There’s a mighty interesting piece in the Athletic today that outlines how often every Premier League club has utilised a tactical foul – when the opposition has won the ball back.
Liverpool do so just 4% of the time, the least in the top flight – while Arsenal are just ahead of Manchester City at the top of the table.
Arsenal are managed by Mikel Arteta, who mastered the art while under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, of course.
Check out the table in the tweet below:
Which Premier League teams employ tactical fouls most often?
➡️ https://t.co/7WWLulO3l7 pic.twitter.com/v3I3zeqWzL
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) June 2, 2020
Guardiola and Arteta were famously caught encouraging City to make fouls when other teams were counter-attacking on their Amazon Prime documentary – while summer signing Rodri accidentally claimed in an ESPN interview that he was being explicitly taught to do it by his new manager not long into this season.
Jurgen Klopp’s team hardly ever put in dirty or rash challenges, and prefer to actually stand off attackers and force them into shots from uncomfortable positions instead.