like i mean i don't love it because it's just not my favorite way that to watch football it's not my favorite way that football should be played but it's just one of the things that happens when the entire league becomes so rich that the margins to gain an advantage over the opposition become smaller and smaller and smaller across the whole division.

3:51Let's say the spaces in between sides, I think, is minimised dramatically because of the resources available, right? We were talking about hearts and the impact that just having someone like Tony Bloom involved can have because of the difference. It's a different landscape, right? in the Premier League everyone is hunting like a tiny tiny advantage and I think that there has obviously been something highlighted statistically which means that a long throw into the box is statistically more likely to create a goal scoring opportunity than if you throw you know a ball short and recycle possession and therefore that's what's happening and because the Premier League I think physically is quite like you know everyone's an absolute unit and even if they're not a unit then they're still physical players um it creates chaos and quite often like broken games like lead to goal scoring opportunities right so yeah and i think look and this is the thing and that's all correct and pep guardiola praising tony pulis actually at stoke for this um for his approach and the thing about what tony pulis did is that people had not seen that for a while right and this is the thing about the long balls and the throws um long balls are the sibling of the long throw, in the sense that people had not seen that directness for a while, and so then the antidote isn't there.

5:16Now, what's going to happen, of course, is we're going to go to the long throw era, and then people will figure it out, and they'll be like, oh, actually, these aren't giving us the returns anymore, and people move on to something else. It's just like the old days when the number 10s were so effective, they were like, okay, we're going to put an extra number six in front of the the back four then all of a sudden you don't have space to operate and what happens then you have to play make from the wide areas right because it's the only place that you don't get hunted into the corners now of course you've got high press because there's not space there anymore and then where's the space now so it's just all about players are better athletes than ever and every now and again you've got to throw them a tactical switch they haven't seen for a while and i'll say this as well i was re-watching again my like early 90s serial highlights and I was watching Milan against Inter right Ruud Hullet is playing as a number 10 second striker Ryan the amount of balls that get knocked long to Ruud Hullet in that Milan team that highly technical team and the amount of times they basically just put it in the mixer it's incredible I mean it's like almost almost every ball he's receiving is a high ball he's like he gets into feet I would say a third of the time the rest of the time it's like at his neck or higher and I just I'm not I'm not mad at it because I think it's just a bit of a storm that's passing.

6:30Can I say as well, can I add to this as well? Like the long throw, the return of the long throw, it's a testament to how hard it is to pass the ball through the gaps. It's also one of the reasons why I refuse to get remotely concerned with the fact that Arsenal aren't creating as many open play opportunities as other teams in the Premier League because teams are switched on and focusing on defending Arsenal a lot more. That comes with the threat, right? So when you are known as being a threat and you are known as being successful or dangerous in the Premier League. Opposition is set up in different ways against you because their mindset is to reduce the amount that you can create as opposed to being proactive and proactive on the front foot a lot of the time.

7:12With the long throw thing, I don't think it's going to be something that's going to be around that long. Off the top of your head, who do you think is the side this season who has spent in a single game who has had the longest time spent on long throws off the top of your head if you haven't seen unless you've seen I've not seen the table I've not seen the table so the same side occupies the top two the most time spent in throw-ins in two games a season so the two most the two highest amount the two games with the highest amount of time spent on long throws the same side occupies first second and fifth of the top five Man City Man City no I'll give you one more

7:59it's a team I wouldn't expect right I don't know is it Liverpool Spurs Spurs have got the top two then it's Brentford then it's Sunderland then it's Spurs again and then it's Arsenal Brentford again so basically out of the top 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 so the top 10 games that have had the most so basically like the top 10 most amount of time taken on throws in a game arsenal actually only won it opposite occupy one of those that was against newcastle um liverpool are in there brentford are in there three times brentford and brentford thomas frank has taken the exactly yeah the juice i don't really have anything wrong with it in terms of a like a tactic into of what people need to do in order to win games or find a way to score a goal like that doesn't I you know I think that yeah there are there I have my preferences and how I like football to be played or what I like to watch or the football that kind of gets me more excited than other types of football so it wouldn't be like I get really like you know man for me the long throws are the juice you know it's not really that kind of thing but I think it's also just a thing about the Premier League in general something happens with the Premier League sometimes where so many people their focus is so much on the Premier League and especially I think in terms of a broadcasting sense if you look around like this kind of sky and talk sport ecosystem in the UK and you know TNT and all that and the whole thing about the Premier League just being like the best and then they kind of like see these long throws going over and over again, they see someone going and getting a towel and they're a bit like, it's kind of like the footballing equipment like are we the buddies?

9:35You know? And I think a lot of people get quite existential about the Premier League when they start seeing stuff like this but this is it like it's just it's this is it like because i think they expect everyone to be like with all this money they expect it to be like peps barca 20 you know 2000 look okay look i i did not play football at a high level right and also i remember that you did score one off your ass that's true that's true and they can't take that away from you we played against the team once it was the dutch post there was a team like it was like the dutch royal mail they had the like team like so wow yeah yeah and they were incredible they were incredible like honestly they were like it was like science fiction right and they were playing these triangles like these what it was just it was light speed like proper like Cruyff triangles everywhere and you had to bypass it by direct football you had to we weren't like we weren't lumping it but you were like if we go toe-to-toe with these people we're going to get cooked and like beating the press gets harder and harder and harder you see the goal that Chelsea scored um against Wolves the second at the counter-attack that George scores, I think it is.

10:37And they play out from like two players are pressing the player coming and getting the out ball. And then he turns and plays into space. This is jeopardy, right? And then it ends up in a goal. Like, why would you have that jeopardy? Just the sake of entertaining. Okay, look, I was more entertained to take it like that. Well, yeah, playing out is perilous because people aren't just good at pressing people. Now people aren't just closing down they're doing like a Victor Ossiman you've got you've got strikers who can press four players in one action in one it's ridiculous right so then the long throws they take pressure off the defense and they create chaos in the central areas in the defense for center backs that aren't used to heading clear because a lot of those center backs have spent a lot of time just playing out right a lot of center backs the game is in front of them and all of a sudden the long throw is putting the ball behind them or above them and the neck where they don't get it so actually it's just it's a course correction that's all it is that was a preview of today's episode of stadio if you want to join up for ad-free podcasts extra podcasts access to the stadio social club and more you can join us at patreon.com forward slash stadio