Is Premier League possession football on the way out?

In the early 2000s, Premier League defences tried to make the pitch as small as possible, giving their opposition less space to score in.

Coaches therefore encouraged their attackers to play quickly, taking advantage of open space that saw them face fewer defenders.

Logically, this made total sense.

It was Pep Guardiola's influence that, in part, flipped this logic on its head over the last decade.

His Manchester City sides looked to force teams back into a compact defence, a challenge that in theory should be harder to break down.

The counter logic was that they were forcing opponents to give them a familiar challenge they were prepared for.

City's defenders also had big spaces to cover, often standing at the halfway line.

But for Guardiola, those spaces were less worrying if the ball stayed near the opposition's goal for as long as possible.

After all, if you have the ball, the opposition cannot score.

So why now are teams that dominate the ball dropping points?

Across this season's opening 50 Premier League matches, teams recording at least 60% possession have won only 36.4% of those games, while in 2023-24, the figure was 53.5%.

Does this suggest possession football is on the way out? Well, the answer isn't that simple.

Are teams winning because of their low possession, or having less possession because they have taken the lead early?

There could be some truth in both answers.

Counter-attacking comes with a stigma.

It is more accepted underdogs like newly promoted Hull will play this way. For bigger teams, there is an expectation to eventually control the game with the ball.

This makes a low-possession approach harder to sell long term, even if the players might look better conceding possession.

And that disconnect between players' skillsets and tactics could help explain some dropped points.

Alongside Chelsea, Manchester United have also suffered in this way. Under Michael Carrick, they have averaged 1.5 points per game with more than 50% possession. With less, that rises to 2.6.

Clubs without the same expectation, like Brentford, Leeds and Hull, can concede possession and have built squads for that style.

With impressive box defenders, dangerous counter-attackers and set-piece specialists, their tactics can align with their players' strengths, helping them compete against more less aligned opponents, irrespective of their wealth gap.

It is important to note possession is an average across a match, which can hide how the scoreline changes a team's approach.

Chelsea scored within seven minutes in each of their opening four league games after which opponents pushed forward looking for a goal. The Blues dropped deeper, defending their lead and attacking the space left behind.

Across their opening five matches, Chelsea averaged 51.4% possession when level, 34.5% when ahead and 67.2% when behind - highlighting how much their possession has varied with the score.

Interestingly, protecting a lead created favourable opportunities for Chelsea's attackers to play intuitively, carry the ball and attack space. When chasing a goal, they had more possession but appeared to lack solutions against compact defences.

Arsenal show the value of being able to do both parts well when needed.

Bukayo Saka and Max Dowman's dribbling, combined with the passing of Martin Odegaard, Martin Zubimendi, Bruno Guimaraes and Christos Tzolis, provides repeatable solutions against packed defences.

Their set-piece threat can also give them the lead when clear chances are difficult to create despite dominating the ball.