Spain just had 77% possession against Japan in the WWC. Lost 4-0. Reminded me of Swansea years ago when they'd complete 200 passes and end up back at the goalkeeper. Ive always regarded the possession statistic misleading and Japan showed what a useless stat it is. Possession based teams consistently pass it backwards and across the back four to skew the stat. In my opinion it would be better to quote forward passes in final third or FPFT index
I know Barca do the possession game really well but they have world class players. Most other teams bore me to death. That Swansea game was one of the most boring games I’ve seen at Oakwell. Them passing it around the back for 80 minutes. Great! Their fans were calling us bitter because we’d lost the game but we really weren’t (or at least I wasn’t). I’ve said it loads on here before. I want front foot, high intensity attacking play. Luckily that’s generally what we try and do.
Completely agree about that Swansea match. Bored off my tits. There was a big discussion on here at the time with quite a few jealous of Swansea's style of play but like you, I want players to go forward and run at teams. There's nothing better to get the crowd roaring than a player like Adam Hammill running and carrying the ball from his own half.
Exactly. Running with purpose and passing with purpose. Not just passing it around for the sake of it.
Didn’t Leicester win the league with possession stats really slow? Edit just checked 45% with 3rd lowest in league.
Or like Kitching running almost the length of the pitch to get on the end of the cross for the 4th goal against The Wendies...
I like teams to be on the front foot and trying to score - fair enough if you are 3 goals to the good and 20 minutes left to play - then yeah, pass it around. I like to think about possession as a means to a chance on goal. Val's team was exceptionally good at turning limited possession into chances. Take that Swansea game (1-1 at Oakwell) as an example; they had 74% possession and 17 shots - one shot every 235 seconds of possession. We had 19 shots from 26% possession - or a shot every 74 seconds of possession (!!) - meaning we were creating over 3 times as many chances per minute of possession than they were. You get a similar ratio for the home play off leg against Bolton - we had a shot every 3 minutes of possession more or less; they had a shot every 8.5 minutes of possession (in a game they had to win)
I went to Crystal Palace away few years ago under Keith Hill, we had 96% possession 968 successfull passes , I was sat with Palace fans, they thought we were amazing , no shots on goal though. Palace scored in injury time won 1 0. It's OK this possession Larky. I wasn't impressed by it.
