Barca no longer Europe's possession kings

That honour is now Celtic's, according to the CIES Football Obvservatory's latest study. CIES looked into the average time a team spends on the ball per possession and interestingly, Barca and Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, who are often lauded as the 'Kings of possession', have been usurped by the might of Glasgow Celtic.

The Scottish champions average 23.5 seconds on the ball per possession, with Borussia Dortmund following them in second place with an average of 22.4. Finnish side VPS round off the top three, coming in just 0.1 second per possession behind the German side.

Pep Guardiola's City come in a disappointing fourth in the study, though there is little more than a hair's breadth between their figures and those of the 2nd and 3rd placed teams.

Juventus, PSG and Bayern trail City, with Barcelona all the way down in eighth.

It is worth noting that Real Madrid do not feature in the top 10.

The ranking of teams with the lowest average time per possession is dominated by so-calld 'lesser sides', though German side Hamburg are a surprising inclusion at second bottom with an average of 9.7 seconds.

Ultimately though, the wooden spoon goes to Levadiakos, who can give the ball away faster than Usain Bolt can run 100m (9.3s).

Average number of seconds per possession, highest and lowest figures in 35 European national leagues! More at https://t.co/aGYFoWiqSR pic.twitter.com/tamsVOhx5d

— CIES Football Obs (@CIES_Football) September 25, 2017