Maher- Possession Football is Dead

[Shrimp and two veg]

Our style of football also allows for defenders to ALWAYS get back, please tell me the last time you saw us break clean through a defence with a through ball on a dangerous attack? We always play with defenders in position, making it 3 times harder for us.

Impossible when these NL cloggers take you out knee high, you had me thinking there but i quickly came up with Braintree with a flying Walker. But i certainly get and agree with your point. We dont do breakaway, we like to play to our very wide wingers in Bridge or Gus, time they bring it down, defenders are back in place.
Hopefully our new Slough signing can create space in the middle channels to cut their lines like ribbons. Probably like Kev was hoping, that man would have been Moncur, but alas. It has to happen though.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Its not the possession causing the problems , its the losing possession and not recovering from it , and the not exploiting the possession when we have the ball .
Retain possession and the opposition will have fewer opportunities . Regain possession quickly when you do make mistakes and the opposition will have fewer opportunities. Maximise the possession and the opposition will need to score more from their opportunities.

Our biggest problem is not making the most of our possession , better choices from the players on the pitch opposition half will create more goal scoring opportunities as well preventing turnarounds .
At the moment , I feel , that the sideways / backwards passes currently being derided is down , a lot of the time , to lack of movement , or at least usable movement , in front of the player with the ball.
They have to move it on to avoid losing the ball , but with no real opportunity for a creative pass they have to give it to someone else for them to try.
I think a ball carrier in the middle coming back to pick up then move the attack up 15 yds or so may help , but the Forwards need to make their movements more decisive (as well as their attempts on goal a bit more effective).

The players are not , on the whole , inexperienced footballers, so the off the ball movement , looking for space , awareness , etc should be there . The skill sets and ability is the issue (but we are 5th tier in all honesty) so the passing ranges , shooting etc is going to be wanting . So the deficits in the team need to be compensated for . More movement to reduce the need for precision passes , and increased shot opportunity to counter the "lower league miss factor"

Now this is nothing innovative , Kev will be drilling this in , but if the players get in an over cautious mind set once they have crossed the white line , or they lose confidence an their ability (which is already 5th tier) then this all becomes the more difficult . Maybe a strong leader and motivating experienced player may help with this . Would fans accept a 35 year old CB or DM , maybe a bit slow these days , who organise and motivate and potentially get more out of the team , albeit at the expense of not being quite the class player we all like to see (10% uptick from the other players may well cover this )

Good post.

Saturday we missed two vitally important ball carriers.

The first was Golding. The difference between Golding and Goodliffe was stark. Goodliffe isn’t a bad player but like Harry Taylor (and Crowther) he’s not a natural ball player: he basically gets rid of it to another team mate rather than instigates an attack. Golding is comfortable enough on the ball to take a touch or two not just away from an opponent but to open up different angles, to see how the opposition respond and to get a pass he wants. With Goodliffe in the middle Morton had to drop deeper to pick up possession and then few options ahead of him to pick out. Maher looked a lot poorer player before he had Gower to pass to. Once he had Gower his passes suddenly hurt teams.

The second was the much maligned Jack Bridge. Bridge is a big player for us and whilst he may not have hit top form this season he occupies defenders which creates space elsewhere (his signature move is the little back heel to free up the overlapping player). He is one of our few players who can time a pass, which can involve delaying a pass to take an opponent out of the game. Without Bridge to pass to, Morton was a lot less effective. Ralph is a good player but attacking wise he’s limited to just trying to push the ball in front of him and whip in an early cross. Saturday was an ideal game for Bridge who varies attacks by going inside or outside, can slow down or speed up. We missed his variety in attack. I really hope he’s feeling better soon. Without his ability to beat a man we only had KAF and Walker who can take on a player and only Morton who can pick a pass. It meant we didn’t have enough to unlock our well organised and confident opponents and left us unbalanced and then the crowd got on their backs which made them more anxious and the football less flowing.

Hopefully we’ll revert to a more balanced side Saturday with Golding and Bridge being effectively an extra ball playing midfielder and ball carrying attacker in possession instead of Goodliffe and Gubbins being extra centre-halves.

 

[thenobster]

I think we’d all prefer to see attacking football, flying wingers, crunching midfielders who can also pass and have a repertoire.. but we’re div 5.. I’m happy for the win..

Dull is dead, long live the win

 

[Tommy2holes]

Just checked table Man City are 4th.

Yeah. They are but have the most expensive squad in Premier league history and can afford a 60 million player like Jack grealish to barely get a game.

Last season they won the league for the 4th time in a row..

Why are they so poor this season in comparison?

Teams have sussed them out. Possession is no longer a prerequisite for the win.

In fact, having blistering pace out wide and big men up front is causing teams like City no end of problems.

