There seems to be a common conception that the more possession a squad has in a match, the higher the likelihood that they will win. Higher possession means more control over the ball (and less for opponents), which might result in more goal scoring opportunities. While in theory this seems to have merit, it doesn’t always hold true.
As of recently, it seems that an attractive style of football is one that includes playing from the back, maintaining possession at all costs (often resulting in wingers and midfielders passing backwards), and only taking a chance on goal when a strong opportunity unfolds.
And while this may be an attractive style of football, it isn’t always the most entertaining, or the most successful.
If the end goal is to win the match, which it should be for all squads, then implementing a playing style to maximize possession isn’t always the best approach.
In this article, we take a deep dive into possession metrics and analyze data as of February 16th, after all squads have played 25 matches in this 2024-2025 Premier League season.
The Possession Spectrum: From Man City’s Control to Forest’s Counters
For starters, we have compiled each squad’s possession for all 25 matches, determined the average per squad and graphed the results as seen below. The squads have been ordered from left to right in descending order of average possession, with Manchester City being the highest with 60.8% and Nottingham Forest being the lowest at 40.2%.
As you might expect, at the top of the list with the most possession are squads like Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, who are also at the top of the Premier League table.
All three of these teams are dominant with the ball and often play possession heavy football. However, one outlier is Nottingham Forrest, who are ranked the lowest in the Premier League in terms of average possession but are currently sitting 3rd in the Premier League table.
We touched on Forrest’s playing style in an earlier post back in January (you can click here if you would like to take a read). Their style of play involves a heavy emphasis on defending deep, with all 11 players behind the ball.
And then they counter quick, as evident in their progressive passing distance ratio. This ratio is progressive passing yards divided by total passing yards, i.e., Forrest’s proportion of passes that move the ball towards their opponent’s goal is the highest in the league.
When looking at the possession statistics, Forrest’s style of play is once again reinforced. On average, opponents have the ball 1.5x more than Forest but that hasn’t stopped their success.
Forest have figured out a style of play that works for them. They don’t rely on a significant amount of ball possession to build up the play. They counter quickly, directly, and are able to convert the chances they create. What a fascinating squad to watch.
Home Turf Advantage? Not Always for Possession
So, now we’ve learned that a high possession rate doesn’t necessarily equate to a high position in the Premier League table, how do possession rates differ for teams playing at home versus when they’re away?
When looking at the possession of each Premier League squad individually, 13 teams had a higher average possession percentage when playing at home. This results in 7 teams who had a higher possession percentage when playing away.
The higher possession rate at home, in theory, makes sense. At home, squads are playing in a familiar territory at their own ground, with a heavy presence of home supporters behind them.
This could result in squads being more relaxed at home and playing better with the ball at their feet, as opposed to the hostility of playing at an away ground. However, as outlined further below, this isn’t always the case.
As graphed below, we’ve taken the average home possession percentage and subtracted the average away possession percentage to arrive at the delta or difference. A positive number indicates the squad has a higher possession percentage in home games, while a negative number indicates the opposite.
Interestingly enough, in the first 25 games Liverpool have played this season, they have average a slightly higher possession rate during away matches vs. home matches. Away matches averaged 57.9%, while home matches averaged 57.3%. The difference between average possession for home and away matches for Liverpool is minor, at only 0.6%.
Despite this small difference, this isn’t the smallest delta in the Premier League. Crystal Palace are almost exactly equal in possession between home and away matches. On average (and when rounded), they maintain 44.1% possession at home and 44.0% possession away. The difference is approximately 0.077%.
At the other end of the spectrum is Aston Villa, who have significantly more possession during home games than away.
The delta is 9.2% (and the highest in the Premier League), with 55.7% possession at home but only 46.5% away. Next is Forrest, who have a delta of 8.1% difference, in favour of more possession being had at home.
