THE return of the long throw has had an impact on how much football Prem fans have seen this season.
Brentford’s stoppage time leveller against Chelsea after the Blues could not cope with a ball hurled into their box came in the week that Thomas Tuchel signposted his willingness to go direct with England.
And the statistics show that the Bees are not the exponents of old-fashioned Pulis-ball.
In the 40 Prem games so far this season, there have been 130 long throws, at an average of 3.3 per match.
That compares to last season’s average, over the 380 games, of 1.5 per match – a doubling of the frequency.
And senior figures believe the return of the long throw has been a factor in a significant shortage of actual playing time.
Figures provided by Stats Perform show that across the 40 top flight games the ball has only been in play for an average of 54 minutes and 21 seconds, down 133 seconds from last season’s average.
The analysis by Prem insiders suggests that one major reason is that the extra number of long throws has seen more teams sending their centre-backs up into the opposition box.
A similar amount of positioning, by both attacking and defending sides, at corner kicks, has also been noticed, with many sides now having specialist set-piece coaching teams.
And with goalkeepers unable to hold onto the ball for more than eight seconds under the new Laws, also taking longer at goal kicks when the ball goes out of play, fans are getting less value for their ticket prices.
One expert explained: “What we’re seeing makes it clear that the amount of long throws in particular is making a difference.
“It will be interesting to see if it continues for the rest of the season or is just a passing fad.”
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