How the Premier League fell in love with long throws again
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“Football tactics have experienced a boom in recent years, but even the most progressive fan still loves to see their team ‘stick it in the mixer’. In many ways, the football we watch has become increasingly cultured in the Premier League, but ask yourself this: who doesn’t reminisce about Rory Delap’s iconic long throw-ins for Stoke City in the late 2000s? The drop in directness from these towards the end of the previous decade in the Premier League coincided with a decrease in the percentage of goalkeeper passes played long — defined as ones that travel at least 32m (35 yards) — as more teams were focusing on maintaining possession, building out from the back, and recycling the ball if they lost it. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)