Playing the long game: There's no Carrick, Gerrard or Lampard in the top 10, so which Premier League player has the best long-range passing success rate?



Nothing produces an appreciative ripple of applause from a Barclays Premier League crowd than the famed 'Hollywood ball'.



Indeed, after the fallibility of Barcelona’s tiki-taka was so exposed by Bayern Munich, Sportsmail thought it only proper to herald the good old English long-ball game and those players who can turn defence into attack in the blink of an eye.

Frank Lampard seems to like to keep it neat and tidy, the Chelsea midfielder cannot even make the top 10 when it comes to picking out a team-mate with a pin-point pass of 35 yards or more.



Long ranger: Mousa Dembele and Joe Allen lead the way in the Premier League for successful long passes

Liverpool’s talismanic skipper Steven Gerrard has attempted the most raking balls in the Premier League, 393, and possibly because of the sheer volume of attempts his success rate is just 77.1 per cent, also keeping him out of the top 10.

As the statistics show, the league's leading exponent of ‘going long’ is Tottenham’s deep-lying playmaker Mousa Dembele with an impressive 99 of the 108 long passes he has attempted finding their target.



Liverpool’s Joe Allen runs him a close second but perhaps the two most interesting names amongst the top 10 are Arsenal’s Michel Arteta and Santi Cazorla, the Spanish midfield pair obviously eager to get the ball moving a little longer than you might expect for an Arsene Wenger side.



Eye on the ball: Michael Carrick is surprisingly low on the list, but Mikel Arteta and Santi Cazorla both feature



And while Manchester United fans like nothing better than singing: 'It's hard to believe it's not Scholes. It's Carrick, you know', the latter’s long passing has been almost as dodgy as that chant when compared with his predecessor.



As for those who don’t make the list, get some practice in over the summer. After all, why make 15 passes when one will do just as well?

Best long pass (more than 35 yards) accuracy**



Player

Long Passes Attempted

Successful Long Passes Long Pass Accuracy (%)

Mousa Dembele

108

99

91.67

Joe Allen

116

104

89.66

Mikel Arteta

199

176

88.44

Ki Sung-Yueng

195

172

88.21

Paul Scholes

132

111

84.09

Yaya Toure

198

164

82.83

Santi Cazorla

215

175

81.40

Giorgos Karagounis

111

90

81.08

James McArthur

150

121

80.67

Leon Osman

129

103

79.84

Jonathan De Guzman

174

136

78.16

Gareth Barry

108

84

77.78

Matija Nastasic

107

83

77.57

James McCarthy

205

159

77.56

Steven Gerrard

393

303

77.10

Daniel Agger

113

86

76.11

Frank Lampard

117

88

75.21

Adel Taarabt

115

86

74.78

Steve Sidwell

107

80

74.77

Michael Carrick

260

194

74.62



** Player must have attempted at least 100 long passes to be included on the list







