There are many facets of a football team’s tactical identity, but perhaps the most instructive element is also the most basic part of football strategy — how is a side trying to get the ball into a dangerous position to score a goal?

Imagine a particular team’s attacking style and you’re often visualising how they get the ball into the box. But between which players are the crucial passes made?

Here, we have depicted each Premier League club’s most common passing combination into the opposition penalty area. You might expect some kind of general pattern or uniform approach, but the striking thing is how many different styles there are.

The most surprising revelation from the data is that at six of the 20 Premier League clubs, the most common combination to get the ball into the box involves a full-back (or wing-back, or wide centre-back) receiving possession. Players in those positions are useful attacking tools in the modern game, certainly, but you imagine them receiving the ball on the outside of the penalty box and in deeper positions rather than in the box itself.

For Fulham, it’s Willian slipping in Antonee Robinson down the left flank and the direction of the passes implies underlapping rather than overlapping runs from the left-back. A good example came when Willian fed Robinson to assist Alex Iwobi’s opener against Wolves.

At Crystal Palace, it’s Eberechi Eze supplying Tyrick Mitchell, while Brentford’s is slightly different: it’s Bryan Mbeumo slipping in Kristoffer Ajer, who has played at right-back in a four-man defence but also as a right-sided centre-back in a three.

Sheffield United and Wolves do something similar down the right flank, albeit the recipients are wing-backs rather than full-backs: Gustavo Hamer plays in Jayden Bogle and Pablo Sarabia finds Nelson Semedo.

The most unexpected case is Manchester City, whose most frequent box-entering combinations don’t involve Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez, Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, or the admittedly injury-troubled Kevin De Bruyne. It’s a holding midfielder finding a right-back. Rodri is more than a holding midfielder and Kyle Walker has tended to push forward on the overlap more often over the past 18 months, now City usually play with a solid left-back rather than an attacking one.

But this is City’s most common way of getting into the penalty box. A good example is Rodri’s diagonal ball for Walker’s run in behind, who volleys back for Phil Foden to score, in a 2-0 home win over Nottingham Forest. This move actually goes back to Pep Guardiola’s early days — his Barcelona side loved playing switches like this for Dani Alves.

A full-back as the passer – Newcastle

A defender only features once in terms of playing the passes. That’s at Newcastle where, until his recent struggles in a defensive sense, Kieran Trippier’s relationship with Miguel Almiron constituted one of the best wide partnerships in the league.

Trippier is capable of overlapping and swinging in crosses, but he’s underrated in terms of more refined creativity, often taking on a role comparable to that of Trent Alexander-Arnold with clever passes into the channel. Here’s a simpler example — him playing in Almiron against Manchester United. The Paraguayan cut inside but his shot was blocked.

A playmaker seeking out a winger – Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest

The extent to which Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka’s combination play leads the way is quite staggering. Odegaard has played the ball into the box for Saka 37 times and the reverse has happened 19 times. These are the top two combinations in the whole Premier League.

It’s the Odegaard to Saka ball, though, that dominates. This is unsurprising given their respective skill sets — Odegaard is brilliant at playing cute balls in behind the opposition defence and his left-footedness works well for curling the ball nicely for Saka’s run inside from the flank.

Equally, Saka is probably the best player in the Premier League at receiving on the half-turn and letting the ball come across his body. That skill is precisely why these numbers are so high. In situations where other players would control the ball, Saka doesn’t actually touch it until several yards into his run, meaning the pass is recorded as ending inside the box. Take, for example, Odegaard’s ball to Saka for his second goal in a 6-0 win at West Ham.

Manchester United’s approach play is similar, albeit Bruno Fernandes starts from a more central position and Alejandro Garnacho usually receives it wider.

Garnacho’s potential is partly the reason Manchester United allowed Anthony Elanga to move to Nottingham Forest and he features in a similar combination, with Morgan Gibbs-White effectively playing the Fernandes role. It’s also interesting, meanwhile, that Elanga has assisted five goals for Chris Wood this season, the joint-most in the Premier League. These two statistics demonstrate Forest’s favoured play in the final third.

