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Possession Football


cushynumber

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In modern football, without a degree of possession then you can generally forget about winning a game. Yet today, I heard possession in football actually being disparaged live on air. “Its all very well having plenty of the ball,” or “possession  isn’t everything” spoken by 2 ex-pros to Skys David Tanner. To a degree they are right – Possession without and end product can be very frustrating to watch and almost seems pointless. Passing for passings sake, going sideways or backwards in order to retain possession can all be frustrating for a spectator. But I couldn’t help thinking that if it had been Kilmarnock with the majority of the possession, the pundits would have been heaping praise on them – and we would have been getting it in the neck for being unable to get control of the ball against a Premiership team, the way we do against Championship teams.

Additionally, there are two side to the possession game. The first is it should enable you to control the game, play the game you want to and to create chances. All very important if you actually want to win a match – and we did that today – particularly in the 2nd half. But the other side of possession is the fact that it helps you not to lose a match. If one team has possession, the other can’t score – it’s as simple as that. Additionally, no team likes chasing the ball. It’s hard tiring work and can leach the energy out of teams who find that when they do get the ball, they are just that little bit slower on it, make mistakes and duly surrender the ball back. So the defensive side of having possession of the ball seems to be very much overlooked  - and pundits NEVER talk about it - EVER. I find that strange.

We need to keep playing exactly in possession game we do. Its modern football. It is making us entertaining to watch and It contributes to the amount of clean sheets we are starting to rack up.  There is still a huge amount of negativity surrounding us – and ex-players can easily get caught up in that negativity themselves – almost without meaning to.

 

Jack Wilshere :“It’s important to always try and play forwards, because that’s where the goal is, but if you can’t go forward, play sideways – keeping possession is the most important thing.
 

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1 minute ago, cushynumber said:

But I couldn’t help thinking that if it had been Kilmarnock with the majority of the possession, the pundits would have been heaping praise on them – and we would have been getting it in the neck for being unable to get control of the ball against a Premiership team, the way we do against Championship teams.

:clap:

Playing the ball on the deck and controlling it compared to this

https://www.facebook.com/paddypower/videos/10153921555844914/

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It's refreshing for us to have so much of the ball, given some of the utter dross we had to put up with in the previous three seasons. Sometimes we just need to mix the play up a bit and put the foot through a shot at goal and stop trying to pass the ball in to the net. We do overplay it a bit at times but I'll take that all day long compared to previous seasons.

I get what the so called pundits say about having the ball, cue the St. J game but we've tightened up a bit since then (lessons learnt?). We'll be just fine with a wee bit extra strengthening in the right places.

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Yes we look good on the ball at times, but we constantly go wide and teams have watched us, were predictable , we offer very little through the middle, ive listened to Mark Warburton say about us not being clinical enough in front of goal , this has been the case all season and still hasn't been adressed  , we are so lacking in quality with a final ball and with our finnishing, on today's performance i have to be honest and say we dont look anywhere near a team winning the scottish cup this season. Very frustrating !

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Just now, Lothianbear said:

Yes we look good on the ball at times, but we constantly go wide and teams have watched us, were predictable , we offer very little through the middle, ive listened to Mark Warburton say about us not being clinical enough in front of goal , this has been the case all season and still hasn't been adressed  , we are so lacking in quality with a final ball and with our finnishing, on today's performance i have to be honest and say we dont look anywhere near a team winning the scottish cup this season. Very frustrating !

I agree we have to be more clinical - but thats a different argument

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10 minutes ago, theiconicman said:

The system isnt the problem, it is our inability to capitalise on it. 

I agree. But the sky pundits were very dismissive of out possession for the entire 90 mins. Its no surprise both are scottish right enough. Scots seem to regard possession as something you find in a horror movie rather than on the park.

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I thought the second half was as good and as dangerous we've looked all season but we just couldn't score. 

Possesion is everything but we do need better decision making when to take a shot and when not too. 

I'm sure the stats for retaining the possession at short corners demonstrate its more positive than negatives but it doesn't stop the same moans when we don't just put it in the box. Today MW certainly started with putting it in the box and then mixed it up with the short corners which was the right thing to do.

Im sure we will get through the replay.

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16 minutes ago, cushynumber said:

In modern football, without a degree of possession then you can generally forget about winning a game. Yet today, I heard possession in football actually being disparaged live on air. “Its all very well having plenty of the ball,” or “possession  isn’t everything” spoken by 2 ex-pros to Skys David Tanner. To a degree they are right – Possession without and end product can be very frustrating to watch and almost seems pointless. Passing for passings sake, going sideways or backwards in order to retain possession can all be frustrating for a spectator. But I couldn’t help thinking that if it had been Kilmarnock with the majority of the possession, the pundits would have been heaping praise on them – and we would have been getting it in the neck for being unable to get control of the ball against a Premiership team, the way we do against Championship teams.

