The best pressing teams in the Premier League: 'PPDA' explained | OneFootball

Bespoke analysis teams mining 'Big Data' is now the norm in modern football and there are more statistics than ever before to help us evaluate teams and their performance - and this article provides a short introduction to the metric known as 'PPDA'.

Short for 'passes per defensive action', PPDA is a key statistic for those looking to measure how intensely teams press their opposition high up the pitch.

First introduced by analyst Colin Trainor back in 2014, the metric has quickly gained traction among coaching staff and analysis teams, as it puts a figure on how many passes a team allows their opponent before the pressing team makes a defensive action.

It is important to know what constitutes a defensive action, namely fouls, interceptions, won defensive duels and sliding tackles. And, vitally, these events are only measured in a subset of the field (the final 60% from the pressing team's perspective).

The PPDA number is calculated by dividing the number of passes an opponent makes in their lower 60% zone, by the sum of defensive actions made by the pressing team.

For the purposes of this article, the key takeaway is that the lower the PPDA number, the better a team is at intense high pressing.

The top flight's best pressers

Now that the principles of PPDA have been outlined, we can launch into the fun part of the article and assess which teams were the best high pressers in the Premier League last season.

Top of the tree in PPDA terms were Andoni Iraola's exciting Bournemouth side. The Cherries finished the campaign with an impressive PPDA of 9.9, which put them just ahead of Arsenal and Spurs (10) and eventual Premier League champions Liverpool (10.3).

Brighton (10.8 PPDA) also featured near the top of the division in this stat category, and the Seagulls notably limited their opposition to three or fewer passes on more occasions (493) last term than any other team in the top flight.

The notable absentee in the list of teams at the top of the PPDA charts are Pep Guardiola's Man City, who ranked only 11th in terms of their PPDA and pressing intensity. The stats show that the Cityzens retained much of their usual quality in terms of ball retention, but lacked efficiency when pressing their opponents in possession.

Check out the graphic below for the 'Top 10' sides in the Premier League last season, in relation to their PPDA data.

The Premier League's best pressers last season (via PPDA)