dont_do_it_doug. Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 The irony is when the team does keep possession patiently, you can't hear yourself think in the Holte End above all the screams of "**** GET IT FORWARD!!!!!" I consciously think it myself, because I don't think we're good enough to faff around like so. It's why Swansea are in such trouble, the league has adjusted to their style of play, cottoned on to the fact that they're not actually Barcelona and they've no plan B. They're suffering as a result and I personally think they'll drop. Let's ourselves stick to the basics. Stay solid, keep our shape and play a direct counter attacking game. We've the players for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Worst game this season imo for possession was Swansea at home...didn't we have about 30% of possession that day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 The irony is when the team does keep possession patiently, you can't hear yourself think in the Holte End above all the screams of "**** GET IT FORWARD!!!!!" I consciously think it myself, because I don't think we're good enough to faff around like so. It's why Swansea are in such trouble, the league has adjusted to their style of play, cottoned on to the fact that they're not actually Barcelona and they've no plan B. They're suffering as a result and I personally think they'll drop. Let's ourselves stick to the basics. Stay solid, keep our shape and play a direct counter attacking game. We've the players for it. I honestly don't think people have a problem with us keeping possession. I think the trouble is when we are passing it around slowley infront of a team who's got 8 back in defence. You can see the players are starting to run out of ideas due to the creativity in our team, the passes started going backwards and within 10 seconds the ball is back at Guzan who'll then just hoof it forward. That's when the groans start. All that possession just for it to end back to the keeper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 I'm pretty sure (although it would need checking by someone with time on their hands) that the team who averages most possession per game, most passes per game and the highest pass completion rate per game is sat in 14th place in the table. That's 4 positions and 5 points worse off than Villa. Whilst we'd obviously like to see more of the ball, let's not get too tied up in how important possession is overaYou make You make is sound like you either have to play like West Ham or Barca, like there is nothing in between See bit in bold; I'm not stating that we wouldn't want to have more of the ball - just that it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It's what you do when you have the ball that matters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Lions_Roar Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Worst game this season imo for possession was Swansea at home...didn't we have about 30% of possession that day? Yeah they really spanked us that day, what was the score again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 We were slaughtered 1-1. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 We were slaughtered 1-1. I'm pretty sure I remember Pat Murphy using more or less exactly these words in his post-match interview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Is Lambert setting us up in the way we can get the most out of our current squad? Probably, as we don't have any creative midfielders. That was never my point though. In the next coming years i think we need to improve our passing abilities, thats without a doubt. To only play at the counter is very predictable. We need to evolve more strings at our play imo, you might disagree, but thats football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Is Lambert setting us up in the way we can get the most out of our current squad? Probably, as we don't have any creative midfielders. That was never my point though. In the next coming years i think we need to improve our passing abilities, thats without a doubt. To only play at the counter is very predictable. We need to evolve more strings at our play imo, you might disagree, but thats football. I don't think anybody is disagreeing with that. Only that to try and play like that every week right now would see us relegated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Getting old and memory fuzzy but wasnt the 81 and 82 teams classic counter attack teams? They could take a battering and then launch lightning attacks to gain us a win. The EC Final against Bayern is one. Did we worry then that BM had the majority of the ball. A couple of the goals on the way were Morley taking the ball from our Penalty Area and him legging it to the other end. The margin between teams wasn't as great back then. Today you will be punished a lot more, the playing field has changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted March 19, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted March 19, 2014 Getting old and memory fuzzy but wasnt the 81 and 82 teams classic counter attack teams? They could take a battering and then launch lightning attacks to gain us a win. The EC Final against Bayern is one. Did we worry then that BM had the majority of the ball. A couple of the goals on the way were Morley taking the ball from our Penalty Area and him legging it to the other end. The margin between teams wasn't as great back then. Today you will be punished a lot more, the playing field has changed. It's a tough one isn't it? Personally I think it's a fundamental flaw of the traditional british game, this idea that hanging on to the ball, being patient and waiting for an opening, is messing about aimlessly. I've seen countless times british teams in europe and especially the national side fail because they cannot keep hold of the ball. Football, especially in this country, has indeed changed a lot