SSA Blog: Its back...

So here we are, after 100 days, the Premier League is back. Two games launch Project Restart, Aston Villa vs Sheffield United and Manchester City vs Arsenal. Players have been through lockdown, socially distanced training, limited group training, full contact training and finally behind closed doors friendly games in preparation.

David De Gea celebrates a Manchester United Europa League win

Comparisons with pre-season have been made to try and offer some insight into what the players might face in terms of training and early competitive games. Surprisingly though, as we are still within an ongoing season, relatively little coverage has been given to comparisons with winter breaks which, across Europe are common.

Recently, research has been published highlighting the potential negative impact of a winter break on players technical performance. Mikael Jamil, working alongside senior football scientist Marco Beato released their research into just this topic earlier this year (2020). They examined the impact of the winter break across La Liga, Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and as a control, the Premier League between 2013 and 2018. The results make for very interesting reading and could offer some insight into what to expect from players during early matches post-lockdown.  

Performance data, measured across 38 technical performance metrics (captured by OPTA), including subcategories of shooting and passing, were examined both pre and post the winter break across the aforementioned leagues. La Liga, where the winter break on average only lasted 12.2 days showed no major decreases in technical performance. However, when the break was extended beyond an average of two weeks, as it was in France (18.6 days) and in Germany (32 days) technical declines were significant. A closer analysis of the data presents a slightly different picture for each country. In Germany, reductions in shooting ability were the starkest finding. In France, it was passing that suffered the most. Bringing the results together, both these degradations occurred in attacking areas of the pitch. Therefore, the authors conclude, it’s attacking fluency that is most affected by the break.

The Premier League has been on hold for 100 days. During that time, both physical and technical training has been significantly curtailed. Jamil and Beato speculate a number of potential interlinking reasons for the lack of sharpness seen following an extended break. This includes a drop in physical conditioning, lack of training and poor diet due to the removal of club supervision. This recently enforced stoppage was significantly longer than those seen for winter breaks or even, in many cases pre-season. This long break could lead to even greater technical decrements leaving clubs with a very fine balance to strike. Do they push training to overcome the physical deconditioning, but risk injury? Do they focus on the quality of technical training but sacrifice physical preparedness? With this area of research only in its infancy, the answer is difficult to know.

Excellence of technical play, the physicality of the players and relatively high inter-club competition levels is what the Premier League brand has been built on. It is by some distance the most successful domestic football competition in terms of revenue and awareness in the world. It is this that means, while the elite football competitions in other European countries have already returned, it is fair to say globally, the return of the Premier League is what football fans have been waiting for.

Loyalty to the league, via the clubs, is so strong that a few weeks of slightly diminished quality on the field should have no impact in terms of its global value. Perhaps the free-flowing football fans are used to from teams throughout the league will take some time to return. But for now, most are just glad to have the Premier League back on their screens. We have waited a long time for this. IT’S BACK…

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