Possession Football

[RFC Eagle 4,888]

20 minutes ago, baxterboy said:

aye, ok ref, i've told you you were right.

what more do you want?

and put that fuckin' yellow card away!

[Young Bob 1,360]

Souness had teams that knocked the ball across the backline until an opening appeared. Our problem yesterday was converting possession into goals. Our team is not good enough to play this system at a higher level. I would like to see two top quality players added to our defence, midfield and frontline.

[Gooseman 889]

20 hours ago, LeeWallaceRFC said:

Exactly, Man City's shooting accuracy is pish. Just like ours was today.

The difference between Kilmarnock and Leicester is that Kilmarnock didn't come to play,  they parked the bus and tried to stop us playing.  That is very difficult to break down.  We had a couple of chances and more natural strikers would have scored. 

[baxterboy 476]

12 hours ago, RFC Eagle said:

i fuckin' knew that was comin'!!!

refs....yerr all the same.....

i remember tusseling with a canadian national cb in the final of a university championship game.

my elbow caught him in the solar plexus and he went down. when i bent over to to see if he was ok, their midfielder punched me hard on the side of  the neck.

i turned to the ref and asked him if he saw that which he had.

he said 'no'.

ten minutes later, i tapped the midfielder on the shoulder and when he turned around, i asked him if he remembered me, then banjoed him and he went down.

the ref turned around and showed me the red card.

i asked him, how he could have seen what happened.

he said, 'i didn't see it but i heard it. You're off!'

fuckin' refs!!!

[KingKirk 25,577]

killie were out on there feet after a hour yesterday. Simply because they were constantly chasing the ball in short sharp spurts the damage that does to minds and legs shouldn't be underestimated. Yes we must be more clinical but am sure that side will come with additions in the summer.

Credit must go to the gaffer and our team for implementing a European style of play amongst the hammer throwers and shit of Scottish football.

we've proven against hibs on the first day come and play open attacking football v us n you will get pump. I believe that would be the case no matter who we faced in Scotland

[RFC Eagle 4,888]

29 minutes ago, baxterboy said:

i fuckin' knew that was comin'!!!

refs....yerr all the same.....

i remember tusseling with a canadian national cb in the final of a university championship game.

my elbow caught him in the solar plexus and he went down. when i bent over to to see if he was ok, their midfielder punched me hard on the side of  the neck.

i turned to the ref and asked him if he saw that which he had.

he said 'no'.

ten minutes later, i tapped the midfielder on the shoulder and when he turned around, i asked him if he remembered me, then banjoed him and he went down.

the ref turned around and showed me the red card.

i asked him, how he could have seen what happened.

he said, 'i didn't see it but i heard it. You're off!'

fuckin' refs!!!

So you should have been sent off twice ('my elbow caught him', aye right) and their midfielder once? Seems the first incident was 'I'll keep it at 11 a side' and you decided to start things up again without the necessary subtlety. I've managed to get my retaliation in when needed  and never been booked or sent off. Its easy if you know how.

[Ozblue 4,331]

16 hours ago, Smile said:

It was a red card beats me how anyone can think it was not Tav was lucky he wasn't seriously injured,

I'll tell you why some would not think it a Red, mate!  It's called  changes to the rules through different generations.

By the laws of the game as they are today,Higginbotham deserved a red card for dangerous play,whether it was malicious or intended matters not because  he went in with his studs raised at a height that could cause serious injury to an opponent.

As the rules were back in say the 1980's for example, that same tackle would possibly have been a yellow card at the most but most probably the referee would have gave the culprit a ticking off and a free kick to the opposition (depending on who the referee was) and no more would have been said about it. Now if we go even further back to the 1940's - 1960's for example, such a tackle was normal and wouldn't have even raised a comment on it; in fact, if a referee had given a free-kick for such a tackle he would have been laughed out of town,as in those days we could put goalkeeper,ball and all into the back of the net and it was a goal. I won't even go into the "coaching manual" that allowed players to go right through the back of the player with the ball and leave him on the deck writhing in agony as the opposition team fucked off up the park and scored.

Changed days indeed.

