Is What Constitutes the Prototypical Forward Changing in the Premier League?

It had nothing to do with the Premier League at the time, but looking back, it could have applied if it had have been. 

"This is a copycat league," Randy Wittman said last year, per ESPN, then head coach of the NBA's Washington Wizards. "The success of Golden State has propelled coaches to play more small ball than maybe they even wanted to. More teams will push the envelope."

The small-ball revolution Wittman was referring to hadn't been started by Golden State, but they'd taken the concept the furthest. Replacing traditional big men with smaller, more explosive players across the floor, the Warriors had ridden a wave of buzzing energy, versatility and firepower to a landmark NBA championship. Glancing around back on this side of the Atlantic, it's as though it's caught on.  

Look around the Premier League right now, and other than a raft of peripheral, insular minds shouting I've-never-watched-football-outside-of-Britain cliches about unrivalled "intensity" and "passion," what sticks out most is the array of diminutive, adaptable forwards commanding attention and driving their teams. 

Liverpool are the most striking example. Rather than using Daniel Sturridge or a traditional centre-forward, Jurgen Klopp is deploying Roberto Firmino in the central attacking role, flanked by Sadio Mane and Philippe Coutinho in an ever-interchanging front three. It's a bit like unleashing three promiscuous Jack Russells at dog training in the park, but the Reds aren't the only team whose men up top are the fleet, yappy variety. 

At Arsenal, Arsene Wenger has turned to Alexis Sanchez for the central role; at Tottenham Hotspur, Mauricio Pochettino is going with Son Heung-min; at Chelsea, Antonio Conte's 3-4-3 is allowing Eden Hazard to drift into similar areas; at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola made a statement by going for Kevin De Bruyne in such a role against Barcelona. 

Is what constitutes the prototypical forward changing in the Premier League, then?

It's still early, but the evidence is intriguing. Faster, smaller forwards aren't anything new, but the extent of their deployment in this league might be. You only have to go back as little as four years ago to find a time when the forward setups of the English top flight didn't look anything like the way they do right now. 

In January 2012, the new year round saw City tackle Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium with Edin Dzeko and Andy Carroll leading the lines. In the couple of days before and after, Fernando Torres held the position for Chelsea against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov formed Manchester United's forward pair against Newcastle United. Robin van Persie spearheaded Arsenal's attack against Fulham. Emmanuel Adebayor did so for Tottenham Hotspur against West Bromwich Albion. 

If you stood those men alongside many of the forwards now occupying their old positions, it would border on looking like that photo doing the rounds of Yao Ming on the golf course with Gary Player.

That's not to say the big guys don't exist, though. Diego Costa leads the Premier League scoring charts, and Romelu Lukaku is just behind him. There's also Zlatan Ibrahimovic at United, Christian Benteke at Crystal Palace, Wilfried Bony at Stoke City, Salomon Rondon at West Brom, Fernando Llorente at Swansea City, Alvaro Negredo at Middlesbrough, and Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo at Watford, just to name some. 

But that list in itself says something. The vast majority of those forwards don't play with elite teams and instead populate what you might call the league's middle and lower classes. And though Costa heads up Chelsea's attack, the Brazilian-born Spaniard in several ways plays more like a powerful little guy in a big frame: He excels when dribbling and running at defenders rather than as a target man, rarely uses his head and presses the life out of the opposition. 

It's perhaps that last quality that's most relevant here. Pressing has become the most-discussed and also the most-effective tool in the Premier League going by the league table. Again, though, pressing isn't new. 

Among those credited with developing the method are Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kiev in the 1960s, Ernst Happel's Feyenoord and Rinus Michels' famous Ajax and Dutch teams of the 1970s. Michels' method then found its way to Barcelona, while elsewhere, Arrigo Sacchi was a notable and successful advocate of pressing at AC Milan a decade or so later. 

"Pressing is not about running and it's not about working hard. It's about controlling space," Sacchi once said, per Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid.

He continued:  

"

I wanted my players to feel strong and the opponents to feel weak. If we let our opponents play in a way they were accustomed to, they would grow in confidence. But if we stopped them, it would hurt their confidence. That was the key: our pressing was psychological as much as physical. Our pressing was always collective. I wanted all 11 players to be in an "active" position, effecting and influencing the opposition when we did not have the ball. Every movement had to be synergistic and had to fit into the collective goal. 

"

As you read those words, it's easy to picture Klopp's Liverpool in your head. Or Guardiola's Manchester City. Or Pochettino's Tottenham. Or even Wenger's Arsenal—this season's incarnation, not those that have come before it. 

Pressing might not be new, but its use appears both more widespread and more well-drilled in the Premier League than ever before. And it's this that looks to be creating a shift in what constitutes the ideal forward.  

Led by Firmino, Liverpool are the most tenacious pressing side in the league. According to Opta data presented by the Daily Mail, Klopp's men rank first in the Premier League for distance covered, which won't surprise many. Second are Manchester City, and third are Tottenham. Arsenal, having been average at best off the ball for a number of seasons, have notably improved in that regard and sit seventh in the distance-covered table. 

But the standout figure relates to Manchester United. Jose Mourinho's team have covered the least ground of any side in the league and concurrently stand as the least impressive among the division's heavyweights. There are systematic issues at Old Trafford, and there's a staleness in attack.

Set against that, the presence of Ibrahimovic as the team's focal point seems to say a lot about the way United feel behind the trend. 

That trend is about going small, or at least going dynamic. It's interesting to look at the Premier League's statistical player rankings compiled by WhoScored.com. Among the top eight spots, seven are taken by Son, Coutinho, Mane, Hazard, Firmino, Alexis and De Bruyne. 

Admittedly, two things should be taken into consideration here: First, statistical rankings should never be considered definitive; and second, such rankings are based on a rating system that puts together a player's contribution in every statistical category.

Thus, if you're a smaller, mobile forward popping up all over the pitch, you're naturally going to accumulate statistics in a wider range of categories than a stay-at-home centre-forward. 

Even so, the table reinforces the message in the data. The league's top-five positions are all occupied by clubs operating with swarming, versatile forwards carrying out pressing almost religiously.

Winning the ball high up and with defences scattered is trumping any other notion of forward play. The prototype, if you like, looks to be shifting away from Didier Drogba and more towards a striker who would come up to the Ivorian's armpit. 

Wittman wasn't talking about the Premier League, but he might as well have been.

Follow @TimDCollins