Who really dominates the ball in the Barclays Women’s Super League? The Halfway Line breaks down this season’s 12 WSL sides by possession quality, not just quantity. 

Instead of basic possession percentage, this article will look at the possession value metrics of progressive passes, field tilt, and carries into final third to highlight who controls games effectively, and who doesn’t. Using these metrics provides a multidimensional view of how and where each club builds and progresses their attacks, allowing us to analyse performance and understand stylistic differences across the league.

Crucially, here’s how the WSL table looked upon the conclusion of the season.

Possession Percentage

First, the boring bit. Calculated as the percentage of passes attempted, here are the possession standings of the 2024/25 season. As you can see, there’s a fair bit of reshuffling from the points table.

But does this say anything about the value of the possession had? Let’s find out.

First, what kind of football have these teams been playing? Here are their passes per sequence vs direct speed upfield. This is the data during round 20 and as collected on April 28 by Marc Lamberts.

Field Tilt

A field tilt is the percentage of  ‘usage’ of the final third (touches or passes). It is essentially a more meaningful way of looking at what any given team does with the ball.

After 18 matches played, here was Marc Lamberts’ WSL average field tilt. Notice how in descending order, it only slightly differs from each team’s overall possession percentage from the campaign as a whole.

Looking at how much time each team spends with the ball in the attacking third often says more about intent and control than overall possession.

For example, Manchester United and Aston Villa have lower overall possession compared to Chelsea, but when they do have the ball, they’re efficient in pushing forward. Arsenal, meanwhile, are not just dominant in possession, but consistently pushing play into the final third. Arsenal,  Manchester City, and Chelsea, are the teams with the best indication of control and sustained pressure.

Teams with a lower field tilt but a fair amount of possession often keep the ball in deeper areas. This can be intentional, or it can be due to opposition pressure. Liverpool and Tottenham, both disappointed in their overall campaigns compared with the previous season, may have decent ball retention but are clearly far less successful at getting it into dangerous areas consistently. Likewise, Everton and Leicester’s data suggests a struggle to move the ball forward effectively, and/or potentially a more defensive, cautious setup.

West Ham’s finish to the season was strong, but it’s fair to say across the season as a whole they did not see as much of the attacking third as they would have hoped. We often saw now-relegated Crystal Palace being pinned back in games, forced to spend more time defending or playing in their own half.

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Progressive Passes Received

The number of progressive passes received per club is the number of times a player successfully receives a pass that moves the ball significantly forward (usually more than 10 yards closer to goal or into the final third). It tells us a lot about how they operate on the attack.

Arsenal, Manchester City, and Chelsea lead again, echoing what we saw in the field tilt. These teams are not just dominating possession and territory, but also successfully playing through opposition lines. They move the ball up the pitch with intent and precision.

To successfully progress play like this, these teams are probably not only playing under competent tacticians, but also using better positioning and movement off the ball, as well as playing with midfielders and full-backs capable of playing line-breaking passes.

Manchester United’s drop off here to me suggests a slower build-up. Aston Villa, on the other hand, do not dominate territory, but when they do attack, they evidently do so with purpose.

Whilst Brighton and Liverpool don’t necessarily tend to dominate fixtures, something is helping them to be productive. Whether this is individual talent, coaching style, or capitalising in transition, is up for debate. Tottenham find themselves in a similar situation before we see a more dramatic decrease.

Unsurprisingly, Everton, Crystal Palace, West Ham, and Leicester all completed less than 600 progressive passes. We know they all struggled to catalyse meaningful attacks, and this is again reflected in the available statistics.

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Carries Into the Final Third

Carries into the final third simply means the number of carries that enter the third of the pitch closest to the goal.

Arsenal and Manchester City top the charts once again, showing that their attackers and midfielders aren’t just finding pockets of space, they’re also actively dribbling through defenders.

Champions Chelsea sit in third, underscoring that alongside their incisive passing, their game thrives on players capable of taking on opponents one‑on‑one. Think Erin Cuthbert, for example.

Contrastingly, Marc Skinner’s Manchester United outperformed their progressive passes received statistic. This indicates a greater emphasis on individual drives, rather than relying on line‑breaking passes.

Despite their strong progressive‑pass numbers, Aston Villa’s data sees them rank lower here. This implies that their vertical threat (ability to exploit space directly down the field in order to create scoring opportunities) comes more from feeding forward balls than from players carrying it themselves.

As for Brighton, Liverpool, and Spurs, they all seem to execute a reasonable number of carries, but perhaps to a lesser impact.

Crystal Palace, West Ham, and Leicester occupy the bottom spots of the table once more.  The lack of ‘carry counts’ reinforces the idea that the attacking motions of these sides are either less dynamic on the dribble, or that they struggle to even push players into positions where carrying is viable in the first place.

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Does it really matter?

Casting our minds back once more to round 20, thanks once again to Marc Lamberts, here’s a look at the percentile ranks of the top four at that late point in the season. These are a way to compare a team’s performance in specific areas against their fellow WSL sides.

From all of this, it is safe to say that the best sides in the WSL combine high‑quality passing with the confidence to carry the ball into dangerous areas.

So, how do the clubs’ final positions correlate with the quality of their time on the ball?

What we can see is that the team with the highest average possession statistic (Manchester City) does not have the highest quality on the ball (Arsenal does, overall). Of course, keeping hold of possession is imperative, but even more so is what comes as a result of that. Notably, domestic treble winners Chelsea were arguably the most consistent, ranking third in each of the metrics we’ve looked at here.

The bottom line is, the better a WSL side is at maintaining possession in dangerous areas, breaking lines with passes, and dribbling forward, the more likely they are to claim a top‑league position. This might sound obvious, but at the end of the day, this reminds us of the importance of high‑quality possession when it comes to challenging for a place at the top of the table.

Data supplied by FBref.