The comparison between
Barcelona and the club they try to emulate, Swansea, has been done and done to
death. Despite that, when I looked at the end of season figures I was startled to find out just how well
Swansea performed. In many key areas they matched the big spending EPL clubs
punch for punch. Swansea City's squad is currently valued at £60.5 million,
which is a whole £10 million below the value of £70.5 million placed upon the
squad of the EPL's worst club last term, Wolves. Only one EPL club has a squad
which comes in at a price lower than Swansea's, and that is Norwich (who are
only valued at a measly £47 million). But they are a success story to be told
in another post.
The two trademark features
of Barcelona's style of play, to the relatively untrained eye anyway, are
insane levels of possession and the much revered short passing game.
Passing
In the 11/12 Liga BBVA
season Barcelona completed 23,848 passes of 26,942 attempted passes, to put
into perspective Real Madrid only attempted 20,130 passes. So, rather
predictably Barcelona achieved the highest past success in their league with
88.5%, 3.5% superior to the next most accurate passers Real Madrid. Now to show
you Swansea's passing statistics. With 20,794 passes attempted last season
Swansea attempted the second highest number of passes in the league, only 70
passes below the highest passing EPL team, Manchester City. Swansea completed
17,813 of their passes and therefore attained a passing success of 85.7%. Only
Manchester City bettered this, and that was only by 0.2%.
Possession
Barcelona managed a
whopping 69.3% average possession last season, 10.5% greater than Real Madrid,
the obvious second in the list. 33% of Barca's possession was within the
opposition half (the highest in their league), 47% was in the middle third of
the pitch (also the highest in their league) and only 19% of Barcelona
possession was within the restraints of their own defensive third (which is the
lowest in their league). Swansea had the third highest average possession in
the EPL with 57.6%, only 2% lower than Arsenal who sit atop of the possession
chart with 59.6%. Barcelona enjoyed the highest level of their possession
within the opposition third when compared to the rest of their league. In
comparison to this Swansea had 31% of their possession between their own half,
the second highest in the EPL. 46% of Swansea's play was in the middle of the
pitch, the highest managed in the league. Hence finally, and pivotally to the
point I will conclude on, only 22% of Swansea's possession was in the
opposition half. This was the lowest in the entire league.
Conclusion
From the passing
statistics it can be concluded, as far as I'm concerned anyway, that Swansea
have definitely managed to adapt their passing game to the Premier League, as
shown by their incredibly high passing accuracy (85.7%) and number of passes
(especially only ever being topped by "rich clubs" with CL
experience). Whilst Barcelona topped Swansea by 2.7%, Barcelona have a squad
valued at £520 million. So for between an eighth and ninth of price of the
Barcelona squad Swansea have managed to achieve percentage figures of a similar
ilk to Barcelona's. Swansea haven't yet imitated the "pass the opposition
to death" style made famous by Barcelona, shown by the fact that Swansea's number of passes attempted does not stand head and shoulders above the rest of the league in
the same way that Barcelona's does. None the less Swansea have certainly made
admirable strides in the right direction by placing themselves amongst the best
teams of the "passes attempted" list. The 59.7% possession achieved
by Swansea shows that, just as the passing statistics do, that Swansea are
achieving the closest style attainable within their budget. Budget being the
key factor in Swansea spending the lowest proportion of their possession within
the opposition half. This demonstrates a key lack of penetration in the Swansea
team. It is worth noting that teams such as Norwich, West Brom and Bolton are
all within the top ten of proportion of their possession in the opposition
half, so it is not a case of Swansea being a "lesser club" and thus not being able to achieve the level of penetration exhibited by Barcelona. It
can be stated, with great certainty on my part, that no club team will ever be
able to take a group of players as cheaply assembled as the Swansea squad and play as similarly to
Barcelona. Brendan Rogers has shown great faith in his players, and I can only
see them improving. Testament to his commitment to playing football "the
right way" is the fact that Brendan Rogers is accompanying the Spain
national team to Euro 2012 in order to observe.
By Alex Pointon
All statistics in this post are courtesy of either www.whoscored.com or www.transfermarkt.co.uk
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