[baxterboy 476]

7 hours ago, RFC Eagle said:

So you should have been sent off twice ('my elbow caught him', aye right) and their midfielder once? Seems the first incident was 'I'll keep it at 11 a side' and you decided to start things up again without the necessary subtlety. I've managed to get my retaliation in when needed  and never been booked or sent off. Its easy if you know how.

the cb had nailed me twice in the ribs prior to my elbow 10 minutes later.

the ref missed both blatant calls. y'know the usual incompetence

if the ref had been doing his job which, of course, is asking a lot, then my elbow wouldn't have been necessary, and if the ref isn't gonna protect you then you have to do it yourself, right!

i thought i was dead subtle when i banjoed him, didn't figure refs had such acute hearing skills, makes up for the blindness, i guess.

always thought you were all a bit batty 

 

[Ozblue 4,331]

One of the reasons we get so much possession in games is because the opposition DON'T (or can't) play possession football, so more times than not when we lose the ball in the opposition 3rd of the field  we regain it reasonably quickly by virtue of the opponent trying to play long or high balls down the park. Since we tightened our defensive frailties up and become more compact this tactic isn't working as well as previously when we were getting ripped apart in central defence as was proven against Killie where they got limited chances to cause damage and were left chasing their tails for the majority of the game.

We play a frustrating game at times; not because we play possession football but because we tend to make life very difficult for ourselves when we get about 25 yards from goal. It's when we get in that area of the field we should be playing a more direct style that doesn't allow the opposition players who were attacking us a moment earlier to get back behind the ball in a 10 man barrier around the penalty box. We seem to have this idea that we have to wait until we are 12 yards or closer to the goal before we pull the trigger; for example, how many shots at goal (apart from free-kicks) have we tried from around the 18 yard box? Not many from what I can remember.

 

Possession football is the only way to play the game, but it's only productive depending where you have possession and what you do with it.

[dan_ger 1,454]

We didn't have that much possession against Killie.  Think it was 55%. 

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

On 6 February 2016 at 3:44 PM, 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.

This - same in the Everton game - I still remember during our 9 in a row run everyone saying how good a football team Celric were and we kept beating them - it's all about end product no matter what philosophy we adopt. 

[Heshootshescores 1,904]

Jackson clearly expects Stubbs to be the next Smeltic manager and has started kissing his arse already in anticipation. I've copied the sections from his article today demonstrating an unveiled attack on Mark Warburton's  modern possession-based approach to the game. 

I can't believe there's still some out there who consider Jackson to be unbiased. 

 

 

So far this season, Stubbs has kept in touch with Rangers at the top of the Championship table despite spending a fraction of what Mark Warburton has splurged on wages and transfer fees. He’s taken a second tier outfit into one national cup final and, after yesterday’s drama at Tynecastle, he’s still in with a shout of claiming the other.

At this moment in time, if there is a stronger or more obvious candidate to be named as Scotland’s manager of the season then he’s doing a good job of hiding his credentials somewhere.

Not that the Hibs boss is the sort to come out blowing his own trumpet. There’s something quietly impressive about Stubbs the man.

For starters, he’s refreshingly straightforward. Not for him all this mystic talk of managerial or tactical philosophies. a great deal of which belong on the land of make believe.

When Stubbs first took the job on at Hibs he dismissed all of that guff for the gobbledy gook that it is. Instead, he made it clear that his only true belief was in finding a way to win football matches. Whichever way is necessary.

That displayed a level of good old fashioned pragmatism - an essential quality for any manager and yet one which has been made to feel outdated and maybe even regressive by football’s new breed of head-in-the-cloud hipsters.

It’s one thing to stick rigidly to purist principles when you have a front three of Messi, Neymar and Suarez but for those less fortunate, there is a need to be more flexible and to work accordingly with what you’ve got.'

 

[Ryju84 3,170]

9 hours ago, KingKirk said:

killie were out on there feet after a hour yesterday. Simply because they were constantly chasing the ball in short sharp spurts the damage that does to minds and legs shouldn't be underestimated. Yes we must be more clinical but am sure that side will come with additions in the summer.

Credit must go to the gaffer and our team for implementing a European style of play amongst the hammer throwers and shit of Scottish football.

we've proven against hibs on the first day come and play open attacking football v us n you will get pump. I believe that would be the case no matter who we faced in Scotland

Which is why I believe we would beat Celtic tomorrow. (And I know not everyone agrees). They would not sit back, we would only have to keep an eye on their "threats" (i.e. Griffiths), Brown would be Hallidays little bitch - although I'd be putting money on red cards for both of them - and Waghorn/Mackay would have their defenders in their back pocket. 

