Swansea employ an identical style of play-out-from-the-back football that Liam has City playing but, similarly whenever we play a team with that approach, we never seem to benefit from their panic stations kamikaze passing in the way other teams seem to with us. Do we need to tweak the way we press or are they just better at doing it than we are?
Where you watching on Saturday? They were very close to losing the ball in dangerous areas several times, they did once I think but we messed up the opportunity.
I whas. And I felt that, overall, Swansea weren't affected by the press as much as we were. The question also stands for the season so far - how many goals have we scored from an aggressive press compared with goals conceded (or almost)?
Most teams are now doing it, it's the way football is going. Some teams have been doing it longer and are better at it than us, such as Ipswich. I think we're very good at it, we just don't do it quick enough. It's too obvious where our play is going at the moment and when we do get the ball, we aren't direct, so when we break the opposition always seems to have about 8 or 9 players back by the time we reach their box. If we did what we do now twice as quick, we'd have a lot more clear cut chances.
Needs to be more one touch. Bit too much dithering invites pressure. McLoughlin particularly culpable.
With all respect, mate, if we don’t do it quick enough, we’re not particularly good at it. If we successfully beat the opposition’s press from playing out of the back but don’t exploit that by moving the ball quickly once we get out of our own third, it’s pointless as the opposition will have already got numbers behind the ball. The whole point of trying to play through an opposition’s press is to take advantage of space left open from them being pulled out of position. We seem to beat the press then turn inside a play an easy pass and wait for the other team to get back into position. It all seems counter-intuitive.
You'd almost think both our goals yesterday hadn't started from playing it around at the back and beating the press ...
The original question wasn't actually about how we benefit (or otherwise) from playing out. I was comparing the number of times we get caught out and lose possession with the times we actually gain from the opposition doing the same. It just feels that those stats are skewed against us.
We rarely press quick enough or cover their players enough they always seem to have an out ball especially our right side- we play narrow
Seri is not the player people think he is, when comparing him to Hudds, he’s slow & safe with his passes, rarely putting a dangerous ball through to open space forward. The defence messes round too, but it’s the midfield playmaker that’s supposed to be playing that ball forward into space where it’s a dangerous attack for us, not safe & sideways & back again, until either a defender or keeper has to knock it long.
This seems to be more and more of a thing nowadays - people commenting with total conviction stuff that is obviously disproven by the game they're basing it on. Narratives like "we're bad at playing out" become so strong that even us objectively scoring multiple goals from it somehow doesn't move the needle.
Well we've conceded one, how many have we scored? We put Swansea under immense pressure and turned it over a few times and didn't get the reward, and that's just one game.
There is no narrative. The only misplaced conviction is insisting everyone is making these observations up. We play to beat the press. We beat it. Most of our attacks end up against 8 or 9 players, in position, facing us and ready for us. So somewhere between beating their press and getting them on the back foot, we're too often allowing them all to get back into position. The reason is because we don't play directly enough when we need to, ie - after beating their press. Our first goal yesterday is the perfect example of what we should be trying to do more often. Usually after beating the press we turn inside, or backwards and make the easy pass which makes the initial risk pointless. The players we've just passed around quickly get back behind the ball. We're getting better at using the wingers (when they're playing) and it's starting to pay off on occasion now when we play the ball forwards, quickly. I think we're better at taking that 'beat the press' risk than we give the team credit for, however we don't then capitalise on it nearly often enough. We do make mistakes as well but this season so far we've made less mistakes doing it and have 'gotten away with it' more than last season too. In terms of us pressing the opposition it's a little hard to say because most of the time we have more possession due largely to the number of safe passes we make wjen building from the back. Twine specifically adds a lot to our high press when they do have the ball, but a lot of the goals we concede are due to losing the ball with players up the pitch and we don't then have the pace and nous to stop them scoring what are quite simple looking goals due to the space they have. We're susceptible to the counter attack. A lot of our press is down to individuals. We'd improve if the team pressed more as a unit but due to the build from the back policy I get the impression we'll invite them on and then begin our process again once back in possession.
The evidence of yesterday is that the faster pace of attack is what Rosenior is demanding - he clearly got into them at half time yesterday and we looked much more potent in the second half. We also looked dangerous in the opening minutes, their first goal really knocked the stuffing out of that. It can happen - McLoughlin was not in it yesterday for some reason, it was dealt with.
There's 3 phases to it really. 1 is playing in our third and retaining possession. I think we are far better than a majority of the league at controlling the ball. When we changed to Allsop we have seen a marked improvement in allowing us to utilise pretty much the whole pitch to draw the opposition out. Jones is really good on the ball especially in situations where I would have thought a year or two ago he would be losing the ball easily. Between these two and a marked improvement from others we are normally at the top end of the league for this. Yes mistakes happen like at WBA but we seem very good at avoiding the press from the opposition now. 2nd is once we have beaten the press. This is where we seem to struggle. Our 1st goal yesterday was a good example of what it can be. Swansea played a really aggressive press at points and I was saying all game there was space in behind even in the first half where things weren't quite clicking. Bringing Christie on and deploying him centrally at points gave us a player willing to pick up the ball and drive on with it. Something we have sorely missed since Slater's injury. We do still struggle at upping the tempo and I think some tweaks here and there would utilise the squad we have to allow us to do so. We do need to add players comfortable not only at retaining possession but being able to pick it up in that middle third and drive on if the pass isn't there or to take advantage of space created. They are hard to find though at this level. If they dont go up from League 1 I would love us to take a punt on Cameron Brannagan. 3rd is when teams dont pressure us like games against Plymouth and Huddersfield. Most teams would struggle here in all fairness so I wont criticise it greatly but teams are clocking to nullify Jaden and we now have to answer those questions by finding the space left. At points yesterday Swansea literally had 2 defenders on him. Credit to the adjustments by bringing over Coyle to the left and allowing Morton more attacking freedom it did exploit some of the gaps and had we had another 5-10 mins I think we could have nicked it yesterday. I would argue we are good at some things but struggle in others. Which in fairness is every championship team bar maybe Leicester. Even Ipswich are being sussed out now and they looked like prime Barcelona against us. The good thing is we are still heavily improving as time goes on. To answer the original point of this post as well. I thought Swansea played some good stuff yesterday. I also thought at points our press worked very well against them especially in the second half. I thought the same about us conversely.
Just watched the highlights of the Swansea match, Seri’s contribution to both goals, short pass, backwards! When I watched us last season & earlier this season, that’s what I saw with him, stat padding! I just hope the Saudi’s want him in January, he’s the pinnacle of Acun’s “dream” from last season. I’m hoping Acun has woken up now!
People need to not view the Saudi league as like the Chinese in terms of getting some mega fee out of it, but if he wants to go there and it gets his wage off our books that's the best we can hope for with maybe a nominal fee.
