Pass Map Analysis: Swansea City’s passing activity vs Stoke

Swansea City produced their best 45 minutes of football in the first half of Tuesday’s 3-1 home win against Stoke City, according to manager Graham Potter, and it’s hard to argue after a superb performance that saw an attacking quartet cause all sorts of problems for a Stoke City side who had kept 6 consecutive clean sheets.

That first half saw us dominate with 71% possession, 16 shots, 5 on target, 2 goals and 90% passing accuracy with 330 of 365 passes successful.

The pass maps we feature in this article aim to show the average passing positions of the starting eleven up until the first substitute (68 minutes). They also provide the team shape in terms of passing, where passes were played, the number of passes attempted and the pass accuracy per player.

Not only that but they are also split between the overall average, the low or defensive phase and the attacking phase. This can demonstrate how each players’ passing activity changed in a deep, defensive position compared to their more advanced, attacking position.

So for example, did our full backs push forward? Where did Wayne Routledge make most of his passes as a false nine and where did Oli McBurnie play?

Average Pass Map

The average pass map is shown below. The dot size represents attempted passes, the position is their average position from where they played a pass from (calculated via k-means clustering) and the three arrows from each player shows their most common area of pass.

Firstly, goalkeeper Kristoffer Nordfeldt had 100% pass accuracy and every pass he made was within his own half, the majority of which played short and barely moving outside of his penalty area.

Oli McBurnie came in to replace the injured Bersant Celina and rather than taking a place up front as you might have expected, he simply played in Celina’s left sided role, looking to play passes for Dan James to chase down the left flank.

The width of the passes for each player also shows the total number of passes for each direction so for example, Grimes and Naughton made a high number of forward passes.

Click the next button below to view the low / defensive pass map.

Low / Defensive Pass Map

Using a k-means clustering technique to group passes, we can also look at the defensive pass map and look at passes made in each players’ deep position.

The first thing to notice in the low / defensive pass map below is the passing focus on our left side and it’s hardly a surprise given Dan James’ form. It also shows how Matt Grimes, in particular, made some switch passes over to the opposite flank.

Click the next button below to view the high / attacking pass map.

High / Attacking Pass Map

In the majority of attacking pass maps this season we’ve seen players split across both flanks with little activity through the middle but more recently we’re seeing a player or two average an attacking central position. In this game against Stoke City, it was George Byers.

The former under-23s attacking midfielder produced arguably his best performance of the season and that was mainly due to him playing in a more preferred attacking role, pushing further forward, linking the play in the final third and constantly looking to thread passes through and in behind the opposition’s defence.

What we can also see is how Wayne Routledge moved across to the right to help support Connor Roberts on that side while McBurnie, Naughton and Grimes combined to get Dan James on the ball as often as possible.

With Mike van der Hoorn pushing forward and into Stoke’s half, Cameron Carter-Vickers acted as defensive cover.