"We've had 10 years of everyone saying possession wins - it doesn't, as the World Cup showed. It's less relevant now."
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"We've had 10 years of everyone saying possession wins - it doesn't, as the World Cup showed. It's less relevant now."
Pressure on them is good for us
Yes and no.
Possession isn't the be all and end all - absolutely correct
People have been saying that it is the only thing that's important for 10 years - um no.
The whole defensive possession to keep the ball away from the opposition peaked probably 5 or 6 years ago, and none of the top coaches use that as a guiding principle these days.
When I was a lad, the tactics adopted by my team were P.O.M.O.
I can't remember what the letters stood for except that the idea was to get the ball into the final third as swiftly as possible once in possession. The more the ball is in the final third the greater the chance of scoring.
Which teams are doing tiki taka these days? It hasn't really been a thing for years.
Most of the top teams work to win the ball back quickly in dangerous areas against defenses that haven't transitioned to defensive organisation yet.
It's arguably more about controlling the territory than the possession, as they are looking to play the whole game in the opposition half, but losing the ball and regaining it and quickly organising an attack are part of the strategy.
POMO is positions of maximum opportunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charle...tball_manager)
Charles Reep mentioned in the dissertation, spent years before the war studying newspaper reports of league matches. His statistical analysis concluded that 80% of goals came as a result of no more than 3 moves. The successful Wolves sides of the late 1950's and also Wimbledon years later, were based on the same premise ; get the ball into the opposition penalty area as often as possible..
Nothing wrong with long passes, it's when they become hoofs that it all becomes counter productive. Sides imitate what is effective and so a few years ago we had stacks of mediocre teams trying to play like Barcelona with entirely predictable results and the same will happen with the anti possession, long ball mob - poor sides will copy the tactic and we'll be back to eighties kick and run stuff again.
From what I have seen of Sarri-ball so far, the tactics seem to be keeping hold of the ball at the back, until a good opportunity to play it forwards presents itself. Ampadu is superb in this role, but like any system you need the players who are up to the task. I'm not sure if it would translate to the Welsh team, but our new crop of youngsters do seem to be technically gifted.
A well executed long pass that turns defence into attack or changes the direction of the attack are things of beauty.
An aimless long ball hoofed upfield usually end ups being pinged back putting a defence under immediate pressure. NOT that I am advocating it but a ball punted forward into touch is a better solution.
got to disagree with almost everything that's written above
the british disease will get results as proved by dyke , pullis and warnock but won't create world class footballers . just look how many foreign players ply there trade in the prem for example . let's face it we are now just churning out robots pretty much the same as rugby
Britain's nations have always turned out players who's talents are more skewed towards their physical and athletic attributes rather than technical ones.
It makes sense to play in a style that exploits that, but that doesn't mean that has to be aimless long balls.
Counter pressing for example needs athletes all over the pitch
I understand your point, and don't disagree that having good technical skills is really important if you want to be a top quality professional footballer, I just prefer the directness of NW type football to the alternative. I also think there are so many foreign players here as we can choose the pick of the world's talent with the wages we pay, so that's not surprising really.
I watched the highlights of Ampadu posted on here the other night and basically felt sorry for the lad. I can't imagine anyone young feeling that they wanted to be remembered for being able to pass a ball quickly and over short distances with a high success rate. The game he experienced looked mind-numbingly boring. Having said that the only time I saw him in an attacking position he had two terrible shots - so maybe that's the limit of his ability right now.
You can't really judge from those kind of highlights, as you don't get to see the end play. Instead of hoofing the ball forward, you control the ball until an opening occurs. This prevents the ball from coming straight back at you at putting your team under pressure. So basically what you are saying is Sarri is shit manager, because Ampadu is just doing what he his told to do, as are the other players who are instructed to pass to him. Don't forget, when playing this way he also has to read the whole field of play, before deciding on the optimum forward pass. Simple hey?
The play that follows the initially probing can be very direct, it's just more structured and better thought out than the hit and hope ball over the top. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out over the course of the season. The point about Ampadu is that not many players can play this kind of role, which says a lot about his versatility. I'm sure he can play other ways too, as we will see with Wales. I actually prefer him in midfield.
Butland played under Hughes and Lambert but it was Pickford playing under Allardyce who was by far the better keeper. Dortmund may have produced wonderful midfielders and forwards but what top class defender has Klopp produced? Teams need to be more and more technically gifted but a leader and organiser are still needed and old-school British coaches can produce that seemingly better than most.
What I would be interested to see is if football ever follows rugby or NFL and has offensive and defensive coaches. I agree with you more than Dyche but would much prefer Dyche organising my defence than Pep.