Why the Premier League is so difficult for players that come from other leagues

So far this summer, Premier League teams have spent at least 35 million euros on signings of 21 players. Of these, 12 come from clubs that do not belong to the Premier League.

The Two more expensive summer signings, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, both for Liverpool, come from the Bundesliga. The two most important signings of Arsenal, Martín Zubimendi and Viktor Gyökeresthey were players of the first divisions of Spain and Portugal, respectively. And two of the three most important signings of Manchester City, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Chekithey brought new reinforcements from the Italian series and the French Ligue 1.

If you have been following the Premier League for some time, you may have read all this and have begun to do the usual: to make fun of an enraged local fan who calls the Talksport radio or imitate the less prepared commentator of Sky Sports. But you can’t help thinking: can you do it in the Premier League?

In 2010, commentator Andy Gray suggested that Lionel Messi “would have a bad time on a cold night at Britannia Stadium”the Stoke City stadium.

This was 18 months after Messi marked head in the 2-0 victory over Manchester United in the Champions League final. And it was during a season that would conclude with Messi scoring the victory goal in the 3-1 Champions League final against Manchester United, a match that would take Sir Alex Ferguson to qualify the Barcelona of Messi as “the best team I have faced.” Ah, and Stoke City? He lost 2-1 against Man United at home and ended the season with a goals from -2.

Thus, the idea of the inherent superiority of English football dates back to an era in which his first division was clearly not superior, and that period extends much, far beyond Gray’s comments. But sometimes reality and illusion can cross.

Given the economic power of the Premier League 15 years later, It seems reasonable to assume that the richest football league in the world is also the most difficult to play. But if that is true, can we go beyond stereotypes about cold climate, long band serves and cheers by entries and corner kicks? And can we determine exactly why it is so difficult to play in England compared to other top -level leagues in the world?

How the Premier League became the best league in the world

Apparently, every year we look at the results of the Champions League and we discuss what is the best league in the world. This year, however, that debate has disappeared. Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League and no one, except by French President Emmanuel Macron, would be willing to seriously affirm that Ligue 1 is the best football league in the world.

Actually, The debate should have disappeared years ago. The best teams in the Premier League may not always be better than the best teams in France or Spain, but thanks to its enormous economic advantage, it is practically impossible for any other league to be so good down.

According to the salary data estimated by FBBR for last season, The 20 Premier League clubs were among the top 50 positions of the five major European leagues As for salary mass. If salaries were distributed uniformly among the leagues, each would have only about 10 teams among the top 50. And the same goes for the valuations of the transfer made by Transfermarkt. Among the 25 most valuable templates in the world, 12 belong to the Premier League. If they were distributed uniformly, they would all have five among the top 25.

So that the Premier League was not the most competitive league in that environment, there should be a huge discrepancy in the matter of scouts and tactics, with the English clubs, guessing blindly while everyone else knew what they did, but in a way that no one in England realized. And a global template of players and coaches would be needed to whom they don’t mind charging as much as possible. With the current diversity of owners, technical bodies and players in England, none of that is true.

This is clear in any attempt to quantify the force of a given league. The analyst Tyson has recently published a series of team classifications that uses the fees of betting houses to estimate the strength of the equipment. The classifications are represented as the expected goals difference for a specific team if you will play against the worst data base team. According to the classifications of Ni, The half -league stockings are as follows:

• Premier League: 2.51

• LaLiga: 2.24

• Series A: 2.06

• Ligue 1: 2.01

• Bundesliga: 1.96

In other words, it would be expected that the middle team of the Premier League win the middle team of LaLiga for 0.27 goals, to the middle team of series A for 0.45 goals, to the middle team of Ligue 1 by 0.50 goals and the middle team of the Bundesliga for 0.55 goals.

