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1 week ago | 
theanalyst.com | RYAN BENSON |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
With this season’s Premier League entering its final stages, we look back over 2024-25 to date and see who’ve been the most threatening teams at set-pieces. An area of the game arguably once neglected, set-piece productivity is now in vogue, and effectiveness in such scenarios is broadly seen to reflect progressive and holistic coaching principles. Many teams now leave no stone unturned in their quest for success, and the better utilisation of set-pieces has come into that.
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1 week ago | 
theanalyst.com | Matt Furniss |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
You might have your own ideas about how each Premier League team play football, but what does the Opta data say? Having recently added a load more statistics to our already-bulging Opta data pages on Opta Analyst, we’re here to explain what some of those new metrics actually mean.
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2 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | RYAN BENSON |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
Daniel Muñoz has stood out for his lung-busting displays down Crystal Palace’s right flank this season, though the extent of his athleticism will still be a shock to many. Crystal Palace fans would have been forgiven for rolling their eyes and expecting the worst. Roy Hodgson, then Palace manager, addressed the media in January 2024 and was asked about a player the club had been heavily linked with.
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3 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | David Segar |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
With only a few weeks remaining of the season, we’ve decided it’s time to check in on the Opta supercomputer’s updated League Two predictions and analyse some of the underlying data powering those projections. It has been an especially competitive League Two this season, and with eight games remaining for most teams, as many as nine clubs could consider themselves still in with a chance of automatic promotion.
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4 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | RYAN BENSON |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
It’s a well-established fact that the role of the goalkeeper has changed considerably over the past 20 years, but here we’ve illustrated that transformation with the numbers. Football’s evolution this century has seen the goalkeeper position transform, philosophically speaking. What was once seen as the last line of defence became the first line of attack, with goalkeepers seeing more of the ball than ever before and taking on a fundamental role in how many teams look to build offensive moves.
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4 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | David Segar |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
We have dived deep into some Premier League data to find out where teams are shooting from this season. Whether you’re a fan, a neutral, or a student during fresher’s week with more loan money than self control, who doesn’t love a high volume of shots?
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4 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | Oliver Hopkins |Matt Sisneros |Jonathan Manuel
It’s a very different FA Cup quarter-final lineup this season. Historically different. Could this be the year the magic of the cup truly returns? The FA Cup quarter-final lineup this season looks very different. Fourteen-time record winners Arsenal? Dumped out in the third round by Manchester United. The Red Devils – 13-time champions themselves – are gone too. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Liverpool, each with eight FA Cup wins, have all fallen.
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4 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | RYAN BENSON |Matt Sisneros |Jonny Whitmore |Jonathan Manuel
More than two years after his last direct free-kick goal, James Ward-Prowse is still just one away from equalling the Premier League record. It feels like he’s one of the last of a dying breed. Free-kicks have provided some truly iconic goals. Nearly every football fan will have at least one particularly memorable effort that sticks out in their mind. They stand out because of the sheer technical ability – or extreme power – involved.
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4 weeks ago | 
theanalyst.com | Ali Tweedale |Ana Gonzalez |Ana González |Jonathan Manuel
With Pep Guardiola acknowledging that transitions are growing in importance, we examine how fast and direct attacks are influencing Premier League football more than ever before. Transitions have long been the enemy of Pep Guardiola. Of all the many tactical aspects of the game, they have always been the thing he fears most. For many of his adversaries over the years, meanwhile, they have proved a very useful weapon.
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1 month ago | 
theanalyst.com | Matt Furniss |Matt Sisneros |Jonathan Manuel
Who will win promotion to the Premier League? Who will make the play-offs? Who will suffer relegation to League One? With only eight matchdays to go in 2024-25, we look at all the key Championship predictions ahead of the final stretch of the season. There are only eight games remaining in the 2024-25 Championship season, so there’s no better time to check on the Opta supercomputer projections looking at how the final standings may shape up.
