Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: pauliewalnuts on September 20, 2014, 05:32:16 PM
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I'm not going to read too much into today's result, they are a much better team than us and we decided to gift them three goals in a very short period of time. It's not nice to watch, but these things happen.
We are clearly harder to beat on the evidence thus far, although that's a situation which changes potentially dramatically when we pick up injuries. It is still a move in the right direction, though.
However, is anyone else worried that we don't really seem to be doing much to keep the ball more often than we have for the last two years?
Today, 29% possession at home to Arsenal. OK, they're a possession side, it's not that much of a shock. However, we won at home to Hull, but did so with them having the majority of the possession (45-55). At home to Newcastle, who are a poor side, we gave them 60% possession.
I appreciate that possession does not automatically convert into results, but it is hard to consistently play well when you spend so much of the time without the ball. Yes, giving possession away and counter attacking away from home means you can still actually have control of the game (Anfield, for example), possession means nothing if you do nothing with it.
However, we are - currently - one of the bottom three sides for possession and passes completed, and we have been for the last two seasons.
I reckon Lambert wants to improve it. I am just not hugely convinced he knows how to. He certainly hasn't thus far, over the two seasons he has been here.
You will not find many sides who pretty much never have a great deal of the ball and manage to do well.
So, when does this start to improve?
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Agree, what is frustrating is the fact that we seem willing to give up possession so easily.
Unforced errors if you like.
Add the hopeful punt forward and Guzans kicking being pretty poor.
I think it is the way we play under Lambert, sit deep, defend the area between the penalty box and half way line and try to spring a counter attack. The only movement off the ball is the counter attack.
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What frustrates me is we keep seeing glimpses of how they can pass it around nicely, and even indulge us with a bit of pass and move sometimes.
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Completely agree and I've said for a while, over the long term we are not going to progress unless we have at least parity in terms of possession during a game. You can't keeping giving teams two thirds plus of the possession and hope to win too many games.
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What frustrates me is we keep seeing glimpses of how they can pass it around nicely, and even indulge us with a bit of pass and move sometimes.
That's the thing, in short bursts we can do it - and have done for both Lambert's seasons here - but we just don't do it anywhere near enough.
I know it sounds obvious, and maybe the fact that it does sound that way means I am missing something, but surely it is easier to improve as a team if you pass it to team mates more rather than the opposition, and actually try to keep the ball?
We also very rarely see our players move into space to receive the ball, either, which doesn't help. The frequency with which we'll have a man in possession and nobody makes themselves available for him, leading to a hopeful punt up field - which is at best 50/50 - is amazing.
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What frustrates me is we keep seeing glimpses of how they can pass it around nicely, and even indulge us with a bit of pass and move sometimes.
That's the thing, in short bursts we can do it - and have done for both Lambert's seasons here - but we just don't do it anywhere near enough.
I know it sounds obvious, and maybe the fact that it does sound that way means I am missing something, but surely it is easier to improve as a team if you pass it to team mates more rather than the opposition, and actually try to keep the ball?
We also very rarely see our players move into space to receive the ball, either, which doesn't help. The frequency with which we'll have a man in possession and nobody makes themselves available for him, leading to a hopeful punt up field - which is at best 50/50 - is amazing.
Yep it's very amateur and needs to be addressed.
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Possession stats can be misleading.
I'm sure the classic Olbiyun side under Mowbray scored high in that regard, but did very little in the final third.
It's quite possible that you could be a good side and perhaps only 7th/8th in the overall possession stats across the league.
However, when you are consistently in the bottom 3 when it comes to ball retention (as we have been these past few seasons), it follows that you aren't going to be much cop.
We do look more resolute defensively, but ball retention clearly needs to be improved.
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Last two seasons are possession and defending have been the weakest aspect of our game, we have done something to address the later, if we can improve the former remains to be seen. The signings of Sancez and Cleverly should improve things, but it is about getting the right balance in midfield. At the moment it looks like we still struggle when we play teams with pace in midfield and just get over run. But we should have enough to make decent progress over the season.
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That's it, KG, having lots of the ball is not a guarantee of success. Unless you do something with it, it is not going to be much help.
However, how often do teams consistently do well whilst giving the opposition 60% or more possession?
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Possession stats can be misleading.
I'm sure the classic Olbiyun side under Mowbray scored high in that regard, but did very little in the final third.
It's quite possible that you could be a good side and perhaps only 7th/8th in the overall possession stats across the league.
