Long Ball Opta Stats

The first part of this article was published after 6 games had been played in the Premier League - you can click here on the article titled: Long Ball in the Premier League (with no mention of Madrid or Barca) - part 2 is below. Long Ball Analysis Sorry, my bad. I just couldn’t resist. I’ve jumped the gun and I apologise. Instead of my promised once-every-six-games look at long ball statistics, after the best start to a season in West …

Earlier this week, Neil Ashton of the Daily Mail wrote an article that was errrr a little lacking in context, to say the least. The article looked at statistics that Ashton believed would show that West Ham weren’t a long ball team, as they only used on average the same amount of long balls as Barcelona and Real Madrid use, which technically may be correct, but what it doesn’t tell us is how our beloved Hammers pass the ball much, much less …