Man City’s 'Wordle pitch map' shows why fans love Pep Guardiola and jealous rivals are bored

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months, it has become pretty obvious that the current Manchester City side are one of the most dominant teams in the history of football.

Not just dominant in terms of silverware - they are on track to win a fourth Premier League trophy in five seasons - but in how they play the game.

Thanks in part to the lack of an elite striker in Pep Guardiola's squad, the Catalan coach has been able to create the most 'Pep' side ever seen.

Without an orthodox front man to accommodate he has filled his line-up with technical ball-players, fully capable of executing his positional play approach of seamlessly swapping positions mid-game. Because of this, City have the most well-drilled and ball-hungry attack in the league.

This week The Athletic published a couple of interesting graphs - that bare an uncanny resemblance to Wordle puzzles - that highlighted City's unique playing style; it's fair to say that they divided opinion.

The first showed in which areas of the pitch each Premier League team tends to have more touches of the ball than their opponent, thus controlling territory. City average more touches than their opponents in every area of the pitch bar the opposition's penalty area and their own corner flags. No other team is close to this level of dominance.

Another graph showed the areas of the pitch where teams tend to control possession. This season, Guardiola's side have averaged 67.6% possession, the most in the division. On average City have more than 55% possession in most zones, again except in the opponents' penalty area.

In contrast, the only area of the pitch in which Burnley have more than 55% possession is their own goal mouth.

Another piece of fascinating