There's a time and place when it comes to playing the ball out from the back. I'm all for it because modern day football is all about retaining possession. However, it's down to the individual with the ball at his feet to judge the situation he finds himself in before either playing a cultured ball out of defence or simply clearing his lines. Hopefully the gaffer has brought to our club players with the footballing intelligence to make the correct decisions where ball retention is concerned. Mistakes in friendlies is inevitable. Especially when you consider the turnover of personnel. The more they become familiar with each others games the more infrequent mistakes will become (e.g. I never saw anyone call for a pass from Richard Rufus if they were more than five yards away... why...? because his teammates knew his game well enough to know that he couldn't pass the ball with any accuracy over a distance in excess of five yards, simple ).
All very true. And you also need to have players who want the ball and make themselves available, which is something that has been sadly lacking in recent seasons.
Exactly Forest... In Hollands, Alonso, Jackson, Green and Stephens we have an abundance of midfield players who want the ball and are comfortable in possession of it. It would've been suicidal playing the ball out from the back last season to the likes of Semedo or McCorCack because their touch and range of passing is/was non existent.
Like when Wales tried to do it against England recently when their only decent player was Jack Wilshere. I'm not worried if our style is to try and play from the back, we've definitely got the players to do it. I genuinely believe that we have the best midfield in League 1 this year.
Oh dear! I thought it would be obvious to all that this smartass was trying to be ironic. I even gained a loyal supporter in Red Flag, and "restarted the Parky debate". Sorry to stab Red Flag in the back (I honestly feel bad about it) but my real position is that I am delighted at the direction we are going and the players we have signed. (Still need a right-back and centre-forward, though). These friendly matches are the time to practice passing the ball around as much as possible and iron out repeated mistakes. Once the season starts CP might have to adjust a little in the direction of "Row Z realism" but hopefully just a touch on the tiller. Sorry, Red Flag, I am just a closet "tippy-tappy".
Wow- firstly I thought it was clear that eddie was being sarcastic... Secondly, do we seriously lose a pre season game and people get on powells back? Why not support him rather than waiting to jump on any mistake? This is crazy- not even worth a response being honest.
Fred the Lag - give it up. Yes teams like Wimbledon in the olden days played hoofball succesfully and got themselves promoted. However all of the teams that got promoted out of this dismal league last season played the passing game and that cannot be a coincidence. Hoofball is easily found out and exploited by the opposition, the passing game, assuming you have players who understand positional play, will always come out on top. The problem CP had last season was that a large percentage of the squad he inherited did not understand positional play and were never there to receive a pass or in most cases once on the ball played themselves into a position where a pass was difficult. Reidy was a classic example of that. PS Parky was such a good manager that nobody has employed him since - there might be a reason for that.
So I think we are agreed hoofball requires little or no skill so we need not practice this in pre-season friendlies. Pre-season is for practicing skills so a passing game is preferable and if the ball is lost, well then never mind 'it's only pre-season' Once the season starts then passing out from the back is the best option unless the player is under immediate pressure, then 'get rid' Is that right? Oh! and the Mr Parkinson debate is over so let's please move on!
