Size really does matter - at least in football, claim scientists
Football sides are more successful if their best players are taller and leaner, academics have claimed.
Professors at Wolverhampton University reckon the best top-flight sides have bigger and leaner stars and are statistically less likely to win trophies with smaller players.
Their research claims size matters because "professional footballers are getting taller and slightly leaner...with a small but significant rise in BMI (Body Mass Index) over four decades".
Professor Alan Nevill, from the School of Sport, Performing Arts and Leisure - who studied nearly 900 players from four decades of English top flight football - said: "We looked at heights and weights and ages of professional footballers spanning over 40 years and looked at how heights and weights have developed, and sure enough, players are getting taller and leaner.
"The height to weight ratio is also changing, which was the key indicator for successful teams.
"The top six teams in the league appear to have more of these taller, leaner players, in comparison to the teams below them.
"These results suggest that football coaches and talent scouts should pay attention to the body shape when selecting potential players for their squads."
Prof. Nevill put the trend of increasing numbers of gangly stars down to their ability to lose heat from their bodies and close opponents down more quickly.
Prof Nevill added: "Apart from the fact that taller players will be more successful at heading the ball both defensively and in attack, they will be able to close down or limit opposition players' ability to pass and distribute the ball.
"Furthermore, taller, thinner people are able to dissipate heat more rapidly than shorter, heavier people, who overheat more quickly because of their smaller surface area.
"The concept of a player having to be big and muscular might've been true in the 80s, but nowadays that kind of player isn't the key kind of shape for Premier League players.
"Many of the differences in playing position were also anticipated, with goalkeepers, central defenders, and strikers being taller and heavier than players playing in wider positions.
"This was particularly true of strikers and players playing in the forward line - the likes of Thierry Henry, Peter Crouch and Ruud Van Nistelrooy are good examples of players who are key to the success of the teams we have studied."
The claims that successful teams have taller and leaner strikers will be good news for fans of Arsenal and Aston Villa - who boast two of the biggest forwards in the league in Emmanuel Adebayor and John Carew.
However, the study might come as more of a surprise to Man Utd fans - whose team sit top of the league despite their striker Carlos Tevez being the ninth shortest player in the Premier League.
Prof Nevill added: "We wanted to find out if there is any evidence that players are getting close to the limit of their physiological performance, and one of the ways to do that is to look at whether their shapes are changing.
"We all know footballers are struggling to avoid injury, and the sheer pressures of the game are appearing to increase with every decade.
"Decades ago it was not surprising to see a lot of players play every single match in a league season, but more recently that has become almost unheard of.
"The more successful players for teams who are winning more and getting into Europe are getting taller and leaner, and are not carrying as much weight as they used to."
Professor Nevill carried out the research with Adam Watts, from the University's School of Applied Sciences and Roger Holder, of the University of Birmingham's School of Mathematics and Statistics.
The findings have been published in the Journal of Sports Sciences.
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