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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.

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.

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.

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.
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