BALL IN PLAY: ARE WE SEEING LESS FOOTBALL IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE THIS SEASON?

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Set-Pieces and Delays Eating Into Actual Playing Time

With set-pieces and throw-ins increasing this season, are we seeing less of the ball in play in the Premier League? We dig into the data to find out.

The start of every football match brings anticipation – wondering what could occur over the next 90+ minutes. Will the star players perform well? Will the referee have a good game? And will the football gods shine down just the right amount of fortune?

A slightly more pertinent question to ask this season, though, is how much football will we actually see?

THE DECLINING TREND

A couple of seasons ago, analysis revealed that Premier League fans weren't seeing quite as much open-play football in games as previous years. This prompted key changes such as more stoppage time being added. The result? Average ball-in-play time per game rose from 54 minutes and 49 seconds in 2022-23 to 58 minutes and 11 seconds in 2023-24.

It's still early in the 2025-26 season, but the pendulum may be swinging back. Recent weeks have seen a greater focus on set-pieces, especially long throws, impacting ball-in-play time significantly.

HOW MUCH IS THE BALL IN PLAY IN 2025-26?

After 70 matches, we've seen an average ball-in-play time of 55 minutes exactly per game this season – almost two full minutes fewer than last season (56 mins, 59 secs) and over three minutes fewer than 2023-24 (58 mins, 11 secs).

Surprisingly, it's not about shorter added time. The overall length of games including stoppage time (100 mins, 35 secs) is second only to the 2023-24 campaign (101 mins, 36 secs) in Premier League history on record. Games are lasting on average 51 seconds longer than last season, even though the ball is in play for almost two minutes fewer.

That means each game this season has no ball in play for a total of two minutes and 50 seconds longer than last season – roughly the time it would take to listen to "You're the One That I Want" by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

Games are averaging 45 minutes and 35 seconds of delays/pauses during play this season (up from 42 minutes and 45 seconds last season) – roughly one episode of Countdown. A 'delay' is defined as the time between the ball going out of play and play resuming across corners, free kicks, throw-ins, goal kicks, kick-offs, penalties and drop balls.

In terms of percentage, the ball has been in play for just 54.7% of games on average in the Premier League this season – the lowest it's been over the past 10 full seasons is 55.7% (2022-23).

TEAM-BY-TEAM BREAKDOWN

Leeds United are averaging the longest ball-in-play time at 56 minutes and 48 seconds (57.5% of total match minutes), while Newcastle United have seen the ball in play for the lowest proportion at 52.3% (53 mins, 9 secs on average), closely followed by Chelsea (52.6%) and Manchester United (52.7%).

Everton have had the shortest overall total time on the pitch this season (690 mins, 6 secs), yet their ball-in-play time is over 19 minutes longer than Newcastle, despite the Magpies' total time being over 21 minutes longer.

THE LONGEST SHORTEST GAME

Newcastle's five-goal thriller against Liverpool on Matchday 2 is the game with the lowest ball-in-play time this season – quite something considering it lasted 109 minutes and 24 seconds in total, the third longest of any Premier League match in 2025-26.

The game featured 31 fouls, with the total delay for taking free-kicks reaching an astonishing 27 minutes and seven seconds – around seven and a half minutes longer than any other Premier League game this season. Newcastle averaged 67 seconds per free-kick, at least 10 seconds longer than any other team.

The ball was in play for just 45 minutes and 55 seconds (42%) at St. James' Park. That means for 63 minutes and 29 seconds, nothing was happening. In hindsight, it's astonishing that there were five goals, including Rio Ngumoha's dramatic late winner for Liverpool.

At the other end of the scale, Wolves vs Leeds on MD5 had the best value, with the ball in play for 62 minutes and 13 seconds out of 98 minutes and six seconds (63.4%).

WHO ARE THE SLOWEST AT SET-PIECES?

Sunderland are spending the most time taking corners on average, with almost 50 seconds per corner. Arsenal are second at 45 seconds, but have won more corners than any other team (53), leading to a total of 40 minutes and six seconds taking corners in just seven games – at least 11 minutes and 12 seconds more than any other team.

The quickest on average are Wolves and Manchester City, both averaging less than 30 seconds per corner.

Compared to last season, teams are spending more time in taking corners, goal-kicks and throw-ins:

• Corners: Up to 36.9 seconds from 33.6 seconds (3.3 seconds longer)
• Goal-kicks: Up to 30.3 seconds from 28.3 seconds (2 seconds longer)
• Throw-ins: Up to 17.7 seconds from 15.6 seconds (2 seconds longer)

With corners taking 3.3 seconds longer on average, if we see the same number as last season (3,890), we will have spent more than three and a half hours extra waiting for them in total across the campaign.

LONG THROWS AND DELAYS

We're seeing significantly more long throws sent into the opposition's box this season (3.7 per game, up from 1.5 last season). Brentford have taken 34 long throws into the opposition's box – more than any other team – and are taking almost four seconds longer than any other team on average to take a throw-in. Wolves are quickest at just 12.7 seconds per throw-in.

NOT SO BUSY BEES

Taking all delays into account, Brentford are spending the most time getting the ball back into play, taking 33.5 seconds on average. They're followed by Burnley (32.7 secs), Sunderland (32.3 secs), Arsenal and Man Utd (both 31 secs).

Wolves are the fastest at getting the game going again (24.1 secs), and given they're bottom with just two points after seven games, perhaps they should consider slowing down a bit.

Man City (25.6 secs), Nottingham Forest (26.4 secs) and Liverpool (26.8 secs) are also eager to get the ball back into play. That's a big change from Forest, who were the slowest in the league last season (32.2 secs).

LOOKING FORWARD

The average for ball-in-play time has been rising in recent weeks. After the first four matchdays, it was just 54 minutes and 21 seconds, but has increased by almost 40 seconds in the last three matchdays. The 10 games on MD7 averaged over 57 minutes (57:05).

As things stand, we're getting some of the longest football matches we've ever seen in the Premier League this season, but we're not necessarily seeing more football – unless you enjoy the sight of a player with the ball under their arm waiting for teammates to flood the box.

Thanks to Stats Perform for the data

Photo: theguardian.com

More information:24live.com