On the other hand, the elo of the clubs faithfully reflect the salary data and transfers. The Elo system grants or subtracts points after each game that plays a team, depending on the final result, the location and quality of the rival. It is based exclusively on the results, without estimates. Currently, the 20 Premier League clubs are among the 50 best in Europe, which includes teams that do not belong to the five major leagues. No other league has even 10 clubs among the 50 best.

What makes the Premier League so difficult?

The simple answer is that Players are better And, therefore, the teams are too.

While in LaLiga there are a lot of difficult matches against the two greats and teams such as Atlético de Madrid, Villarreal and Athletic Club, the Premier League offers you 38 games against teams that are among the 50 best in the world. The goalkeepers are better stopping shots, the defenses are better defending, the midfielders are better breaking the attacks and maintaining possession of the ball, and the strikers are more difficult to stop.

Using one of the most complete players assessment models, the VAEP (Valuing Actions By Estimating Probabilities), which basically judges everything a player does with the ball depending on how much increases the goal possibilities of his team or decreases the possibilities of his team to fit a goal, the analyst Tony ElHabry analyzed how the performance of the players changed when they changed the league. In a nutshell: did your VAEP go up or down?

He studied the seasons between 2012 and 2020. And he discovered that When the players went to the Premier League from any of the five major leagues, their performance decreased. LaLiga players suffered a 5 %decrease, while those of Ligue 1 fell 10 %and those who came from series A, 12 %. However, the greatest fall in the five major leagues occurred when the players were transferred from the Bundesliga: a 17 %drop, greater than that of the players of Portugal and Brazil, and approximately equivalent to what happened when the players made the jump from the Championship.

But how is this reflected in the field? At least in the last season, the Premier League stood out in a couple of aspects. Compared to the other five major leagues, the Premier League teams were more urgent in possession (measured by shot passes) and crossed the ball much less frequently (measured by the percentage of passes in the last third that were centers):

However, the Premier League teams also carried out the least percentage of shots from outside the area and made the second shortest passes on average. It was not a league in which the teams would throw the ball into the field and shoot from afar. No, it is a league in which the middle team is able to advance with possession by more intricate passes and then quickly move the ball to the area to shoot without having to resort to the centers.

That demands A high level of technical skill by players who have possession, but also requires those who do not have it.

Despite these more efficient possession figures, Premier League teams did not score more goals or created better occasions than others. Therefore, to defend in the Premier League you have to endure the pressure generated by the game of shorter and aggressive passes in the construction of the game and then you have to face teams that do not focus or shoot from afar, but take the ball to the area, where defensive errors become almost automatic goals.

A smarter decision making and shorter passes were not two expressions that no one would have associated with the Premier League in the 2010-11 season. The League has changed dramatically thanks to some of the best foreign coaches have helped transform tactics.

At the same time, The Premier League has not lost the only thing that has always had: the fast game.

According to Gradient Sports data, the Premier League teams reach maximum speeds more frequently than any other league. If all the field players who played at least 600 minutes last season are analyzed, the middle player of the Premier League reached a maximum speed of 32.5 kilometers per hour, almost a quarter of a kilometer per hour faster than any other league.

Gradient defines a sprint like any time when a player reaches 25 km/ho more. The Premier League leads the number of sprints, the distance traveled in Sprints, the time spent on sprints and the percentage of movement dedicated to Sprints:

These differences may seem insignificant, but multiplied by 10 players, in 20 teams, each of which plays 38 games per season? The Premier League is circling the rest of Europe.

So what does all that extra money give the Premier League? And why is it so difficult for someone to succeed?

In the offensive aspect, You have to be able to maintain possession, move on to the rivals and create occasions in the most busy area of the field without depending on an unlikely shot from outside the area or an ineffective center from the band. Without the ball, you have to try to break those sequences of possession in which the bad decisions do not save you and you have to create plays constantly within the area.

And then, Even if you can handle that, it’s not enough. Despite all the technical skill, patience and efficiency that the League requires, you still have to be able to run, faster and more frequently, than everyone else.