However, when you are consistently in the bottom 3 when it comes to ball retention (as we have been these past few seasons), it follows that you aren't going to be much cop.
We do look more resolute defensively, but ball retention clearly needs to be improved.
I'd agree with that, we don't need to be like Arsenal but we need to be a lot better than we currently are.
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We have such poor possession ratings as we are so poor technically. As someone else said you're not going to win many games with 30% possession.
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We have such poor possession ratings as we are so poor technically. As someone else said you're not going to win many games with 30% possession.
Certainly not on a consistent basis.
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The other problem with having 30% possession or less is that teams will start to work out the only way you can have success is counter attacking. It completely limits the ways in which you can win a game. If you have more possession it gives you so many more opportunities to win games.
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We give the ball away far too cheaply.We need to be more confident on the ball, and encouraged to try things.Theres a time to speed up the play and a time to just take the sting out of the game and keep the ball for a bit.We try to play on the break, and at speed all the time, hence the reason why we give the ball away.
Granted the fact that CB is not playing doesn't give us much option but to play on the counter, but Cleverley, Delph and Richardson need to have been better on the ball today, and Senderos and Aly need to be encouraged to stop booting the ball away.Vlaar would have tried to keep the ball better.
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We have such poor possession ratings as we are so poor technically. As someone else said you're not going to win many games with 30% possession.
Certainly not on a consistent basis.
I think this is the problem with the whole "the performance doesn't matter" brigade. They think that because we held on in some games and ended up winning them that that is repeatable and a means to the end but in actual fact if we ever want to improve (or entertain our fans) we have to learn to compete better in matches.
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Arsenal had a total pass tally of 814, while Villa managed 312.
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Arsenal had a total pass tally of 814, while Villa managed 312.
Well they will pass the ball more often if they have a lot more possession.
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We're playing the same kind of football as we always have under Lambert; pressing, counter-attacking stuff that doesn't necessarily rely on possession, but we have players that are able to put it to greater effect now. When we get everyone fit again we'll be ok I think. Defence had a good, old-fashioned brainfart today but we have been unlucky with injury/illness in this area (and midfield) today.
Lambert and Keane have to make sure their heads don't drop though because we've got another few weeks of very tough matches to go.
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Counter attacking teams who don't have much possession will only ever get so far, just look at us under O'Neill.
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Possession football is only one facet of the issue -albeit it's a pretty significant one.
We also need to stop being so one paced.
Although the style of play isn't identical, it's a similar problem to the English national side. They go gung-ho high tempo out of the traps, but if they don't score within the first 15-20 minutes, they don't have another gear to go to.
The better sides can switch it up. Yes, look for the early goal by all means. But if it isn't on, take the sting out of the game and keep possession for a while -even if it in non threatening areas. That gives you the chance to pace yourself and come again. Not many teams can play a relentless attacking style for 90 minutes, even the moneybags clubs.
As a counter attacking side, we do need to draw the opposition in. So you do have to strike that balance between risk and reward. But keeping the ball at times doesn't run contrary to that. The Arsenal side of the early noughties with Henry and Pires were one of the finest counter attacking sides I have seen, springing at pace and making teams even wary of winning a corner. Before that, Brian Clough's Forest of the late 80's-90's were excellent on the counter too. But they would have struggled to have much success with 30% possession in most games.
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It's tough really. We regularly finished second even under O Neill and three 6th placed finishes. It's been ingrained in our style of play for years now. We don't have a side full of technicians. We tend to go for big at the back, pace on the flanks, big man up front. With a few variations in between.
We've got a better standard of players now than we've had for a while. We should see our possession stats improve in the games from the middle of Oct through to November. The likes of Cleverley and Westwood are good on the ball. Benteke is. Grealish looks very composed on the ball too. If anyone in our side looked like a proper footballer today it was Jack. There's also Joe Cole to come in for a handful of games.
Come through the next 3 games relatively un-fucked and we can then look to express ourselves on the ball a bit more. We can do it. We were very good in the first half against Hull. We went two up and then took our foot off the gas and sat on that lead. Consequently they overtook us on possession.
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Counter attacking teams who don't have much possession will only ever get so far, just look at us under O'Neill.
We are where we are. If it's getting us points then we have to be pragmatic. We're a good couple of seasons short of the experience and quality of the MON teams as well (not to mention about a £50m spend on players), so hopefully this is just a time of consolidation before, by 2018, we win at home against the bloody Arsenal.
