To Press, or not To Press

Our owners want their coach to play the press. Many fans do not. But who is right?


Football can be played successfully in many different ways. You can also fail in many different ways. The press is not going to be the deciding factor. It has to be said that the press is a less successful strategy when combined with some formations (4-4-2 and 4-3-3) than it is with others (4-diamond-2 and 3-4-1-2). However, what will be crucial is the players, and the system best suited to their individual and combined talents.


Stendel attempted to play the press attached to 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. He was successful in league 1, but when the quality of the opposition improved, it was too open and we were punished on the break because our opponents took a bigger proportion of their chances. The problem was that those systems do not leave enough players in covering positions as a precaution when the press fails. In that respect, 4-diamond-2 and 3-4-1-2 leave more players in deeper positions and are better systems to associate with the press. Having said that, the press must be linked to the right players. Cauley Woodrow could not get in our team towards the end of last season because the press worked better with Brown and Chaplin as our main pressers, and with Thomas as our No10. Many did not rate any of those players. They did not score enough goals. That is undoubtedly true, but they were there to be our first line of defence, and if they did their job well, they would not have to score as many goals, because the opposition would score even less.


That was the foundation to our success at the end of last season, but one player was crucial to the way that the system worked. Jacob Brown was indefatigable. You simply could not tire him, no matter how much running he did. He closed down quicker than anyone, and that put the defender with the ball under pressure constantly. If he didn’t tackle the man with the ball, he blocked the pass, and if he did not do that, he forced the passer to rush his pass, which was inaccurate as a result, and much easier for those behind him to win back. Others may not have appreciated Jacob Brown, but I knew how important he was to our system.


That importance is immediately obvious in the goals that we are conceding this season. Reading, Middlesbrough, Bristol City and Stoke have all scored 2 goals against us. There will be those who say that those goals had nothing to do with the press. They will describe in detail who made the error for each of the goals we conceded, and in a sense, they will be right. Error is at the heart of every goal. The point about the press is that it keeps the ball further away from the areas of the field where errors matter. There is nothing that I can point at in order to make my point, because you cannot illustrate something that did not happen. The error did not happen in a crucial position because the ball was in a less dangerous place, is a hard conclusion to justify, but nevertheless, I insist that it is true. Without Brown, our press is much less effective. There is more time for opposition defenders to pass more accurately, more opportunity for other opposition players to be constructive. It is easier to get the ball into dangerous areas of the field, and even if the goal results from a set-piece, the press is relevant, because the corner may not have been conceded, or the foul not awarded if an earlier press had worked well, and a passing error resulted from it.


Now these ideas are hard to argue, because if something does not produce an immediate result, it tends to be dismissed. If a Barnsley goal does not result from pressure in the opponents half, then the press is deemed not to have worked, and there are very few occasions when that could have been said to have happened. For some, cause and effect must be clearly linked for the effect to be demonstrated. For some, Brown was hopeless because he missed too many chances. All I would say is this. The game is considerably more subtle than that, and you are going to get far more out of it if you try to understand more of its subtleties. I know that sounds arrogant, but please think about it before you fly off in a rage.

 

Theres no doubt the press is suffering without Brown, but the team will adapt and learn.
From what I have seen the issue is not so much the pressing but what we actually do with the ball instead, time after time our press is successful in turning the ball over but we then fail to capitalise far too often by misplaced passes.
It's not something new, The L1 team suffered from it but the quality of the opponents offensive play was in comparison poor so we was able to get the ball back more often than not.
However in the Championship this is not the case because the forwards are much better and penalise us greater.

It's almost like in training we concentrate on how the guys should press as a team, but not on what to do with the ball when its won. Of course this can't be true but when you see the way we lose the balls sometimes it does make you wonder.

 

My post concentrated upon the press as a defensive tool, because that is how I think it is most valuable, and where I believe the differences are as compared to last season. Scoring goals is a whole different problem, in my view. Rich owners who are ready to flout the FFP rules are willing to pay big money to find players who can pull out the big play. Our owners are not willing to spend big, and that is not a criticism, by the way. I would much rather see a clever Coach achieve the seemingly impossible through his ability to see a way of playing in the players at his disposal, that no-one else has seen. That is when a Coach proves himself, rather than just picking the best eleven players in the league and sending them out to do their thing. OK, it is not something that floats everyone's boat, but it would be much more frustrating to watch Barnsley FC than it is now, if I was to expect us to field the best players every week. That is not going to happen.

 

Can’t disagree with anything that you have put there and you raise an interesting point about it being used as a defensive tool.
The whole point of the press is for it to be an offensive tool, to give the team an advantage going forward as they are already further up the pitch. Which sort of makes my point about us not using the offensive opportunity we create to full benefit.

So if we can’t utilise the press effectively in an offensive manner it surely then raises the question if the players going forward can’t be effective, we are either using the wrong tactics or wrong players.

 

The problem is that the players who are ideally suited to the press, are not as good at the attacking side of the game, and Jacob Brown is the obvious example. The ones that are good at both aspects are very expensive, and are playing for the top teams. It is all part of the wonderful argument that is football. Devising a system of play that suits your playing assets is always the challenge, no matter whether that includes the press or not. Only the very best can excel at performing that trick more than once.

 

So we don't have enough tools in our defence?

 

The problem I have with this idea that the club will look for a coach that likes to press is the idea that it is a style of play. Stendel's style was different to Struber's, Klopp's style is different to Guardiola's.