since 81. Teams these days at the top are very good at moving the ball about, every player has good touch and deal with receiving the ball quickly in tight space under pressure. You'd think a gung ho, get it forward, tip and rush team would get completely mauled in the modern game. Still though, in the 80s Liverpool and Arsenal could see out a game 1-0 much more easily because they were confident of keeping the ball. Ideally I'd like us to score bucket loads of goals by playing on the deck and totally dominating possession. As has been said above though, if we tried that we'd be playing in another division pretty quickly. It woudl be great to be more comfortable knocking it about, to know we could hold on to a 1-0 lead just by keeping the ball otu of harms way for the last 15 minutes of a game etc. I think Lambert in the last couple of games has go tthe best out of the squad though, and whilst we have seen more of the ball, we certainly aren't playing a possession game. We press high and in numbers (how good is KEA at this?!), we aim to win the ball back as soon as possible like all the best modern teams do, when we get it we look to attack as fast as possible for the most part. Done well it's a nice thing to watch, but it mans watching the other team have a lot of the ball too! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SikhInTrinity Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 In the Swansea game, alot of times people forget we never had CB or Vlaar, pretty sure if we had both of the, in that game, score and performance would have been different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villan_007 Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 In the Swansea game, alot of times people forget we never had CB or Vlaar, pretty sure if we had both of the, in that game, score and performance would have been different. Don't talk sense - it's not needed around here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Swansea had tonnes of possession against us, but we weren't lucky to draw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Swansea had tonnes of possession against us, but we weren't lucky to draw. Still though, do you enjoy seeing us having 22 % of the ball at home? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rovers13 Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Swansea had 7 fresh players, whereas most of villas side had played two days previously. Swansea knew they could focus more on villa cause they were unlikely to get anything from Chelsea, while villa had two winnable games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Swansea had tonnes of possession against us, but we weren't lucky to draw. Still though, do you enjoy seeing us having 22 % of the ball at home? I didn't personally, but at the time I was relieved with the point and to stop the rot. I hear we only had something like 35% against Chelsea. To be honest, I didn't notice. I've become immune to it. I've accepted what we are for now out of necessity. At times, more and more recently (just as at the end of last season) it's good to watch. Exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oaks Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 All the best sides in the world have good ball retention. That's a fact.But we can't really compete with them they have the best players in the world. We should be aiming to have better ball retention against the poorer teams though. Although I think the turn of the year it has improved apart from the Everton game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 (edited) Swansea had tonnes of possession against us, but we weren't lucky to draw. Still though, do you enjoy seeing us having 22 % of the ball at home? I didn't personally, but at the time I was relieved with the point and to stop the rot. I hear we only had something like 35% against Chelsea. To be honest, I didn't notice. I've become immune to it. I've accepted what we are for now out of necessity. At times, more and more recently (just as at the end of last season) it's good to watch. Exciting. Agreed the Chelsea match was good fun, we deserved the win no arguments. But that's because we put together some moves and attacked a bit. We didn't attack really in the Swansea game after the 7th minute, and we haven't in the majority of our matches this season, certainly not the home games. I want to see progress next season, because this season has been one of the most disappointing in the last 5 years of shit as I thought we were going to kick on, continuing end of last season form. For most of the season the side has looked clueless in possession and out of possession. I think people highlight the possession thing because it's an easy and obvious barometer of how good a side is with the ball. How good are they at controlling and passing a ball? Beyond that, it's a taste thing. If we're going to lose 10 home games a season, I personally would rather watch us have most of the ball and cause the opponents trouble in their area. Not spend the game booting ball into the air and hoping it falls to our player. Edited March 20, 2014 by Tomaszk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David-Copenhagen Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 I'm pretty sure (although it would need checking by someone with time on their hands) that the team who averages most possession per game, most passes per game and the highest pass completion rate per game is sat in 14th place in the table. That's 4 positions and 5 points worse off than Villa. Whilst we'd obviously like to see more of the ball, let's not get too tied up in how important possession is overall. Here you go Sort by the "Possession %" column to see it clearly. Good find. Funny to see that we have scored more goals from open play than Tottenham. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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