When I saw that Saints had 28% of the possession last night against Chelsea I was reminded of this article about how such games have become far more common given the huge gulf between teams at the top and the rest of us. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jan/04/premier-league-possession-manchester-city Worth a read. Vin
I have to disagree with the premise. Extreme gaps can indicate a massive imbalance, but not necessarily so; during their title-winning season, Leicester routinely saw teams control possession, while generating more shots, better chances, and pretty well comprehensively outplaying their opposition. We were good value for our win against Arsenal, taking more shots, getting more shots on target...and managing just 33-37% of possession, depending on one's preference for calculating such. What ultimately matters more is which third of the pitch sees more action. Against Arsenal, considerably more of the game happened in their end than ours; it was a reflection of our having used possession aggressively and effectively, while a lot of their possession involved faffing about passing between defenders and central mids. Now, a team like Manchester City will generally dominate in both categories. But 60% possession alone isn't the gold standard; it's a means to an end, but not the only one. Real Madrid is an example there; their possession stats are better than they have ever been, as they move to a slightly slower tempo to emphasize control, but they're scoring at a rate below that of any season in recent memory (and their defense hasn't been stellar, either).
Interesting article. Difficult read for someone like me, who deep down has a love and belief of “possession football” yet I understand and see when this alternative has been successful. Football could be heading into another revolution, although early leaders in the smash and grab style of getting results, such as Jose Mourinho are struggling to succeed. Interesting next few years to see which teams dominate the trophies. Away from debate on possession and gaps in standards in our league, this one sentence caught my eye. Another debate, but my goodness one that I liked: There is an extraordinary arrogance about those armchair viewers who demand a team should play in an ineffective way so that they may be entertained
I agree to a point but, while I enjoyed the result against Chelsea, it was a fairly unedifying football game. Eleven men behind the ball, while a satisfactory tactic, rarely results in something worth watching. It's logical, it gets results, it's what we need to do but it's not fun. As you correctly point out, there are exceptions but they are unusual because they are exceptions. It's a rare 70+:30- game that is inherently interesting. My brother has watched Sheffield United for the past 54 years and felt that their most recent stint in the Premier League was the least enjoyable football he's seen, with fourteen games a year being "defend at all costs" borefests. He much prefers the Championship. Every team can beat every other one and so they try to do so. Vin
Cardiff are a good example of that, they are challenging to stay up fair and square even though theirsquad "should" be 19th/20th. It would be boring if there was only one correct tactic, which is why I find rugby a bit weird. But I think the easiest way to deal with possession % stats is to never pay any attention to them, and you'll find your understanding of the game is not affected.
If you listen to Ralph’s presser yesterday he completely recognises that the style of play used against Chelsea isn’t the way forward. His words were something like “clean sheets are good but on their own they won’t help us stay in this division.” He knows that we absolutely have to pose more of a threat going forward, but at the moment we haven’t got enough fast runners in the squad, to get in behind or take on full backs. I think most people would agree that getting the defence functioning as a unit and dropping zonal marking (AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!) was the top priority, but the high press can only work if the players are fit enough, which they aren’t yet. Getting an attacking style of play going can only happen if we get some new blood in the squad.
I was really not referring to any understanding of the game, more my enjoyment of possession football. I’m one of the geeks that used to like watching Barca’s tippy tappy stuff.
I like it too, but I also like the rapid counter-attack/counter-press. Or Liverpool's hybrid, which is controlled and enjoyable technically if allowed possession, but more than happy to turn a game into a track meet at a moment's notice. Basically, give me a system that does something interesting and wants to get the ball in the net and I'm pretty well happy. It's when managers start to focus on denial of football that I get annoyed, whether it's a manager that sets up to surrender the ball and hope for 0-0 or 1-0 off a set piece, or a manager that aims to use languid possession as a means to reduce the variability in games that counter-attacks generally provide.
You just have to use some common sense. We didn’t lose out on possession to Chelsea because we have speedy players and deploy a tactic of lightning fast counters. We lost because they are a much better team. It was BAD that we so seldom had the ball, it was just a sacrifice that was better than uglier alternatives. Having possession of the football is undoubtedly a good thing, and as a general rule the longer you have it in a match, the better off you are. It’s just not the ONLY thing and needs to be looked at in context...what other good things did you not do, in order to have more possession? Was it worth it? In the case of Spain, I’d argue that Tiki-Taka was not only fun to watch, it produced no shortage of goals, wins, and dominant play. It only became ineffective and kind of boring when Spain ran out of effective strikers. It wasn’t the length of possession, it was the lack of end product which was unrelated to the style of play.
Chelsea won the Champions League by putting 10 men behind the ball, and I didn’t hear too many of their fans complaining then. If we had Didier Drogba, maybe we’d be Champions of Europe. Generally though, I think your brother has a point. The PL is completely rigged from the first day of the season, while the Championship has more ups and downs than the Assyrian Empire (to quote Monty Python). One other point about playing without the ball - or “against the ball”, as Ralph calls it - it’s bloody exhausting, and will generally catch up with even the fittest sides eventually.
Are you aware just how close we we’re to getting him before he went to Chelsea? Terry Cooper wanted us to sign him when he was Chief Scout in Europe. Gordon was up for it. Rupert said no.
If we had got him then Rupert would only have shipped him out a couple of years later - in swaps for an even worse keeper than Forecast.
Same, I was probably about the right age for those Champions Leagues to be main footballing memories too, maybe that's why I still love Pep. But Inter's campaign was amazing too even though it was the total opposite (I don't love Jose). I can't remember where I read this now, but another nice trend is pressing for a second goal rather than trying to defend out a one goal lead. There are some good reasons to think that this gives a better outcomes. Obviously Pep is all over that one. (i meant the royal "you", not you specifically btw)
I remember hearing something similar about Adebayor and Marquez as well, no idea how true the rumours were though
Is that right? I thought Terry Cooper said something about Rupert saying no when Terry retired. I may be wrong.