 

[RHB]

I went into my local Sainsbury's on Saturday and had a right go at the manager.

Why on earth had she put John on the tills when everyone knows his best position is fresh produce? And why was Jane on cereals when she's spent the rest of her career in the baking aisle? Pete was also in the staff room keeping the bench warm. Either he's fit or he's not.

The manager tried to explain she'd been working in the industry for years and had a fair idea what to do. Needless to say, when I left the shop, I gave them a (tuneless) rendition of "You don't know what you're doing".

............and shared it on ShrimperZone too, well done you. Now, if you could copy and paste your post another few times then we'll all be so much happier.

 

[lreed567]

Agree with a lot of these posts, we had 7 out of 11 defensively minded/position players on the pitch Saturday, that's over half of the starting 11, no wonder we are struggling to break teams down and any attacking intent

 

[Big Albert]

Our style of football also allows for defenders to ALWAYS get back, please tell me the last time you saw us break clean through a defence with a through ball on a dangerous attack? We always play with defenders in position, making it 3 times harder for us.

Exactly this, added to which we have no one who can open a defence up when they have had time to get back in their two lines of 4 or whatever. Plus we hardly ever play a ball between defenders for the forwards to run onto, instead we go wide and hit an aimless cross with no real attacking threat in the air

 

[southendkid]

Why are they so poor this season in comparison?

Because Rodri is injured, there's a reason he won the Ballon D'or. He was suspended for 3 matches last season and City lost all of those as well.

 

[Piledriver]

We need a striker or two or a player in midfield that is not afraid to shoot on sight . All i keep hearing is keep passing the ball square or back wards .In gods name are our players afaide to shoot when the chance arrives .

I no longer believe these type of players are native to these parts , maybe they cannot thrive on the Essex coast and shrivel up die before flowering.

 

[Jacob Sladder]

The other associated tactic I find hugely frustrating is that when we get a throw close to their box rarely does Gus take a long throw, preferring to go short and keep position. Rather than a close to 100% chance of the ball getting into the box, the amount of time we get a cross in has got to be <50%. Sittingbourne weren’t great at picking us up and we had a few of them blocked for a corner but NL teams read it and we usually get nothing.

I struggle to recall a time when our getting a throw in gave us much advanatage at all. Unless it's a Gus long'un, we have no tactic other than throw it short, get the return ball about waist high and watch the other team swarm all over us. How about the occasional throw into a space for someone to run on to like they practice on the training groun............oh...........don't they?

 

[HertfordshireBlue]

I'm a fan of counter-attacking football myself. But just wondering... If football enters a new era and most sides are counter-attacking ones, who has all the possession? Mathematically, it reminds me of the education minister wanting all schools to be above average.

I imagine football would become a more end-to-end game like the good old years. Counter attacking football isn’t counter attacking at EVERY opportunity and will involve some form of possession for 90 minutes but the trends I’ve noticed in the premier league is teams are more keen to get the ball forward quicker instead of passing around the back.

 

[Firestorm]

I imagine football would become a more end-to-end game like the good old years. Counter attacking football isn’t counter attacking at EVERY opportunity and will involve some form of possession for 90 minutes but the trends I’ve noticed in the premier league is teams are more keen to get the ball forward quicker instead of passing around the back.

I saw a montage of 10 Stan goals for Notts Forest yesterday , all of them mid to long forward ball for Stan to latch on to and do his stuff. I am sure given a real quality , fast ,strong ,outlet up top most teams would play the ball forward asap

 

[Shrimp and two veg]

I saw a montage of 10 Stan goals for Notts Forest yesterday , all of them mid to long forward ball for Stan to latch on to and do his stuff. I am sure given a real quality , fast ,strong ,outlet up top most teams would play the ball forward asap

Trouble is, those strikers are gold dust, even more now than back in those days. We've just had one on loan and he couldnt wait to "progress further". Still, live in hope !

 

[onceknownasrab]

Possession football will linger in the game for a while yet. For it to be affective you need the quality players for it to click, players that can suit that style. Any team playing it well, will have the ability to drag the opposition out of shape, create gaps and then, blitzkrieg style, put a killer ball through the gaps or get beyond the defenders at pace. We have the possession at the back but the transition forward is so slow the opposition are back in numbers and there are walls instead of gaps. Maherball just does not suit our players or the vast majority of players at our level.
Any team playing us knows exactly what we are about, keep their shape and get back long before we reach the final third. We need to be quicker, more incisive and penetrate defences at pace.
The modern game, sadly, is too sterile and predictable because the initiative and maverick is coached out of players. Imagine telling Stan Bowles, Rodney Marsh, George Best etc where they need to stand, who they need to pick up etc but those players made things happen because the opposition could not predict what was going to occur. We don't have individuals like that, so as a team, we need to mix things up more to keep defenders on the back foot.