Who Needs Possession? 39.6% vs 60.4%

[rockinj]

It’s not a black and white issue.

Because things have gone very very bad for a while with ridiculous possession stats doesn’t mean playing on deck and trying to maintain possession is wrong.

The problem for a while is a lack of pragmatism. Wrong personnel etc.

Football should never be ideological, its requires being adaptable to a situation. We’ve just fallen into this mentality that keeping the ball at all costs is the way to go. Nonsense.

But do I want to revert to long ball? Good God no!

 

[ARQS]

Out of curiosity, what was the possession 1st half compared to 2nd half?

Pretty much identical both halves.

First half didn't feel like it but most of their possession was at the back, going nowhere fast.

I thought today was excellent again. Possession is irrelevant to me.

 

[magicdaps10]

Pretty much identical both halves.

First half didn't feel like it but most of their possession was at the back, going nowhere fast.

I thought today was excellent again. Possession is irrelevant to me.

Interesting.

I thought we pressed superbly first half and feared that we would struggle to keep it up.....which we did especially from Vipotnik and Eom up top.

 

[Cooperman]

Today provided further evidence of how our players have been coached to be robotic for the last few seasons. If our owners are looking to take us back to the Russ and Luke model then we’re going to be in trouble again very soon.

 

[monmouth]

It’s not a black and white issue.

Because things have gone very very bad for a while with ridiculous possession stats doesn’t mean playing on deck and trying to maintain possession is wrong.

The problem for a while is a lack of pragmatism. Wrong personnel etc.

Football should never be ideological, its requires being adaptable to a situation. We’ve just fallen into this mentality that keeping the ball at all costs is the way to go. Nonsense.

But do I want to revert to long ball? Good God no!

Yes, it's not the either or ('possession' or long ball') that seems to have become the fashion. Yet more tribal twatter type nonsense. Quick incisive passing on the deck, looking to damage your opponent, using clever angles, needs the ball, so you must have 'possession' to do it. Some of those incisive on the floor passes can be 'long' though. Having the ability to knock it long in the air as well can be a help in creating the space to play on the floor if the opposition just compress the space. Coaches and teams need to be adaptable. People at ManUre claiming it's not Amorim's fault because he can't get half a billion pounds worth of players to win a game are deluded. Of course you can try and acquire, train, develop people, but a manager (in any trade) that can't adapt to his current resources, and make the best of them, is a shit manager. Philosophy, my arse.

 

[rockinj]

Yes, it's not the either or ('possession' or long ball') that seems to have become the fashion. Yet more tribal twatter type nonsense. Quick incisive passing on the deck, looking to damage your opponent, using clever angles, needs the ball, so you must have 'possession' to do it. Some of those incisive on the floor passes can be 'long' though. Having the ability to knock it long in the air as well can be a help in creating the space to play on the floor if the opposition just compress the space. Coaches and teams need to be adaptable. People at ManUre claiming it's not Amorim's fault because he can't get half a billion pounds worth of players to win a game are deluded. Of course you can try and acquire, train, develop people, but a manager (in any trade) that can't adapt to his current resources, and make the best of them, is a shit manager. Philosophy, my arse.

Exactly when did long “passes” become a bad thing. Switching play is adventurous and aggressive.

Aimless long ball football is idiotic but then just playing on deck for the sake it is too. As someone who is a massive advocate of passing football is annoys me how much this debate has shifted.

Also as you allude to its tempo as well. Playing at pace and defending at pace is also key.

Slow possession football without purpose is dull. Super dull.

 

[Smurph]

As far as I am concerned the only stat that bothers me is the goals for and against at the end of the game.

Take the PSG, Liverpool game as an example of that.

 

[Swans Jack]

Interesting in Sheehan post Match, when he talks about our style of play, he says, ''It's different, I undertand that, but it's the best way for now.''

For me let it continue, we have been too much obsessed with passing, passing, passing. I brought this up a few weeks to debate on what is Swansea Way. If it means this is the direction, then I'm happy. It shows that everytime we have the ball we want to do something with it. I would rather that than have it 80% and do nothing with it. Give me 36% and within that actually do something.

 

[Smurph]

Interesting in Sheehan post Match, when he talks about our style of play, he says, ''It's different, I undertand that, but it's the best way for now.''

For me let it continue, we have been too much obsessed with passing, passing, passing. I brought this up a few weeks to debate on what is Swansea Way. If it means this is the direction, then I'm happy. It shows that everytime we have the ball we want to do something with it. I would rather that than have it 80% and do nothing with it. Give me 36% and within that actually do something.

What's the point of dominating the ball if you don't score.

You get fuck all points wise for having 90% possession.

 

[Swansea93]

As David Moyes said before when his West Ham team had 30% of the ball against Brighton 'They can take the ball home, I’ll take the 3 points' always love that quote.

 

[Smurph]

As David Moyes said before when his West Ham team had 30% of the ball against Brighton 'They can take the ball home, I’ll take the 3 points' always love that quote.

Exactly.

West Ham wanted a better style of play and ended up sacking their new manager whilst Moyes is working wonders at Everton.

 

[rockinj]

Haha the long ball merchants are out justifying their love of the ugly game.

‘Ave it

 

[rockinj]

And to add context to last post.

There’s nothing desirable about 30% possession.

That doesn’t mean you can’t win a football match but by having more of the ball you’re by definition controlling more of the game.

The debate is centred around what you’re doing with the ball.

So a good passing team will take risks with more incisive passing, the occasional long pass to switch up play or to identify opportunities not being wedded to a one dimensional style of play.

A good healthy possession stat is around 55-60% in favour but with higher proportionality towards offensive football.

By having more possession you’re also less likely to concede. It’s all trade offs.

But let’s not kid ourselves because there are games when the stats are weighted towards low possession that this is a desirable state of affairs. 75% possession and feck all aggression or risk taking is dumb.

 

[JackSomething]

I was surprised when I saw this thread when I got in yesterday, because I genuinely didn't feel like it was a game where we had less than 40% possession. If you'd asked me straight after the game I think I would have said 50/50 at least, possibly even slightly in our favour.

It felt like we gave the ball away a lot, which does mean gifting them possession, but mostly it was in service of trying to make things happen. There were a couple of losses of possession in midfield from being tackled or loose passes, could certainly do with reducing those, but in general I'm happier to have less of the ball if we look more threatening when we do have it.

Perhaps we were just lucky and Boro were terrible with the ball (similar to us under Martin/Williams), although 3 clean sheets in a row suggests it can't just be luck. The rest of the month will tell us a lot as it's two very tough games after a trip to Watford.

 

[Itchysphincter]

The last two managers’ idea of possession football was giving all the ball to a couple of shit footballers whilst the opposition stood off and laughed at us until we fucked up the inevitable back pass from the pressure we brought on ourselves.

That’s not possession football, it’s snake oil.