Premier League teams really need to run more to win matches?

Pundits often argue that Premier League teams must run more to win, pointing to distance and sprint stats after dropped points. The article questions whether those physical metrics truly correlate with results. Using last season’s Premier League table versus rankings for overall distance and high-intensity running, it finds the top-10 and bottom-10 teams were close: 4,363 km versus 4,332 km across the season, with only a small gap in high-intensity distance as well. A look at this season similarly shows no clear linkage. The piece adds that success is relative, and suggests using Opta’s pre-season predictions to test whether teams overachieving in the league also tended to cover more ground.