[sausagetrunks 6,006]

4-5 good signings needed, not mediocre free signings from Englands lower leagues. 

[writingranger 1,412]

1 hour ago, Heshootshescores said:

Jackson clearly expects Stubbs to be the next Smeltic manager and has started kissing his arse already in anticipation. I've copied the sections from his article today demonstrating an unveiled attack on Mark Warburton's  modern possession-based approach to the game. 

I can't believe there's still some out there who consider Jackson to be unbiased. 

 

 

So far this season, Stubbs has kept in touch with Rangers at the top of the Championship table despite spending a fraction of what Mark Warburton has splurged on wages and transfer fees. He’s taken a second tier outfit into one national cup final and, after yesterday’s drama at Tynecastle, he’s still in with a shout of claiming the other.

At this moment in time, if there is a stronger or more obvious candidate to be named as Scotland’s manager of the season then he’s doing a good job of hiding his credentials somewhere.

Not that the Hibs boss is the sort to come out blowing his own trumpet. There’s something quietly impressive about Stubbs the man.

For starters, he’s refreshingly straightforward. Not for him all this mystic talk of managerial or tactical philosophies. a great deal of which belong on the land of make believe.

When Stubbs first took the job on at Hibs he dismissed all of that guff for the gobbledy gook that it is. Instead, he made it clear that his only true belief was in finding a way to win football matches. Whichever way is necessary.

That displayed a level of good old fashioned pragmatism - an essential quality for any manager and yet one which has been made to feel outdated and maybe even regressive by football’s new breed of head-in-the-cloud hipsters.

It’s one thing to stick rigidly to purist principles when you have a front three of Messi, Neymar and Suarez but for those less fortunate, there is a need to be more flexible and to work accordingly with what you’ve got.'

 

I always thought Jackson never hid he was a Celtic fan. I'm probably wrong though. I'm not sure his unsubtle hints about "tactical philosophies" are about Warburton. I think he's referring to Deila. He's making a pitch for Stubbs as their next manager. In my book, that kind of talk would just destabilise Hibs. Stubbs has done OK, but Warburton is better. He's building a team that is nowhere near it's peak yet, and will grow in confidence and precision to rival the Advocaat teams at a fraction of the cost and, vitally, have a club infrastructure that will sustain that quality far into the future.

I remember the big criticism of Scottish teams in Europe was that they couldn't retain possession. This was particularly true of Rangers. Those games against a startlingly good Juventus illustrated it best. We chased shadows and were hopeless against teams that could counter attack. Now, because Rangers plays possession football it's not important anymore - look at Leicester, they say. The fact that Leicester breaks all the rules this one season actually shows there's far more to them as a team than a lack of possession. It's decision making Warburton will be focusing on - the right pass at the right time. The right run, the right feint, the right time to shoot. He may have to revert back to Halliday in the CDM role for a little while because of Kiernan's injury, but you can guarantee that it's breaking down defences while keeping possession he'll be working on.

[Smile 26,600]

1 minute ago, writingranger said:

I always thought Jackson never hid he was a Celtic fan. I'm probably wrong though. I'm not sure his unsubtle hints about "tactical philosophies" are about Warburton. I think he's referring to Deila. He's making a pitch for Stubbs as their next manager. In my book, that kind of talk would just destabilise Hibs. Stubbs has done OK, but Warburton is better. He's building a team that is nowhere near it's peak yet, and will grow in confidence and precision to rival the Advocaat teams at a fraction of the cost and, vitally, have a club infrastructure that will sustain that quality far into the future.

I remember the big criticism of Scottish teams in Europe was that they couldn't retain possession. This was particularly true of Rangers. Those games against a startlingly good Juventus illustrated it best. We chased shadows and were hopeless against teams that could counter attack. Now, because Rangers plays possession football it's not important anymore - look at Leicester, they say. The fact that Leicester breaks all the rules this one season actually shows there's far more to them as a team than a lack of possession. It's decision making Warburton will be focusing on - the right pass at the right time. The right run, the right feint, the right time to shoot. He may have to revert back to Halliday in the CDM role for a little while because of Kiernan's injury, but you can guarantee that it's breaking down defences while keeping possession he'll be working on.

Stubbs has had longer to build a team that Warburton who's never played or worked in Scottish football, he has done well against the SPL teams but its the league that counts this season and in that respect we are easily better, the head to heads show that

Stubbs also looks like he's borrowed his nose from an Elephant..