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I agree we are where we are, but that doesn't mean we can't aspire to be better and getting more possession of the ball is part of that.
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In pre-season we tried a number of formations. With the personnel involved I don't see why we can't adopt a 4-2-3-1 in home games and make use of our better footballers. Certainly against bottom 12 opposition we have the quality to play better football.
Against Arsenal? No chance, we're not going to out-pass them, particularly not with such a lethargic side like we had today due to the virus.
Play Cole or Grealish off Benteke. Two of Richardson, Gabby or Zogbia on the wings, and then two holding players in the middle, with Delph being the box-to-box player.
Our possession will almost certainly improve with Benteke too, as the ball sticks to him and he can bring others into play.
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We play the game at 100 miles an hour which is great to watch when those counter attacking moves work but won't mean consistant possession like a Swansea.
Our movement off the ball was been rubbish in most villa teams I've watched aswell, a player on the move will always beat someone static so explains why we seem always to lose second balls against the better teams as they're always anticipating and we're always reacting.
We still don't have a great amount of creativity in the squad so inveriably we lose the ball in tight areas.
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Guzan must have Bosnich's boots on recently...
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I think we should look at european football and play 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1 formation with Benteke upfront on his own. We need to look at Real Madrid and see how to play.
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Counter attacking teams who don't have much possession will only ever get so far, just look at us under O'Neill.
That's the problem in a nutshell. There is a glass ceiling to how far a team can get when their sole tactic is counter attacking. At some point we need to develop a Plan B, particularly for home matches.
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The only thing that annoys me about possession stats is not that we don't play that way. It's knowing that we can and don't try and do it more often.
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The only thing that annoys me about possession stats is not that we don't play that way. It's knowing that we can and don't try and do it more often.
I think that's a fair comment.
Also, if you look at Lambert's first season, we scored some of the best goals I've seen us score in years and years, and most of them came about as a result of possession football.
Frequently, we'll play poorly in a game, then put together even a short period of possession, and we'll get something out of it.
I just don't get how, for years, we have shown that ability but constantly end up the 18th (or so) lowest possession team in the league.
I think the points made above by those talking about MON are absolutely spot on, too. That was always our weakness, even when we had a good period. Lethal on the road when counter attacking, truly clueless at home when faced with the need to take control of the game.
It's like some sort of defective gene passed down from year to year, because we have been like this for almost the entirety of the last decade (at least) and don't seem to be improving (in that sense) at all.
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Cleverley looks very tidy, although he was a bit mental today by pinging over a lot through ball and a wonderful free kick, but then under cooked two or three simple passes.
Benteke up top will aid possession at it will give our attacks a focal point and the ball will stick to the beast.
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I'm not going to read too much into today's result, they are a much better team than us and we decided to gift them three goals in a very short period of time. It's not nice to watch, but these things happen.
We are clearly harder to beat on the evidence thus far, although that's a situation which changes potentially dramatically when we pick up injuries. It is still a move in the right direction, though.
However, is anyone else worried that we don't really seem to be doing much to keep the ball more often than we have for the last two years?
Today, 29% possession at home to Arsenal. OK, they're a possession side, it's not that much of a shock. However, we won at home to Hull, but did so with them having the majority of the possession (45-55). At home to Newcastle, who are a poor side, we gave them 60% possession.
I appreciate that possession does not automatically convert into results, but it is hard to consistently play well when you spend so much of the time without the ball. Yes, giving possession away and counter attacking away from home means you can still actually have control of the game (Anfield, for example), possession means nothing if you do nothing with it.
However, we are - currently - one of the bottom three sides for possession and passes completed, and we have been for the last two seasons.
I reckon Lambert wants to improve it. I am just not hugely convinced he knows how to. He certainly hasn't thus far, over the two seasons he has been here.
You will not find many sides who pretty much never have a great deal of the ball and manage to do well.
So, when does this start to improve?
Great post.
I get that we're never going to play "Total Football" but the lack of time we have the ball, whoever we play, drives me nuts. Last week against Liverpool we did quite well first half, but then second half can't have had more than 15% possession. Every single throw in went to them, every time Guzan got the ball it was a hoof up field.
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The answer is so very simple. When you play a narrow game without quality players. You are fucked. You keep possession by making the pitch wide. Winger or wingers are a banned player under our current and previous Scottish management. We are expecting our full backs to provide width, which wingers provide, would you expect a winger to defend like a full back?
It's a defensive tactic, hence our shite home record.
