jonathan wilson criticises reep's statistical analysis as heavily flawed. the 'three pass optimum', for example, comes in for particular criticism. wilson notes that while reep's statistics showed that a higher percentage of goals were scored in moves involving three passes, they also show that three pass moves account for a higher percentage of all shots. instead, the percentage of shots for which three-pass or fewer account is higher than the percentage of goals for which they account, implying that moves involving more passes have a higher ratio of success. furthermore, reep's own statistics show that this trend becomes stronger at higher levels of football, indicating that moves with a greater number of passes become more effective amongst higher quality teams. reep also fails to distinguish statistically between three-pass moves that emerge from long balls and those that emerge from other sources such as attacking free kicks or successful tackles in the opponent's half.