[cushynumber 25,178]

1 hour ago, Heshootshescores said:

Jackson clearly expects Stubbs to be the next Smeltic manager and has started kissing his arse already in anticipation. I've copied the sections from his article today demonstrating an unveiled attack on Mark Warburton's  modern possession-based approach to the game. 

I can't believe there's still some out there who consider Jackson to be unbiased. 

 

 

So far this season, Stubbs has kept in touch with Rangers at the top of the Championship table despite spending a fraction of what Mark Warburton has splurged on wages and transfer fees. He’s taken a second tier outfit into one national cup final and, after yesterday’s drama at Tynecastle, he’s still in with a shout of claiming the other.

At this moment in time, if there is a stronger or more obvious candidate to be named as Scotland’s manager of the season then he’s doing a good job of hiding his credentials somewhere.

Not that the Hibs boss is the sort to come out blowing his own trumpet. There’s something quietly impressive about Stubbs the man.

For starters, he’s refreshingly straightforward. Not for him all this mystic talk of managerial or tactical philosophies. a great deal of which belong on the land of make believe.

When Stubbs first took the job on at Hibs he dismissed all of that guff for the gobbledy gook that it is. Instead, he made it clear that his only true belief was in finding a way to win football matches. Whichever way is necessary.

That displayed a level of good old fashioned pragmatism - an essential quality for any manager and yet one which has been made to feel outdated and maybe even regressive by football’s new breed of head-in-the-cloud hipsters.

It’s one thing to stick rigidly to purist principles when you have a front three of Messi, Neymar and Suarez but for those less fortunate, there is a need to be more flexible and to work accordingly with what you’ve got.'

 

what have we spent on transfers? barely anything. Certainly that is utter nonsense re the  "fraction" comment. The whole article is essentially digs at MW - without naming him - the " managerial or tactical philosophies" is a really quite amazing comment.

This goes hand in hand almost with the negativity surrounding us I pointed out at the start of this thread. As soon as Rangers start doing something on the park, its suddenly seen as a bit shit. "Possession isn't everything" etc,  -  - and here we are on Monday and a footballing philosophy is now "gobbledy gook" for "football’s new breed of head-in-the-cloud hipsters".

I actually think Stubbs is a decent manager and has done well with Hibs - I defo believe they will go up via the playoffs as they are a decent outfit. I dont believe we should be slagging Hibs off either, as it diminishes our own achievement in beating them if we diminish them. But this KJ piece is as pathetic a piece as I have read - Talk up stubbs all you like - but why stick the boot in at the same time?

Incidentally, for the record we are also still in one cup - and are top of our league by 8 points - and are also in a cup final that Hibs failed to get to (what happened there?). We are a second tier outfit as well.

Maybe its courageous journalism in action once again.

[The Wire 242]

2 hours ago, Heshootshescores said:

Jackson clearly expects Stubbs to be the next Smeltic manager and has started kissing his arse already in anticipation. I've copied the sections from his article today demonstrating an unveiled attack on Mark Warburton's  modern possession-based approach to the game. 

I can't believe there's still some out there who consider Jackson to be unbiased. 

 

 

So far this season, Stubbs has kept in touch with Rangers at the top of the Championship table despite spending a fraction of what Mark Warburton has splurged on wages and transfer fees. He’s taken a second tier outfit into one national cup final and, after yesterday’s drama at Tynecastle, he’s still in with a shout of claiming the other.

At this moment in time, if there is a stronger or more obvious candidate to be named as Scotland’s manager of the season then he’s doing a good job of hiding his credentials somewhere.

Not that the Hibs boss is the sort to come out blowing his own trumpet. There’s something quietly impressive about Stubbs the man.

For starters, he’s refreshingly straightforward. Not for him all this mystic talk of managerial or tactical philosophies. a great deal of which belong on the land of make believe.

When Stubbs first took the job on at Hibs he dismissed all of that guff for the gobbledy gook that it is. Instead, he made it clear that his only true belief was in finding a way to win football matches. Whichever way is necessary.

That displayed a level of good old fashioned pragmatism - an essential quality for any manager and yet one which has been made to feel outdated and maybe even regressive by football’s new breed of head-in-the-cloud hipsters.

It’s one thing to stick rigidly to purist principles when you have a front three of Messi, Neymar and Suarez but for those less fortunate, there is a need to be more flexible and to work accordingly with what you’ve got.'

