The teams in the other European leagues are further down the road with regards to possession based football, and people like Gary Neville are actually a bit late to the game. You need the right coaches and playing staff to make it work, and they need to be well drilled. It's actually easier than it looks to keep possession when all of the opposition players are in front of you, and a well drilled side will have no problems keeping hold of the ball until a transition in play occurs. If a mistake is made, it doesn't mean the other team will definitely score, and a lot of situations are recoverable. However, it's not easy to adopt to this way of playing, so it's not a tactic that you could spring on a team at short notice, and sometimes it is impossible due to the shortcomings of the player who are available.