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The answer is so very simple. When you play a narrow game without quality players. You are fucked. You keep possession by making the pitch wide. Winger or wingers are a banned player under our current and previous Scottish management. We are expecting our full backs to provide width, which wingers provide, would you expect a winger to defend like a full back?
It's a defensive tactic, hence our shite home record.
I don't agree with that. Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona, three clubs who look to dominate possession do not play with wingers.
Tactically, I'm pretty sure, I've heard the managers talk about how they plan to get more players in the central areas of the pitch (= less wingers/centre forward) in order to own that area.
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I wonder what the possession stat's were for the first half compared to the 2nd, the 3 goals totally killed it.
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Can't help but agree Risso!
Why the f**k can't we keep the ball from our own throw ins - ever!
And even a thick old twat like me knows that Guzan hoofing it up top will simply result in the ball going straight back to the oppo who will then launch another attack!
Couldn't give a poopoo about possession stats - I just want us to stop giving the ball away so easily to the opposition who don't seem to be trying that hard to win it back!!!
I want US to have it so WE can create a threat to THEM!
Too much to expect?
UTV!
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I gave up on throw ins many years ago as it was causing too much stress. On dead balls into the box, I thought we were improving this season mainly due to Senderos having a clue, but a late change of partner clearly cramped his style.
What drives me completely crazy is when, for reasons fortuitous or contrived, a player has acres of space in front of him and does not attack the space with other players running to exploit this. Some posters might counter that Delph likes to drive forward, but I would argue he runs into markers and uses his quick feet o create space for others.
The only rational explanation is the need to maintain defensive shape, but this excuse is wearing thin.
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You will not find many sides who pretty much never have a great deal of the ball and manage to do well.
So, when does this start to improve?
The simple answer is when we have a decent manager. I was thinking about this today, before the game, it's so long since we had a decent manager. Before anybody mentions MON, let's just remember how crap the football was under him.
A side should be judged on how they play at home, it's about taking the game to the opposition, showing them what you're made of, how you like to express yourself as a team. Away from home it's easy to play on the counter attack and try and snatch a goal, thereafter defend with 10 men behind the ball for 80 minutes. Great for 3 points and the away fans but shit to watch.
Problem is we don't have a manager that knows how to set up the team to entertain and get the 3 points. We opt for castration and dragging them down to our level in the hope we might get lucky. And before anybody mentions budget, remind yourselves how the clubs below us, that humiliate us in the cups, don't seem to struggle with putting a few passes together and actually look like they know what they're doing.
For me, the blame lies firmly at Lerner's door. He hasn't either the knowledge or the courage to try or ask for anything different from his managers. It's all about friendship, nice little chats and keeping us believing things will improve despite having tactically inept managers in charge.
It really is becoming tiresome and like the football, very, very predictable.
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I agree we. have to be more positive against teams in our league so to speak. Howeverm how much of the Liverpool possession last week was people knocking the ball to each other in their own half. Possession it is, but is it positive. What we need to do after this run of games is be positive against the teams in our league. We have Cleverley in midfield to provide a bit of extra class and hopefully Benteke back soon, he can hold things up and bring others into play and that does make a difference
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You will not find many sides who pretty much never have a great deal of the ball and manage to do well.
So, when does this start to improve?
The simple answer is when we have a decent manager. I was thinking about this today, before the game, it's so long since we had a decent manager. Before anybody mentions MON, let's just remember how crap the football was under him.
A side should be judged on how they play at home, it's about taking the game to the opposition, showing them what you're made of, how you like to express yourself as a team. Away from home it's easy to play on the counter attack and try and snatch a goal, thereafter defend with 10 men behind the ball for 80 minutes. Great for 3 points and the away fans but shit to watch.
Problem is we don't have a manager that knows how to set up the team to entertain and get the 3 points. We opt for castration and dragging them down to our level in the hope we might get lucky. And before anybody mentions budget, remind yourselves how the clubs below us, that humiliate us in the cups, don't seem to struggle with putting a few passes together and actually look like they know what they're doing.
For me, the blame lies firmly at Lerner's door. He hasn't either the knowledge or the courage to try or ask for anything different from his managers. It's all about friendship, nice little chats and keeping us believing things will improve despite having tactically inept managers in charge.
It really is becoming tiresome and like the football, very, very predictable.
So who do you consider is a decent manager? We are actually third in the table having played 2 of the top teams in our first five games
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You will not find many sides who pretty much never have a great deal of the ball and manage to do well.
So, when does this start to improve?
