I read an article by a player recently who spoke a lot of sense about keeping the ball - the gist of what he said was that the benefits of retaining possession were as follows: 1. The opposition can't score when we have the ball 2. When we have the ball our opponents will run themselves into the ground trying to get it back, and when they do get it they will be too tired to do anything with it 3. When we control the ball we can probe for openings by dragging people out of position (moving the ball quickly) 4. Keeping hold of the ball gives us a chance to rest Under SoD we have started/tried to play a more possession based game without obvious results - so what's gone wrong? Well firstly we all have to be patient - no good the crowd getting on players backs to lump it forward to Sam (who is 5ft 7ins) and Jay whose strengths are not his ability in the air. Secondly options need to be there to pass the ball forward to midfield players - it's noticeable that Wagstaff and Bryan have both come in off the wing to make themselves available (so executing what they have been told). This does create a problem with lack of width - more on that in a minute Thirdly when Pack/Elliott play together they both seem to sit in front of the back 4 - it works better when young Bobby gets into the space further forward. Fourthly - lack of with. If the wide players tuck in there is greater emphasis on the full backs to get forward and provide the width - this means they need to be good on the ball - I'm not convinced that someone like O'Connor (a good defender) is good enough on the ball to do that job? Fifth point - movement. If ever you have played at any level you know you need someone to pass to - this means having options on the ball. People have to make themselves available. Lastly I'm not sure that we have the pace up front to stretch teams and create space. A good example of this was when Liverpool signed Sturridge. Apart from his goals, his ability to run in behind made defenders drop off a bit, and as a result create space for Suarez/Gerrard etc further up the pitch. Our young side are still learning all of this. We have seen in recent games the back 4 lumping it after the crowd get on their backs. So the next time someone near you is shouting "forward" or "get it up there", we would all be better off shouting "keep the ball", "get on the ball" or "movement"
Someone made a good point at half time to me yesterday - first half we were too predictable and maybe needed to mix it up a bit more?
Possession football in the Premiership, Championship and Europe is great and will get you results However in Division 3 this simply does not apply for the whole season. Grounds get heavy and unpredictable as Autumn gives way to Winter. Not a time to be trying to pass along the back 4 on a sticky pudding of a pitch away from home. We need to grind out results at this level.
