It is finally back. The Premier League is here. After a busy spring and summer with limited soccer watching I dove fully back in in the last few weeks with a fantastically fun Rotisserie fantasy draft and had a clean weekend for first time in a while to just watch soccer. And watch I did. Liverpool-Norwich, Bournemouth-Sheffield United, Tottenham-Villa, Arsenal-Newcastle, Leicester-Wolves, United-Chelsea. All devoured. Numbers crunched. Graphs and report cards created. A burst of energy to go with the start of a new season. It feels good to be back. On we go.

Before we get to the debut of the Progression Grades a bit on a team scale for the opening night game

Liverpool v Norwich

-Last year Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson led the league in at least one version of progression and they both led the way again with a solid night. Norwich defended and disrupted Liverpool’s possession and progression very well overall:

Friday's match against Norwich was only the 4th match at Anfield in which their opponents restricted Liverpool to fewer than 500 passes since the start of the 2017/18 season. The others were against Tottenham (twice) and Man City! pic.twitter.com/VOy03w3g7M — Constantinos Chappas (@cchappas) August 10, 2019

-But one side that Liverpool actually looked like Liverpool at home vs Norwich was Robertson mainly down the left:

Green means more yards gained than an average team, red fewer

-A few clips showing what this progression looked like:

https://streamable.com/39ot9

-Norwich caused Liverpool a lot of problems attacking as well, piling up a massively impressive 8 in-box shots, 4th among the 14 teams who played on Friday/Saturday.

And a few clips of how Norwich progressed down the left, highlighting Lewis’s fine game: https://streamable.com/159qs.

Progression Grading

How the players grades are gathered:

-their total Fields Gained (% of field gained via carry, pass or dribble)

-Danger Zone moves (entries via carry or pass received or completed in the final 22 yard radius around goal)

-Shot Buildup contributions (passes/carries/touches in final 10 seconds leading up to a shot for their team)

A bit more calculation is done to reward players who did a particularly large share of their teams work in any of the 3 categories and a little bit for where you are on the field (so further back players are rewarded a bit more). But in the end center backs and DMs generally do not pop up high in these rankings and you wouldn’t really expect them to, as the yardage they do gain is rarely valuable.

Before you go looking for the highest and lowest, I’ll list the standouts here

A+: Riyad Mahrez, James Maddison, Paul Pogba, Pedro, Kiko Femenia, Kevin de Bruyne

F: Declan Rice, Sean Longstaff, Neil Taylor, Aaron Cresswell, Jack Stephens, Craig Cathcart, Jamaal Lascelles, Ben Mee, Martin Kelly, Grant Hanley

Teams are in order from best to worst in my progression numbers

Tottenham

When you take 33 shots and basically just pass around the opposition box for a half, you are going to wind up with some good grades. Sissoko had 15 touches in final 10 seconds before a shot, Moura 16 (the top two in the league), Lamela 12 and Eriksen 13 in just 28 minutes! Harry Kane had 11 DZ involvements, behind only Salah.

Man City





Gabriel Jesus has never been known as a progression guy, he pops up when it’s time to score. Rodri and the fullbacks stayed quite deep truly. While Sterling got the headlines, I’d say the story for me was Riyad Mahrez. It’s kind of easy to forget but he is one of the most skilled players in the world and delivered another fantastic performance Saturday. Last year he was at the top of shot invovlement numbers and was right there again this week (13 vs KdB’s 6 in second place on Man City). 8 DZ actions tied for team lead (spread evenly 8-8-8-7 among Mahrez-KdB-Sterling-Silva).

Liverpool

Henderson played in as an advanced role as KdB did as he clearly played well in front of Wijnaldum and Fabinho (Fabinho arguably played a bit behind Wijnaldum as well). Joe Gomez basically had nothing to do.

Leicester

I don’t think progression will be a problem with Leicester, it’s turning the key that final time around goal with lots of players who like to move around the box or in Vardy’s case burst into open space, but not too many who can create shots in tight spaces. Harvey Barnes was electric as always in just 33 minutes off the bench, driving 5 DZ actions (Choudhury had 1). With Wolves basically camped, Leicester couldn’t get any shot generation from center backs, neither touched the ball within 10 seconds of a shot. Lots of Maddison work, but you wonder if it’s maybe too much.

Chelsea

So now we get to an interesting part. Chelsea rating ahead of Man Utd and Pedro getting an A+. Why? Pedro had 10 shot buildup involvements (top 2%) and 6 DZ actions (top 10%) while gaining yards in the top 9%. Jorginho gained yardage alongside the CB’s and didn’t have any DZ actions so at least for one game, the Jorginho under Lampard theory has to be judged pretty poorly.

Norwich

Quite the tale of two parts of Norwich. Lewis/Cantwell/Buendia/Pukki looked like Man City while the rest played like West Ham. 17 DZ entries between the first 4, 23 shot buildup involvements vs just 2 and 6 for the rest.~31 Fields Gained* vs 10 for the Big 4 vs Not-so-big 4.

*Fields Gained is just Yardage Gained taking into account % of field. So you can gain .5 of a field gained through making a 20 yard pass (from 40 yards away) or a 50 yard pass (from 100 yards away).

Man Utd

Basically the game was setup absolutely perfectly for Pogba’s strengths and boy did he take advantage. Most shot involvements of any Man Utd player, 2nd most fields gained after Martial, 5 DZ entries, and all from an extremely deep position. He was basically passing from where Rodri was…only Martial and Rashford played within 50 yards of goal as Utd sat very very deep.

Bournemouth

Arsenal

Southampton

Maybe the most Southampton chart ever, with a ton of averageness and Nathan Redmond leading the way. Jack Stephens might as well just have played when Burnley had the ball.

Sheff Utd

Everton

0 Shot Involvements from fullbacks, an attacking lineup that all played roughly the same distance from goal (Richarlison/DCL/Bernard/Digne) all passing 47-49 yards from goal with Siggy a bit further forward). Sort of odd and jagged mix of players in attack.

Watford

The list of players with more DZ actions than Femenia includes Liverpool/City/Spurs players and James Maddison. Kiko led Watford in fields gained comfortably and Shot Involvements

Brighton

If two CBs, a fullback and striker are doing basically zero shot involvement or progression, that puts a lot of pressure elsewhere. Montoya, Propper, Locadia and Gross delivered this time but Brighton need more depth.

Wolves

I often times have wondered just how Ruben Neves got that enormous hypothetical price tag attached to him. Maybe he’d thrive in a better progression system but he doesn’t often show signs of doing it on his own at Wolves.

Newcastle

Not a great 2019 debut for one of my Academy targets in my fantasy league in Sean Longstaff. Centerback/Declanian numbers for the Tolkiened-named youngster.

Burnley

Anything more Burnley than this guy leading their progression as they win 3-0?

Disappointing day for Dwight McNeil, who slowed down considerably after a sizzling start last season.

Crystal Palace

No Zaha and basically no progression for Palace. Everton defensively are quite fierce.

Aston Villa

Despite completing just 6 passes McGinn was involved in 3 shots, had 2 DZ entries and actually picked up serious yardage on his very few touches. The backline (which basically included Hourihane) was totally pinned back.

West Ham

West Ham actually completed a decent % of their passes at 81% but got nowhere. Might not be fair to pick on him after a game vs Man City but I’ve never understood the Declan hype. He plays like a centerback:

Lot of Declan Rice love on my TL…he is basically playing as a center back in midfield, ~zero offensive production or ball progression so far this season pic.twitter.com/aiPQ7IvKu8 — Saturdays on Couch (@SaturdayOnCouch) February 4, 2019