Only five Premier League clubs have refused to litter the opposition box with a single long throw-in this season. The kicker? Rory Delap’s son, Liam, plays for one of them.
That is Chelsea, joined by Fulham, Manchester City, Sunderland and West Ham United as the quintet of clubs who must have missed the memo circulated before this campaign.
The long throw is in vogue again. More than a desperate Hail Mary when trailing in stoppage time, it is a mid-match tactic, a set-piece with a purpose, practised on the training pitch even by last season’s champions Liverpool who have also had Milos Kerkez and Co chucking medicine balls in the gym at their AXA training centre.
NASA’s scientists have been salivating over a new comet called 3I/Atlas but if it was flying objects they craved, they need only have watched Liverpool’s 3-2 win over Newcastle United on Monday.
The ball wore wings at St James’ Park, Arne Slot even admitting it turned into a spectacle of long throws afterwards. In 2025-26, there have been average of 3.4 per game hurled into the opposition box in the Premier League. In 2024-25, it was 1.7. In 2023-24, less. In 2022-23, even less.
Why? Thomas Gronnemark suspects this spike is no accident, even if we will need to wait to see if this trend continues once we have a greater pool of games from which to analyse.
Rory Delap’s long throw-ins terrorised the league when Stoke City were in their pomp in the late 2000s
And the long throw is back in vogue, as demonstrated by Burnley’s Kyle Walker at Tottenham on the opening weekend
Liverpool are employing medicine balls in training (Milos Kerkez and Florian Wirtz pictured) and it is having a significant effect on their throwing range
First, it is worth introducing Gronnemark. He was representing Denmark’s national bobsleigh team in 2004 when he decided to become football’s first throw-in specialist after noticing this area had been neglected.
In 2010, he set the Guinness World Record for the longest throw measured at 51.33 metres. In 2018, he missed a call from an unknown +44 phone number while on holiday with his family, only to hear Jurgen Klopp’s voice upon listening to his voicemail.
Klopp asked Gronnemark to come work with him at Liverpool and so he did, spending five seasons at Anfield.
They won seven trophies in that time including the Premier League and Champions League and as Gronnemark tells Daily Mail Sport, their rate for retaining possession from throw-ins all across the pitch went from 45.4 per cent to 68.4 within his first year. That took their ranking from 18th out of England’s 20 elite clubs to the best in the country.
As well as Liverpool, Gronnemark’s CV includes freelancing for European heavyweights such as Ajax and Borussia Dortmund, among others.
‘I don’t think you even have to look at the statistics,’ he explains as we turn our attention to the Premier League’s long throws over the phone.
‘It is clear there are more teams taking longer throw-ins. The reason is because we are seeing the statistics from some of those who are really good at it. For example, in the last five seasons, I coached FC Midtjylland here in Denmark and they scored 46 goals from long throw-ins.
‘Last season, I coached Brentford and they were by far the best long throw-in team in the Premier League if you look at the goals, expected goals, chances created. When people see that, they think “wow” and that it can be good to throw into the box.’
Jurgen Klopp with Thomas Gronnemark, the expert who fixed Liverpool’s throw-ins
Gronnemark was brought in by Klopp and also has stints at Borussia Dortmund and Ajax on his CV
A word of warning, however. While we have witnessed an increase, this does not mean clubs are necessarily good at it. You need a talented taker, first of all, but also organisation from everyone else involved. According to Gronnemark, too many throw-ins are, well, thrown away.
‘Most teams who do it now in the Premier League are not world-class,’ he says. ‘It’s just hurling it in there and hoping for the best. They lack quality. One of the secrets with my long throw-in scoring teams – for example, Midtjylland – was they had world-class throw-in takers.’
He explains they had throwers who would at least reach the first post and with precision, whereas the Premier League has been coming up short in this regard – literally.
In the 92nd minute of Manchester United’s 1-1 draw at Fulham, Patrick Dorgu attempted a long throw. Harry Maguire was the obvious target for heading it on, but Dorgu did not even beat the first defender. Cue the Craven Cottage waheys.
‘When I’m coaching in clubs, most of my players improve by five to 15 metres with technical training,’ adds Gronnemark, who says there are 30 different aspects to a long throw.
The proper way to ‘grip’ is one and he has a 10-minute YouTube video on this very subject which surpassed 100,000 views last week. When he worked with Mads Bech Sorensen at Brentford, he helped his fellow Dane get to 40.80 metres, similar to the length of four buses.
As for United’s Dorgu, there could be no blaming a slippy ball at Fulham, given the Denmark international had given it the classic clean underneath his shirt before his unleashed his balloon.
Clubs can try to combat long throws also, sometimes cheekily.
Arsenal’s Riccardo Calafiori hurls the ball long against Leeds United last week
This reporter remembers being at St Mary’s Stadium for the Championship play-off semi-final second leg between Southampton and West Bromwich Albion on May 17, 2024, and it was noticeable how new advertising boards had popped up on either side of the pitch in the precise space that the visitors’ Darnell Furlong would have used for a run-up. Southampton won 3-1 and were eventually promoted at the expense of Leeds United in the final.
Gronnemark breaks down throw-ins into three categories: long, fast, clever. ‘The space creation with clever throw-ins is too low in the Premier League,’ he adds. ‘Because I have 21 years’ experience as a professional throw-in coach, I can see exactly what teams have to do to improve.
‘I analysed several games at the start of the season. In the Community Shield, Liverpool only retained possession from 33.3 per cent of throw-ins under pressure. When I analysed Arsenal, 28.6 per cent. Manchester United, 25 per cent.
‘When you saw Newcastle in the first half against Liverpool, they had 20 per cent possession, and the 1-0 goal was conceded after they lost their own throw-in.’
That is true, with Ryan Gravenberch scoring 12 seconds after Kieran Trippier’s careless chuck.
‘This goes totally under the radar,’ Gronnemark continues. ‘It all comes down to a lack of knowledge around throw-ins and how you create space. It’s not enough just to have one or two routines in each zone.
‘I can say that when people hire me, they simply get success. You not only improve your throw-ins but also because of the numbers of those actions (40 to 60 throw-ins per game on average), you improve your general game.’
Daily Mail Sport interviewed Liam Delap during Chelsea’s Club World Cup campaign in the United States. While doing our homework, we messaged a mutual friend at Ipswich Town to see whether we should ask him anything in particular. His tip? ‘Don’t be the guy who asks him about his dad,’ he text back. ‘He is so bored of being asked the same questions on that.’
Just 12 seconds after a Newcastle throw on Monday night, Ryan Gravenberch was up the other end scoring Liverpool’s opening goal
Liam Delap is also a skilled long thrower like his dad – just don’t ask him to show you!
When Chelsea finally launch their first long one of this season – and their set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva was known for working on throw-in strategies when he previously worked for Brentford – Delap is likelier to be the target than the thrower.
He could have been a promising option, but was so good at them when he was nine years old that other players’ parents complained that he was ruining the game, so he stopped. He is said to not have attempted another since.
Aston Villa lead the way in the Premier League having found the opposition box with 11 throw-ins this season. Crystal Palace aren’t too far behind. They will face one another this weekend live on Sky Sports in a game which may prompt some social-media jokesters to post that meme of Robin Williams’ character Alan Parrish in Jumanji asking what year it is.
It is 2025, and Oasis are not the only blast from a nostalgic past to have returned over the summer. It would seem the long throw is back, too.