The simple answer is when we have a decent manager. I was thinking about this today, before the game, it's so long since we had a decent manager. Before anybody mentions MON, let's just remember how crap the football was under him.
A side should be judged on how they play at home, it's about taking the game to the opposition, showing them what you're made of, how you like to express yourself as a team. Away from home it's easy to play on the counter attack and try and snatch a goal, thereafter defend with 10 men behind the ball for 80 minutes. Great for 3 points and the away fans but shit to watch.
Problem is we don't have a manager that knows how to set up the team to entertain and get the 3 points. We opt for castration and dragging them down to our level in the hope we might get lucky. And before anybody mentions budget, remind yourselves how the clubs below us, that humiliate us in the cups, don't seem to struggle with putting a few passes together and actually look like they know what they're doing.
For me, the blame lies firmly at Lerner's door. He hasn't either the knowledge or the courage to try or ask for anything different from his managers. It's all about friendship, nice little chats and keeping us believing things will improve despite having tactically inept managers in charge.
It really is becoming tiresome and like the football, very, very predictable.
So who do you consider is a decent manager? We are actually third in the table having played 2 of the top teams in our first five games
We've had a great and unexpected start. However, I don't think a tiny sample of games makes up for how laughably poor we were in the two previous seasons under Lambert.
He shouldn't have been here to have this start to the season.
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Will we ever get more than 50% possession in a match? Even Hull at home recently we got less than 50%.
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Will we ever get more than 50% possession in a match? Even Hull at home recently we got less than 50%.
That's irrelevant though, less than 50% possession but we mainly battered them and should have been five up, we won the game fairly comfortably so I don't see what the possession stats again ave to do with this game.
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The second half was effectively meaningless yesterday. The game had been lost when the third went in, so it's difficult to read too much into what happened statistically.
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Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait a while yet before seeing whether this new midfield trio of Westwood/Delph/Cleverley can really keep the ball as well as they theoretically should be able to (when considering their alleged individual strengths); at least until after this run of matches.
On the bright side though, hopefully Benteke and Sanchez will be better settled by the time that comes around.
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When your two forwards are Gabby and Andi then ball retention is going to be low. Neither of them are particularly suited to holding the ball up and bringing others in to play. Therefore you have to play a game of trying to bring the opposition on to you then hoping to hit the space in behind them.
Hopefully when Benteke is back that will change a little, however, I think that even then against the better teams we will still struggle to match them for possession but then so will almost everyone else.
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Will we ever get more than 50% possession in a match? Even Hull at home recently we got less than 50%.
That's also a bit of misleading game. We went 2-0 up in the first half, and were all over them. I think we must have had about 60% possession in that half.
Second half we just seemed happy to sit back and let them huff and puff. Consequently they had more of the ball and the stats changed round, but that was largely because we were happy to sit on the two goal lead and let them do it (rightly or wrongly). We were never particularly worried, even after they got a somewhat fortuitous goal back.
I would hope against teams of similar ilk to Hull that we can grab the lions share of the ball, and more importantly have the ability to dominate them.
As for the next 3 games, I suspect we'll continue to average about 30% possession, but that's little surprise, and no different to how teams in our range will fair.
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Gabby the pass master.
Shocking.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10653612_698739460210649_1653286161775793402_n.jpg?oh=5e7b54e5a53c31feda6fbb7b9b3aa9d7&oe=549357E4&__gda__=1422685532_5d522012a29c8462b3937e0e213ceda3)
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When your two forwards are Gabby and Andi then ball retention is going to be low. Neither of them are particularly suited to holding the ball up and bringing others in to play. Therefore you have to play a game of trying to bring the opposition on to you then hoping to hit the space in behind them.
Hopefully when Benteke is back that will change a little, however, I think that even then against the better teams we will still struggle to match them for possession but then so will almost everyone else.
But Chris, we struggle to match possession against most teams. Also, if we don't have Benteke or Kozak fit, what exactly is the point of banging the ball up from Guzan all the time? I'd have thought that with the two big men out, we should be trying to pass more, not less. Both Gabby and Weimann are better with balls played into their feet so they can run at people. I'm not going to make too much of the Arsenal game as a one off match, but despite our excellent start before yesterday, we were massively struggling to create chances in all games other than in the first half against Hull. That has to change, or we'll quickly find ourselves struggling again.
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We could and probably should have stuck three past Stoke; Gabby missed an open goal and Bacuna skied a sitter from 8 yards out. Our lack of possession was immaterial to the result, as we completely nullified Stoke who created nothing.