Chelsea are also in this category, with Cole Palmer’s balls into Raheem Sterling. The pattern here is mixed — Palmer has played from the right but also as a No 10 and Sterling pops up on both flanks.

A playmaker playing it into a centre-forward – Tottenham, West Ham, Brighton, Luton

Here’s an idea — a team’s most creative player should get the ball into the team’s most dangerous forward as often as possible. Sounds simple, eh?

So that’s the case at Brighton (Pascal Gross to Joao Pedro), Tottenham (James Maddison to Son Heung-min), West Ham (Lucas Paqueta to Jarrod Bowen) and Luton (Ross Barkley to Elijah Adebayo). Maddison tends to find Son in the pockets, while Barkley’s passes to Adebayo are few and far between but relatively varied. Gross and Paqueta’s passes are similar, although Gross’ tend to be from closer to the box and over a shorter distance, while Paqueta’s are flighty balls played from deeper and often ending up close to goal — like his lovely assist for Bowen’s headed opener from inside the six-yard box at Luton.

A winger crossing for a centre-forward – Liverpool, Bournemouth

At the start of last season, Jurgen Klopp was criticised for changing his tactics and getting Mohamed Salah to provide the supply line to Darwin Nunez rather than finishing off moves himself. That was a bit of an exaggeration — Salah wasn’t purely asked to be a provider.

But the Salah-to-Nunez route is the most common way Liverpool enter the box. Interestingly, very few of those deliveries are traditional crosses — they’re balls into feet or in behind. The best example came for Nunez’s winner at Newcastle, finishing with one touch from Salah’s through-ball.

Bournemouth’s route into the box is similar. Marcus Tavernier finds Dominic Solanke in a variety of positions in the box but always from wide-ish zones.

A front two combining – Aston Villa

Villa’s way into the box is unique. Moussa Diaby has played off Ollie Watkins for much of the season — sometimes in a support striker role, sometimes as a No 10, sometimes from more of a right-sided position, where he crossed for Watkins’ late headed equaliser at Bournemouth, below. But in general, the passes are usually much shorter and neater.

Not enough data to really judge – Burnley

Sorry! Burnley’s numbers are so low that it’s just not worthy of discussion. Vitinho has played the ball from outside the box into Jacob Bruun Larsen inside the box a total of four times all season, with no obvious pattern to the passes.

Set pieces – Everton

My word. We’ve actually had to expand the half-pitch graphic to a full-pitch version to accommodate Dycheball.

GO DEEPER

Introducing the Dyche Zone: Why the Everton manager is right to favour deep free kicks

There are some mitigating circumstances here — Dominic Calvert-Lewin has spent long periods out injured and he would usually represent Everton’s primary route into the area. But Everton’s most common method of getting into the box is simple. When they win a free kick close to the halfway line, Jordan Pickford hammers the ball downfield and centre-back James Tarkowski, familiar with Sean Dyche’s methods from their time together at Burnley, tries to win the first ball.

It sometimes causes opponents problems, usually with the second ball, but it’s absurdly basic for a Premier League club’s main route into the box in 2024.

And, really, that’s the beauty of all this. It’s often suggested that Premier League football has become increasingly samey, with teams trying to play identically. These combinations, though, demonstrate the huge variety across the division.

(Top photos: Getty Images)

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So, it’s over to you, Aston Villa. The future of England’s European football is in your hands.

Well, yours and Real Madrid’s. And Paris Saint-Germain’s. Oh, and Roma’s actually.

It turns out England’s hopes of an extra place in European competition next season rests in quite a few hands.

After a chastening week for English clubs in two of the three UEFA club tournaments, none of them can afford a fumble if the nation is to land an additional spot.

Before the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League, Opta gave England a 70.6 per cent chance of winning a two-horse race with Germany and landing a fifth Champions League place, which in turn would have almost certainly pushed qualification for the other European competitions as far down as eighth place in the Premier League.