Fans always want their team to press, how long does it take for a defender to have the ball, until there are cries of "CLOSE HIM DOWN!" from the stands. Happened for decades. Personally, I think the constant pressing is no good if you're no good on the ball once you get it. I suspect one of the reasons our finishing has been so woeful is that our attackers are simply knackered. Would Frieser have had the energy to finish like he did in first half injury time if he'd spent 45 mins running around like a headless chicken closing down defenders?

More important for me is if we can get our midfielders to control the game. Which is more likely if we can get James, Mowatt and Kane as a midfield three.

 

The press is different to what you have described. It is not the closing down of a defender who has had too much time on the ball, and neither is it the headless chicken chasing of the man with the ball. It is planned by the coaching staff prior to the start of the game and is dependent upon the playing style and system of the opposition. The coaching staff will often talk about triggers. These triggers are the scenarios that have been discussed with our players before the game, the situations that are designed to trigger a particular response from the whole of our team, and not just the players doing the pressing. A trigger might be the ball in the opposition goalkeeper's hands with opposition players in the full back positions. If the keeper plays the ball short, that will trigger a particular reaction. The full back will be allowed to receive the ball, but he will immediately be put under pressure. The rest of our team know that the pressure will result in an early release of the ball, and they will push forward in an attempt to win the subsequent pass. That is the only trigger that I recognise, but I am sure that there are others that I have not yet recognised. The press is the quick closing down of the player on the ball, so that he has to release it before he is ready to, and as such, it is more subtle than just working your nuts off.

That sort of game needs the right players, and that is why we have put so much effort into the system that identifies the right players for the club to sign. The planning goes into every level of the game. It identifies players with potential to play the right way, the way that the owners see the game, at every level of the club. Because the owners see the game that way, they can plan to that level of detail. It is pointless arguing for something different, because the whole club is organised around that system of play and huge amounts of time and effort have gone into the system that we use, coach who picks the team and plans the games in detail, and the players who play within it.

 

Completely agree with your view on Jacob Brown and his value to the team and system RR.

 

If the original post wasn't meant to be arrogant why did you think it was. Was it your superior knowledge on everything football related?

I actually agreed with you until your jibe at us mere mortals at end of the post.

If Jacob Rees Mogg did football.

 

Again, don’t disagree with you’re reasoning, but if so much detail goes into it, why do so many balls go astray when we are in possession? I’m not talking about interception from the opposition, but passes that go to no one?

It can’t be because they are poor footballers technically, because all of them from 1-11 can use the ball, that only leaves either lack of knowledge from the team of formations in attack or inability from the players to follow them instructions.

 

If all goals conceded are because we're playing the press then we definitely shouldn't play it. We'll go up as Champions with the best defensive record in the league. Unless it turns out that teams who don't play the press also concede goals.

 

My point there relates to our system of recruitment only. If I understand your point properly, it relates to why so many of our attacks break down through misplaced passes, which was not really on my agenda in the title of this piece. Nevertheless, here are my thoughts.

The systems that we use (4-diamond-2 or 3-4-1-2) both include a No10 in the hole between the front 2 and the deeper midfield players. This position is crucial to the way that both systems work in an attacking sense. The front three players form a triangle, and the movement of those players is key to the creation of time and space for the final pass before the attempt on goal. The partnership of those 3 players is key to the creation of attempts on goal. In my view, it is a partnership that we have never managed to get right. I have never be happy with the player in the No10 position. Cauley Woodrow has been tried, but he just did not have the energy for it. Thomas has been tried, but he does not have the endurance for it. It is a position for which I was hoping we would seek a solution in the last transfer window. I hoped that Kane was meant to be that solution, because there is no way that we will be able to find a front 2 that are neither tall, nor quick with passes delivered from deeper in midfield. That is just not how football works. If we have not solved the No10 problem, then we have to find a forward who is either tall, or quick, because that final key pass is usually a short one, and a tall player can make that pass with his head. We are still searching for another front player on the free agent market, and I assume he will be tall. Nevertheless, scoring is the most difficult part of the game. It is where the big money is spent, and I have my doubts whether the problem can be truly solved using the free agent market.

Your point is a fair one. We are not as good at passing the ball as we should be, but it is not just about the passer. It is about the predictable movement of the players in front of the passer, and that comes from playing together, learning each other's game, and reading each other's mind. It is not something that happens overnight, especially when the team has had a lot of changes. Nevertheless, I still have my concerns about that No10 position.

 

But that is so often the answer on the BBS, isn't it. Plan A isn't working, therefore plan B must be better.

 

For what it's worth I think the personnel you adopt to press the ball and the way you line up for that period of play dictate the success of the press while the formation that you stand in for the graphic the TV company put up has very little to do with it.

If Jacob were in the team I'd have us press the opposition, with Woodrow leading the line I wouldn't.

 

Your point is the very same one as I made right at the start of my thread. The players and the system are interdependent. Like you, I do not think that we have that since Brown left, and I suspect that solving that problem will be the first one for the new Chief Coach to tackle. For me, Struber knew he was in trouble when Brown left, and that is why he was keen to move quickly, whilst his stock remained high. The new man must find a new solution, a different solution and one that frankly, I am not clever enough to see.

 

That’s exactly my point, why are the players not doing this surely it is being coached during training or have we spent too much time concentrating on not conceding during training.

 

You can debate systems as long as you like but the simple fact is we play pretty football but are weak in tackling, weak in looking up and making a simple pass in the box, we lose possession too easily, and are still prone to silly errors. Wasting good opportunities and making mistakes gets punished in the championship.

 

I'm staying off this thread.