The final comment we have regarding home vs. away possession is with respect to Newcastle United. On average, Newcastle have had 5.2% more possession when playing away and have the largest delta in favour of possession at away matches.
They are closely followed by Chelsea and Tottenham who both have 4.3% more possession during away matches.
Winning with Less of the Ball: A Surprising Trend
Finally, we take a look at the different possession based on whether a squad wins, loses, or draws a match.
For starters, when looking at a squad’s average possession for when they win a match vs. when they lose a match, 14 squads had a lower average possession percentage when they won a match.
So, despite a higher percentage of ball possession in other matches, they were unsuccessful at using that possession to create chances or to convert chances.
The average possession for squad’s win (orange) vs. loss (blue) can be seen in the graph below. When you count the orange dots, you can see that on 14 occasions, orange dots are below the blue dots (i.e. more often there is a lower possession percentage for the winning team). To note, we left draws off this graph as it was getting too crowded.
For most teams, the difference of possession is quite similar whether they win or lose but there are some outliers. For example, Brighton averages a 60.3% possession when they lose vs. only 45.2% possession when they win, a difference of 15.1% and the largest in the league.
This is followed closely by Liverpool, who has approximately 11.7% less possession on average when they win a match than when they lose. To be fair, they have only lost one game so far as of the time of writing this article, so take that with a grain of salt.
Next, we took a bit of a deeper dive and included draws.
To do this, we took each squads average possession based on the three different potential outcomes of match: win, lose and draw. We averaged all the matches a squad won to get one value, all the matches a squad lost to get a second average and all the matches a squad drew to get a third average. So, for each team, we came up with three averages.
When looking specifically at matches that were drawn, the possession percentages were pretty evenly spread between the 20 squads in the Premier League.
There were 6 squads in which a draw resulted in the team’s highest average possession, 6 squads which a draw resulted in the teams lowest average possession and for the remaining 8 squads, they were somewhere in between.
As a final comment on possession percentages and the resulting outcome of a match, we include the following.
So far, after 25 games in the Premier League, the lowest possession of a squad that has lost a game (Wolves when they lost 2-1 to Manchester City on October 20), won a game (Newcastle United when they beat Southampton 1-0 on August 17) and drew a game (for Arsenal when they drew Manchester City 2-2 on September 22) is all at 23%.
As total possession equals 100% each game, the opposite can be said. Meaning, the highest possession of a squad that has won a game, drew a game, and lost a game is all at 77%.
So, while there are lots of opinions on which style of football is the best to play and whether maintaining possession is best approach, the data doesn’t lie. As outlined above, a squad can and has won, lost and drew a game in the Premier League this season with as low of 23% possession and as high as 77% possession.
Summary
That’s it for this article. In this post, we take a look at the possession statistics in the English Premier League after 25 matches played in this 2024-2025 season. While there is a lot of talk around maintaining possession and how that is an attractive style of football to play and watch, it doesn’t always result in the three points at the end of the match.
In this article, we first took a look at high level possession statistics for each Premier League squad. Manchester City leads the league with the highest average possession, while Nottingham Forest has the lowest.
Yet, when looking at the current league table, it doesn’t appear that possession has all that much of an impact on the results.
Next, we took a look at possession statistics depending on whether squads play at home or away. On average, there are 13 squads who maintain a higher possession when playing at home.
Lastly, we take a look at the possession metrics depending on whether squads win or lose a match. Maybe surprising to some, 14 squads have a lower average possession when they won a match vs. when they lost a match.
Now you have read the facts about possession in the English Premier League, what are your thoughts? Would you rather see your team maintain possession of the ball or be more willing to take on risks while attacking, that might result in losing the ball? We look forward to reading your comments!
Stay tuned for future posts and please send us a message if there is a specific topic you would like to see covered. Similarly, if you have some ideas on how we can improve these articles, please send them our way too.
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As always, thanks for taking the time to read these posts!
JC
All data in this article is from fbref.com so, thanks to them!