They're really good with their Xg low block through the thirds double pivot y axis transitions. Simple as.
You said nobody understands the graph. What you actually meant is you don't. 'Direct speed (m/s)' is fairly simple. It's the average speed the ball moved by a particular team. Teams that move the ball quicker are higher and teams that move the ball around slower are lower on the Y axis.
So it's the speed of individual passes on average? How hard each player passes the ball to a teammate? Nothing to do with how long they take to make that pass or the direction of it? Is that a valuable metric if so?
It obviously isn't a baseless metric because the graph does accurately reflect the playing styles of the clubs in the division. Us, Leicester, Southampton, Watford, Swansea are all possession teams that make a lot of short passes and build up slowly from the back. Other teams like Stoke, Millwall, Preston etc. are more direct, make fewer passes when moving the ball forward and are generally quicker to build up into the opponent's third.
Look at the graph. The Y axis is the speed of the passes and the X axis is the number of passes per sequence.
Passages of play by one team in possession until the other team regains possession, the ball goes out of play or an attempt at goal is made.
So that sequence could all be in the defensive half, it doesn't actually give any indication of moving the ball up the field quickly. We could pass the ball around rapidly in defence and turn it over and it would reflect on that graph as a 'high tempo passing' team.
If a team fired lots of quick passes to teammates in their own third in a sequence then yes, they would have lots of passes per sequence and a higher pass speed (m/s), putting them in the top right quadrant. No teams in the Championship do that though, as seen by the graph. The graph is quite good because it shows a correlation between fewer passes more often than not = higher pass speed. Take Rotherham for example. They play a low-block, don't have much possession in most games and don't make that many passes per sequence. Because of this, they prefer to soak up pressure then try to hit teams by counter-attacking which means moving the ball quickly in as few passes as possible to prevent the other team from getting set in their defensive shape.
Just odd asking me anything like that I’ve never said I expected top 6 I don’t even want to go up, so I’m the wrong person to direct anything like that to (and it made no sense in terms of my post you replied to either)
Anyway ..... to no doubt stoke the fire again ...... interesting discussion, or to be more accurate, me listening to the take of a long standing City fan, an all round sportsman at a good level, with UEFA badge. Before I mentioned anything about my view, the 'conversation' started with praise for what Acun is trying to do but then explanation of being unconvinced about Rosenior. Sees him as very naive (yep, the actual word used right at the start, before I'd said anything! ). Says we are boring to watch, we are trying to instill a way of playing that doesn't suit the ability and (non-)physicality of the players we have, we are so predictable, too easy for opposing coaches to know how we are going to play and what we are going to do, that going forward we are poor with no sign of what our attacking plays actually are other than reliance on someone like Philogene to produce some magic, that Delap is quality but we're wasting him with the way we're playing him. Like all of us, desperately wants City to do well, but is unconvinced by Rosenior. Reassuring to hear virtually the same view I & some others on here hold coming from someone who isn't just your average fan in need of 'education'. Let's hope the learning 'process' accelerates and Acun's faith is repaid. Of course, we'll now hopefully batter Huddersfield and all this will be thrown back in my face.
Not that am dismissing the views you are expressing, but there are plenty of pundits on MOTD who have UEFA badges that talk utter hindsight laden drivel about football, so I would not put much weight on that.