 

Whilst Hibs won't have as much of a budget I doubt it's "a fraction" of ours which implies they've had very little. 

It also overlooks how MW was able to put a team together in a few weeks which went on an 11 game winning run. Stubbs has had far longer to assemble a team. 

Credit where it's due, they've done well in the cups (Petrofac aside) but at this stage they're still in the lottery of the playoffs and they have Falkirk breathing down their necks.

Celtic appointing Stubbs would be good news for us. Hardly a marquee appointment. 

[lanarkshire_bear 83]

The gaffer's plan is to keep this style of play and get better and better at it. I can't help but be excited by what I'm seeing on the pitch. We are playing what I regard to be proper football; when we get it right we look brilliant and teams get a doing.

Stacked against that are the teams that come to defend and every now and again, we are going to have an off day and the defensive side will get a draw or steal a goal on the counter or whatever.

While the team has done really well so far, they have only been together for a short time and the gaffer hasn't even had a full season yet. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the summer because if we are not going to change our style much, then we can hopefully expect a few better players to implement it.

Before that though, think about the next Kilmarnock game. Are they really going to sit back and defend in numbers in their own place? It's possible, but if they do then it shows how far we've come already when a Premiership side is afraid to open up even if they are at home. But if they do open up and want to stand toe-to-toe with us, then I am confident we will do to them what we did to Hibs.

 

 

[mus 1,374]

To be fair, when a top tier side have to play their cf as a centre half for the last 15 mins we must be doing something right!!

[MaddistonKnight 1,567]

1 hour ago, The Wire said:

Whilst Hibs won't have as much of a budget I doubt it's "a fraction" of ours which implies they've had very little. 

It also overlooks how MW was able to put a team together in a few weeks which went on an 11 game winning run. Stubbs has had far longer to assemble a team. 

Credit where it's due, they've done well in the cups (Petrofac aside) but at this stage they're still in the lottery of the playoffs and they have Falkirk breathing down their necks.

Celtic appointing Stubbs would be good news for us. Hardly a marquee appointment. 

"Fraction of the budget"?

They don't need much of a fucking budget when half their team are on loan from the filth! Another arse of a journalist ignoring the elephant in the room. And before anyone says it, it is immaterial that we have loanees - KJ has made a very specific statement, aimed at us, which ignores a truth pertaining to the costs of running the Hibs operation.

[GersInCanada 7,775]

Possession is very important despite what pundits claim. My only critiisism is with possession for it's own sake. Too often it just leads to defenses being given all the time they need to get organised. I would rather see the ball knocked into a dangerous area with players pressing very high up the park to cause a bit of panic rather than the safe backward or sideways pass.

[Bobby Hume 12,970]

Whacko Jacko, the courageous one, who, when he has nothing to compare his "journalistic" drivel with, descends like a stone onto the only subject that sells papers ..... The Rangers.

His opinion when it comes to us is similar to our opinion of him, the difference being that we are by far more accurate in our assessment of him than he will ever be about us.

Nothing he scribbles in his rag is of any consequence at the end of the day, and when we go marching on to success with the help of the W&W formula his mutterings will fade into even less significance.

[TonyRice1872 105]

I love the style of football Rangers play, I hope it's this like this next season too and we will easily sweep teams away. I think it's good that we are learning how to beat teams like Killie when they pack the defence now, so that we will know already at the start of next season. We basically should have won that match anyway. I think if any team tried to focus on attacking us (like Hibs did in August) then Rangers would beat them, especially considering our new signings and the new players coming on pre-contracts too.

The 2 players already lined up to come in on pre-contracts look like the best in their league and O'Halloran is one of the top 4 Prem wingers as soon as we are promoted along with McKay in my opinion(apparently James Forrester is stinking according to cfc fans so maybe we already have the best 2), I'm not sure how good hearts wingers really are yet but I hope we could sign King too if he's good which he looks. 

[Ozblue 4,331]

I've just been reading the report and the comments from U/20's coach Ian Durrant about our 2-1 defeat against Falkirk tonight; Totally dominated possession, had a multitude of scoring opportunities that were missed, two defensive errors in the last 10 minutes when after leading 1-0 with 15 minutes remaining, we blew it.

It seems like a carbon copy of the 1st team at times regarding possession/scoring opportunities and this has to be rectified,because as I said previously, it's ok having all the possession and scoring chances,but all the good work is undone if you don't put the ball in the net.