New report highlights how Eddie Howe has made this work – High intensity vertical attacking style

Eddie Howe has done a brilliant job at Newcastle United.

Even his / our harshest critics have been forced to accept that.

Third best form in the Premier League across the entire second half of the 2021/22 season.

Followed up by Premier League top four form across this entire 2022/23 season, leading to Champions League qualification.

So just how has Eddie Howe achieved this at Newcastle United?

Well, a new report has given great insight.

The CIES Football Observatory report ‘defines the attacking styles of teams from 23 leagues worldwide on the basis of the data on players’ high intensity runs exclusively produced by SkillCorner (>20km/h for at least 0.7 seconds). For each league, clubs are ranked from those whose players perform more in-possession high intensity runs than expected with respect to the minutes of possession to those who perform less.

A positive gap is characteristic of teams tending to go rapidly forward [in a more vertical way], while a negative gap is typical of teams building-up in a more horizontal way.

The data includes a large set of metrics, including the “Count of High Intensity runs” used here.’

What we are talking about here, in normal language, are teams that play in a generally more ‘horizontal’ way equalling sides that play a more patient / slower style including a lot of passes across the pitch and indeed backwards. As compared to those playing a more ‘vertical way’ and more frequently run with the ball at pace up the pitch for more rapid attacks.

The CIES Football Observatory report adds the following:

‘Most of the dominant teams are in the second category, notably Shakhtar Donetsk (-12.1%), Paris St-Germain (-10.9%) and Manchester City (-8.2%), but RC Lens (+10.1%), Newcastle United (+8.5%) and Borussia Dortmund (+6.0%) show that it is possible to obtain top level results with a more vertical attacking style.’

So these are the stats for the Premier League clubs ‘as per gap between number of in-possession high intensity runs (>20km/h for at least 0.7 seconds) observed and expected according to minutes of possession. Domestic league matches, season 2022/23. Data: SkillCorner.’

As you can see, making this vertical attacking style work, isn’t necessarily easy. Leeds top this table of stats but got relegated. However, when you look at the final Premier League table, they were actually pretty successful in an attacking sense, only one club in the bottom half scored more than the 48 goals Leeds managed. Their problems were massively at the other end, conceding 78 goals, the highest of all 20 PL clubs.

As this report highlights, both Lens and Dortmund used this vertical attacking style to great effect, the two clubs just missing out on the title in the French and German leagues respectively, finishing as runners-up.

Newcastle United a big success story in the Premier League with this approach, Eddie Howe having brought in new signings who fitted in with this style AND arguably more importantly, got so many inherited players fully integrated into what he expected of them.