Additionally, there are two side to the possession game. The first is it should enable you to control the game, play the game you want to and to create chances. All very important if you actually want to win a match – and we did that today – particularly in the 2nd half. But the other side of possession is the fact that it helps you not to lose a match. If one team has possession, the other can’t score – it’s as simple as that. Additionally, no team likes chasing the ball. It’s hard tiring work and can leach the energy out of teams who find that when they do get the ball, they are just that little bit slower on it, make mistakes and duly surrender the ball back. So the defensive side of having possession of the ball seems to be very much overlooked  - and pundits NEVER talk about it - EVER. I find that strange.

We need to keep playing exactly in possession game we do. Its modern football. It is making us entertaining to watch and It contributes to the amount of clean sheets we are starting to rack up.  There is still a huge amount of negativity surrounding us – and ex-players can easily get caught up in that negativity themselves – almost without meaning to.

 

Jack Wilshere :“It’s important to always try and play forwards, because that’s where the goal is, but if you can’t go forward, play sideways – keeping possession is the most important thing.
 

A couple of hours ago the the EPL......

Man City 66% of possession to Leicester's 34%. Possession isn't everything if you don't do enough with it.

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1 minute ago, the brown brogue said:

A couple of hours ago the the EPL......

Man City 66% of possession to Leicester's 34%. Possession isn't everything if you don't do enough with it.

I am not disputing that. But do you think Man city will abandon the way they play? or will they be saying we have to be more clinical and we have to defend better?

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You should remember that was coming from a rabid Tim who would shop his granny to Focus for half a chance to say something negative about our great club.

We played reasonably well albeit a bit too predictable in the first half, on a different day with a little more luck we would have scored.

We just need to move the ball a bit quicker, take a few more shots from long range, concentrate on hitting the byline and turning defenders.

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1 minute ago, Big Al II said:

You should remember that was coming from a rabid Tim who would shop his granny to Focus for half a chance to say something negative about our great club.

We played reasonably well albeit a bit too predictable in the first half, on a different day with a little more luck we would have scored.

We just need to move the ball a bit quicker, take a few more shots from long range, concentrate on hitting the byline and turning defenders.

It wasn't  - its was coming from McCann and Smith too. Tanner gave them a line and the took it and ran with it.

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There is I think a saying that goes something like 'possession is nine-tenths of the law'.   But in football possession without an end product of goals - more than that goals that win games - is interesting but not the end of the matter.   Winning enough league games to win promotion is what matters this season. 

We seem to have no problem in seizing the ball and possessing it.   We seem to have no problem in creating chances and half chances.   Over the piece so far we have scored lots of goals and sit top of the league with a massive positive goal difference.   Latterly though transferring that possession and the high volume of chances created into actual goals has been proving to be a problem.   No experienced proven goal-scoring striker brought in during the Jan transfer window so presumably MW thinks there is enough firepower in the squad's locker to win the league even if it means passing up on so many chances created.    Nervy stuff to watch though and it'll get nervier as we approach the end of the season if MW cannot find a way to take more of the chances their possession play produces.   

I see Dundee Utd have today signed a striker.   How come they can do this after the transfer window shuts?   Wonder if MW now thinks we should be doing the same to give Waggy a bit of an incentive to start to convert more of the chances being presented to him.   

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14 minutes ago, Bad Robot said:

I thought the second half was as good and as dangerous we've looked all season but we just couldn't score. 

Possesion is everything but we do need better decision making when to take a shot and when not too. 

I'm sure the stats for retaining the possession at short corners demonstrate its more positive than negatives but it doesn't stop the same moans when we don't just put it in the box. Today MW certainly started with putting it in the box and then mixed it up with the short corners which was the right thing to do.

Im sure we will get through the replay.

I don't care what anybody says, we're capable of hammering anyone in the country (if we play like we've shown we can) bar the top 3. The other 3 we're capable of beating.

Wouldn't be surprised if we beat Kille 5 or 6-0 in the replay. However at the same time I equally known that if we don't convert our chances (like today) we could also lose an undeserved goal at the end.

Zelalem is horrid, period. I wish we'd terminate his loan deal, done absolutely nothing impressive since he's came. Holt wasn't match fit, after just coming back from injury and missing a few games. We were without O'Halloran and King who could have had an impact.

Couldn't possibly fathom why anybody would be worried about our situation at the moment.

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