After the recent Athletic article on a declining pressing trend in the EPL, we've been asked a number of times what we're seeing in our data. The answer is a big change but not in the way you might expect. THREAD

Here's the total presses per EPL match. Our peak was actually in 17/18 but this season is more than last

The change we are seeing is in the nature of our POSSESSION WINS from pressing. Overall we are seeing the same number of possession wins as last season, but a big shift on whether it is a DIRECT possession win or a "Turnover"

a "direct" win is where the presser wins the ball as he presses the target (some of these could even be "tackles" in the opta data). A turnover is where the target turns the ball over under pressure, puts it out of play, launches it long or misplaces a pass.

in 18/19 we had over 20 direct wins per EPL match, this season it's less than 8.
Direct wins are most valuable in the attacking half (gegenpressing as playmaker) and these have HALVED from 10 per match in 18/19 to less than 5 this season

This is a data viz for direct wins within 30m of the opponents goal, the ball symbol denotes where the press led to a shot. Decline from 2 per match in 18/19 to 1.2 this season

Here's the match by match data. There were just FOUR direct win all match vs United, the rest were turnovers. In the Villa game there were just TWO direct wins

So the big change is not a decline in our pressing but in how our opponents are handling the press. They are much happier to play safety first and launch it so we have to start again in our own half or from a restart.

Finally, here's a really good example of a pressing chain leading to a turnover after the opposition finally launches it https://streamable.com/izad3w 
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