That has been a familiar pattern in nearly ever game up until Arsenal. If we are going to play this way, then it requires high energy, but I don't think the aim is too give up possession, merely as Chris suggests, you need to the right personnel to keep it. Benteke will allow the ball to stick and I think Westwood and Cleverely will keep the ball better in midfield too.
The full backs have a role to play in this and the more they can push on, the more options midfield will have.
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I agree Risso the team needs to improve its ball retention. That will lead to us creating many more chances and winning more games over the long term.
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When your two forwards are Gabby and Andi then ball retention is going to be low. Neither of them are particularly suited to holding the ball up and bringing others in to play. Therefore you have to play a game of trying to bring the opposition on to you then hoping to hit the space in behind them.
Hopefully when Benteke is back that will change a little, however, I think that even then against the better teams we will still struggle to match them for possession but then so will almost everyone else.
But Chris, we struggle to match possession against most teams. Also, if we don't have Benteke or Kozak fit, what exactly is the point of banging the ball up from Guzan all the time? I'd have thought that with the two big men out, we should be trying to pass more, not less. Both Gabby and Weimann are better with balls played into their feet so they can run at people. I'm not going to make too much of the Arsenal game as a one off match, but despite our excellent start before yesterday, we were massively struggling to create chances in all games other than in the first half against Hull. That has to change, or we'll quickly find ourselves struggling again.
Agree. Like you said, if it were to any large degree about the big teams always controlling possession, how come we pretty much always concede possession to the poor sides as well?
Newcastle are awful, yet had 60% possession at our place. Hull City had 55%.
I'm also highly sceptical Benteke coming back would change that - we had similarly awful possession stats when he was fit and playing.
There are lots of games where the team with less possession wins, but I honestly don't see how much we can improve if we don't stop giving the ball away and don't start passing it more.
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We could and probably should have stuck three past Stoke; Gabby missed an open goal and Bacuna skied a sitter from 8 yards out. Our lack of possession was immaterial to the result, as we completely nullified Stoke who created nothing.
That has been a familiar pattern in nearly ever game up until Arsenal. If we are going to play this way, then it requires high energy, but I don't think the aim is too give up possession, merely as Chris suggests, you need to the right personnel to keep it. Benteke will allow the ball to stick and I think Westwood and Cleverely will keep the ball better in midfield too.
The full backs have a role to play in this and the more they can push on, the more options midfield will have.
Yes, we got a result and stopped Stoke playing. I said in the opening post that we all know there are occasions when we've won despite low possession stats, and possession often means nothing.
It is just that we seem unable to keep the ball with any regularity.
I take the point about personnel, but then again, look at the sides who keep the ball much better than we do, they don't have particularly amazingly technical players.
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We could and probably should have stuck three past Stoke; Gabby missed an open goal and Bacuna skied a sitter from 8 yards out. Our lack of possession was immaterial to the result, as we completely nullified Stoke who created nothing.
That has been a familiar pattern in nearly ever game up until Arsenal. If we are going to play this way, then it requires high energy, but I don't think the aim is too give up possession, merely as Chris suggests, you need to the right personnel to keep it. Benteke will allow the ball to stick and I think Westwood and Cleverely will keep the ball better in midfield too.
The full backs have a role to play in this and the more they can push on, the more options midfield will have.
Yes, we got a result and stopped Stoke playing. I said in the opening post that we all know there are occasions when we've won despite low possession stats, and possession often means nothing.
It is just that we seem unable to keep the ball with any regularity.
I take the point about personnel, but then again, look at the sides who keep the ball much better than we do, they don't have particularly amazingly technical players.
Yep and it needs to be addressed, it's fairly logical that you have a better chance in games if you have more of the ball.
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It also isn't just about having more technical players, is also about a lack of movement into space to receive the ball.
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It also isn't just about having more technical players, is also about a lack of movement into space to receive the ball.
Which we've been moaning about since Brian Little's day.
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We need to judge it over a run against the lesser sides really. October and November, on paper should be a walk in the park compared to this stretch of games against last seasons top 5. That's a horrendous run of pictures, and if anything you'd look at the Liverpool result as an unexpected bonus perhaps.
From the QPR game up until our customary rolling over to Utd in mid-December, we should be looking to win more than we lose, and in a number of games, with our improved squad and Benteke fit, and hopefully significant game time for Grealish (who looks good with the ball), I would hope we'll dominate a few teams in terms of possession. But of course sods law could dictate we have 60% possession against someone, lose the game, then follow up with a win in the next and touch the ball about 3 times all game.
