Fingers on buzzers, no conferring: which of Europe's major leagues has the lowest percentage of long balls this season? The answer – by some margin – is England's Premier League.

Graphic: Prozone

It's not a misprint or statistical witchery. So far in 2013-14 just 18% of passes in the Premier League have been over 25 metres, the widely used metric for a long pass. In Ligue 1 that figure is 27%. In the Bundesliga and La Liga it's 23%, in Serie A 21%. For nearly half a century English football has revelled in the biff and red-blooded bash: on occasion it still does but at Premier League level at least, things have changed. The continental way is increasingly our way.

Ah, you might retort, not all long balls are skyward hoiks towards the big fella. And you would be right. So here is another disarming stat: the Premier League also has the lowest percentage (41%) of forward passes of any major European League. Remember how the Spurs midfielder Vinny Samways was derided as Vinny "Sideways" because he favoured the simple pass? We are all Samways' children now.

There is a third noticeable trend in Prozone's data: passing in the Premier League is much more accurate than it once was. In the 2003-04 season, the pass success rate was 73%. This season, as in 2012-13, it hovers around 85%. It's not just due to English teams adopting the tiki-taka style of playing: the rate of successful forward passes has also climbed from 60% to 72% during the same period.

Graphic: Prozone

This is not an argument about the quality of the Premier League, or English players per se. Such debates are recycled and regurgitated, particularly when it comes to the national team, and there will doubtless be more weary introspection come June 2014. Rather it is about how the game is played now in the English top flight.

I believe we can confidentially say this: the land of Charles Reep and Charles Hughes, of Wrigley-tinctured howls of "launch it" and cultish devotion to positions of maximum opportunity, of the byline and the back stick, has changed more than is perceived. And given that Prozone's data shows the Championship is also less direct than it was in 2010-11, there might yet be a trickle-down effect – although how long it takes to reach football in the average park is anyone's guess.

So what explains these changes? Clearly the influence of foreign managers and players in the Premier League era is considerable – immigration in English football, as so often in human history, has brought considerable benefits. But such influences were apparent a decade ago. I suspect it is the success of Barcelona and Spain, allied with improved technique, that has provided a blue (and-red-and-yellow) print for others to aspire to and follow.

Analytics is slowly having an effect, too. We know, for instance, that corners have a much lower success rate than once thought, as detailed by Chris Anderson and David Sally in The Numbers Game. That, as Colin Trainor has shown, headers from the same position as shots in the penalty area have a lower chance of going in. And that Reep's original analysis, which sowed the seed for long-ball football by claiming 80% of goals are scored with five passes or fewer and that possession was not particularly important, is somewhat simplistic.

English football's disastrous marriage to the long ball, which has endured for at least half a century, is heading towards a decree nisi.

But it's not there yet. On Tuesday night two of Reep's spiritual descendents will go head to head in the Premier League when West Ham visit Crystal Palace. It will be a genuine throwback, between two of the most direct sides in the division. And while it might not be pretty, it will be intriguing.

Stoke under Tony Pulis certainly were. They almost always had less possession than their opponents. They let teams shoot from distance, where they were less likely to score, but allowed very few chances in dangerous areas. They had four shots per game fewer than the Premier League average – but, because their chances came from close in, had a high conversion rate.

And Stoke were direct, although their percentage of long passes went down from 29% in 2008 to 23% in 2013. As Prozone's Omar Chaudhuri points out: "Between 2008 and 2013 Stoke consistently scored 50% of their goals from set-pieces – the Premier League average for the same period was in the low 30s."

Graphic: Prozone

Of course, what Pulis and Allardyce are doing makes some sense. In David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell popularises the obvious idea that when you are the underdog, playing the same way as someone stronger than you won't work. Whether Stoke should have found a Plan B, or done better given the amount Pulis had to spend – as many fans believe – is a valid point.



The football at Selhurst Park on Tuesday is likely to be about as coarse and unsubtle as a Roy "Chubby" Brown Christmas DVD. That is not to decry it. Sometimes we all enjoy some wham, bam, thank you mam. It's just that it is no longer typical of the Premier League.