After the quarter-finals, that probability has plummeted to 1.1 per cent.

This might be the appropriate time for a Jim Carrey meme. “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

Well, yes, there is still a chance. But having previously looked almost certain, England now need to thread the eye of a mathematical needle to claim it.

Why are there extra Champions League places on offer?

The Champions League will expand from 32 to 36 teams from the start of the 2024-25 season.

Of those four extra group-stage slots, one will be given to the league that finishes this season fifth in UEFA’s country ranking, which combines coefficient points accrued over the past five seasons.

One will be earned by a domestic title winner from one of the continent’s less prominent top flights via the ‘champions path’ qualifiers. The remaining two will go to the leagues whose clubs perform best across this season’s European competitions.

These latter two are being called the ‘European Performance Spots’ by UEFA and could see the fifth-placed Premier League team progress directly into next season’s new-look group stage.

(Graphic: Sam Richardson)Which nations are leading the race for an extra Champions League place?

Heading into this week’s second legs of the quarter-finals, Italy were almost guaranteed an extra Champions League spot next season with Germany and England neck and neck (on 16.785 and 16.750 points).

Atalanta and Fiorentina reaching the semi-finals of the Europa League and Europa Conference League has resulted in Opta giving the country a 100 per cent chance of finishing in the top two places in the coefficient chart.

So one of the places is sewn up, leaving Germany and England to contest the second.

Atalanta knocked Liverpool out of the Europa League (Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)Why were the Champions League quarter-finals so important?

The draw for the last eight handed England a clear path to claim the extra place.

If Arsenal had seen off Bayern Munich and Manchester City had beaten Real Madrid, they would have faced each other in the semi-finals, guaranteeing an English club would make the final.

That should have sealed a fifth Champions League spot for England, particularly if Atletico Madrid had knocked out Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.

However, Arsenal and City both exited, while Dortmund overcame a first-leg deficit to progress to the semi-finals with a 5-4 aggregate victory over Atletico.

England will also not have representation in the Europa League semi-finals. Liverpool were beaten 3-1 over two legs to Atalanta, while West Ham United failed to beat Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen, a team who are yet to lose a game in any competition this season.

So Villa are the only remaining English club in any of the three competitions and England’s minuscule hopes of the extra place largely lie with them.

Dortmund are in the Champions League semi-finals after beating Atletico (Leon Kuegeler/Getty Images)Is there still a route for England to gain the extra place?

There is, as 1.1 per cent is not quite zero, but that is where the simple maths ends.

There are two ways Villa can help England pull off the almost impossible but both seem, well, almost impossible.

First, we need to explain how the coefficient table is worked out.

The places are awarded on a points average rather than a total, so countries with more teams in European competition are not given an advantage over countries with fewer.

Before the semi-finals, England’s average is 17.375 compared to Germany’s 17.928, so Villa need to make up a gap of 0.553 points in the average — which, because the Premier League had eight teams in European competitions this season, means Unai Emery’s side must accrue at least 4.424 points.

Points are awarded for each leg of two-legged knockout ties with two points for a win and one for a draw. Villa would also earn an extra point for qualifying for the Conference League final.

Can Villa be England’s saviours? Well, it’s possible (Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The coefficient points for second legs are based on the result after 120 minutes (ie, including extra time but excluding penalties).

So in the unlikely event of the three remaining German teams (Bayern, who face Real Madrid, Dortmund, who play PSG, and Leverkusen, who are drawn with Roma) losing all six games — both legs of their respective ties — Villa winning both legs would be enough to clinch the extra spot for England as they would claim five points to Germany’s zero.

If Villa won the final they would gain an extra two points, giving England an extra seven overall.

In that scenario, Germany would need to add 0.322 points to their coefficient average, which, taking into account they had seven teams in Europe this season, means their remaining sides would need 2.254 points — three points in reality.

So even if Villa win both legs of their Conference League semi-final and then the final, German teams getting three draws from their six semi-final games would be enough, even if they were all knocked out over the two legs.

Follow the Champions League on The Athletic…

(Top photo: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

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