I'm more concerned with results. However if we improve our win statistics over the last couple of seasons, by virtue I suspect our possession stats would generally improve too.
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When your two forwards are Gabby and Andi then ball retention is going to be low. Neither of them are particularly suited to holding the ball up and bringing others in to play. Therefore you have to play a game of trying to bring the opposition on to you then hoping to hit the space in behind them.
Hopefully when Benteke is back that will change a little, however, I think that even then against the better teams we will still struggle to match them for possession but then so will almost everyone else.
But Chris, we struggle to match possession against most teams. Also, if we don't have Benteke or Kozak fit, what exactly is the point of banging the ball up from Guzan all the time? I'd have thought that with the two big men out, we should be trying to pass more, not less. Both Gabby and Weimann are better with balls played into their feet so they can run at people. I'm not going to make too much of the Arsenal game as a one off match, but despite our excellent start before yesterday, we were massively struggling to create chances in all games other than in the first half against Hull. That has to change, or we'll quickly find ourselves struggling again.
Agree. Like you said, if it were to any large degree about the big teams always controlling possession, how come we pretty much always concede possession to the poor sides as well?
Newcastle are awful, yet had 60% possession at our place. Hull City had 55%.
I'm also highly sceptical Benteke coming back would change that - we had similarly awful possession stats when he was fit and playing.
There are lots of games where the team with less possession wins, but I honestly don't see how much we can improve if we don't stop giving the ball away and don't start passing it more.
I don't disagree but playing a counter attacking game is also a legitimate tactic and to do that you have to conceded the majority of possession in order to bring sides on to you. It looks to me as though we have signed players to help us have alternative ways of playing but without Benteke or Kozac we are going to be hamstrung.
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Absolutely it is a legitimate tactic. Just not one that you can use every time (as we've seen for several years at home now).
It is the lack of progress on keeping the ball that worries me. I don't really think you even need to have particularly amazing players to do that better than we do - when you consider how poor we are at it.
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We could and probably should have stuck three past Stoke; Gabby missed an open goal and Bacuna skied a sitter from 8 yards out. Our lack of possession was immaterial to the result, as we completely nullified Stoke who created nothing.
That has been a familiar pattern in nearly ever game up until Arsenal. If we are going to play this way, then it requires high energy, but I don't think the aim is too give up possession, merely as Chris suggests, you need to the right personnel to keep it. Benteke will allow the ball to stick and I think Westwood and Cleverely will keep the ball better in midfield too.
The full backs have a role to play in this and the more they can push on, the more options midfield will have.
Yes, we got a result and stopped Stoke playing. I said in the opening post that we all know there are occasions when we've won despite low possession stats, and possession often means nothing.
I think we are in agreement on the wider issue, but I'd disagree on that point. Possession stats occasionally mean nothing, but when you regularly post some of the lowest in the land (as we do) don't then be surprised if you end up towards the lower end of the table. As we have found these past four seasons. It isn't a coincidence.
Swansea probably had some of the highest stats for keep ball last year and still ended up close to the arse end of the table for the bulk of the campaign, so it is not a guarantee of success in itself. But failing to keep the ball pretty much guarantees you won't achieve much, save nicking the odd game here and there against the run of play.
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Palace currently 3-1 up at Everton with 3 shots on target and 25% possession. I think we've started a trend!
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They way we play has limitations, but as those limitations lie significantly above 17th place I'm not too worried about it this season. At least we're actually good at the parry-thrust stuff now.
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Ball possession:
When I was a little lad running around in my Villa kit there used to be a house with a sign up saying if your ball comes into the garden I will keep it.
Miserable old bat. Actually she's now a miserable old bat who's 6 feet under.
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Lambert really doesn't seem to think much of possession. He often points out that there's only one stat that matters and so forth. I take that point and I'm not going to get hung up too much after games like the Liverpool game and even yesterday there were extenuating circumstances but it's something that's bothered me for years. The last time we had a manager who had a strong belief in a passing game combined with a good side was probably Brian Little - nearly 20 years ago. It's something that I hope to see improve this season, maybe Roy Keane can have an influence.
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Dare I mention the one word that no-one seems to think that important?
"Entertainment". I love Villa and have been a loyal supporter since the age of 6, season ticket holder etc but surely football is still about entertainment right?
I mean of course winning is great and important but why would people spend thousands of pounds a year to turn up to see a side grind their way through 90 excruciating minutes of running around aimlessly with no apparent tactic other than to run around a lot?
Obviously money dictates that it's all about risk/reward but what about putting on a show for your home supporters? I can't imagine a group of home supporters in the country who have put up with such shit as us these last few seasons.
I remember being excited about going to games because we had players who were capable of the unexpected, Carbone, Merson, Yorke, Nilis (temporarily), I think that's the problem, even if we manage 3 points it's largely unexciting these days. (Possible exception of Benteke)
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So many people on here get hung up about the possession stat. The only stat that matters to me is the final score in Villa's favour. I'm sure Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester City who all won today with the lesser amount of possession in each of their games won't be to bothered about the amount of possession their team had today.
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Maybe they get hung up on the possession stat because it more often than not impacts on small things like chances created, goals scored points accumulated and final league placings.
If Lambert had reinvented the wheel and was some sort of maverick who was consistently delivering top 6/8 league placings with minimal possession, there would be a strong argument to continue on that path.
As it is, it doesn't deliver results (on a consistent basis) and it's dismal to watch.
I have no doubt for clubs like Leicester, Palarse and co staying up is the priority, so scratching a win here and their against the run of play and grinding out the odd home win in a relegation 6 pointer is enough for them, regardless of how they do it.
Despite our regression these past few years, we should be beyond that type of joyless approach to football.
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I've posted a premier league table from last season based on possession over the season. It was remarkably similar to the overall table with a small number of exceptions. We need to get better at it. I'm not sure the current run of fixtures is the spell to get angsty about it though!
In fairness, we did have a lot of the ball for half the game v hull. So we can do it.
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I'm not so sure the Manager does want to improve it myself. I've coming more and more round to thinking that Lambert sees us as one of the worst sides in the league quality wise and also regarding the money we're able to spend on transfers/wages etc. Therefore he sets us up to play like we're a poor team, or what many people think is a poor team just because we have none of the ball. I think in his head the best way of maximising our return from games is to in a lot of cases deliberately concede possession to give us our best chance of scoring which is obviously on the counter attack. Although this backfires when we have to chase a game such as Saturday as the team is now so well drilled in playing this hard working, solid at the back, counter attacking football that we don't have a clue what to do when things go the other way, which is also why we can look like a league 2 side in some games imo. Maybe you could argue he doesn't want to sacrifice what we have when we do a job like we did at Anfield by training the team to play in any other way?
I certainly agree if we have any aspirations of progressing to a decent position in the league we have to look at other ways to play, I just don't see Lambert thinking we're good enough to do this any time in the near future.
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I've posted a premier league table from last season based on possession over the season. It was remarkably similar to the overall table with a small number of exceptions. We need to get better at it. I'm not sure the current run of fixtures is the spell to get angsty about it though!
In fairness, we did have a lot of the ball for half the game v hull. So we can do it.
This is why i don't understand why people don't understand that possession is important. It gets said over and over obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but that's what they are, exceptions. You persistently have shit amounts of possession = odds are your place in the league is going to be pretty shit (see previous 2 seasons ... With Benteke)
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So many people on here get hung up about the possession stat. The only stat that matters to me is the final score in Villa's favour. I'm sure Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester City who all won today with the lesser amount of possession in each of their games won't be to bothered about the amount of possession their team had today.
Yes but I guarantee that Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester all finish below the teams they beat yesterday come the end of the season. You can win isolated games with limited possession of course you can, but over the long term teams with more possession will be more successful. It's fairly logical really, you create more than chances if you have the ball.
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So many people on here get hung up about the possession stat. The only stat that matters to me is the final score in Villa's favour. I'm sure Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester City who all won today with the lesser amount of possession in each of their games won't be to bothered about the amount of possession their team had today.
Yes but I guarantee that Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester all finish below the teams they beat yesterday come the end of the season. You can win isolated games with limited possession of course you can, but over the long term teams with more possession will be more successful. It's fairly logical really, you create more than chances if you have the ball.
And you limit how many chances the opposition have if they can't get the ball off you. Swansea based their philosophy on this and is what kept them in the Premier League and sides like Southampton have been able to progress faster through a possession philosophy.
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So many people on here get hung up about the possession stat. The only stat that matters to me is the final score in Villa's favour. I'm sure Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester City who all won today with the lesser amount of possession in each of their games won't be to bothered about the amount of possession their team had today.
Yes but I guarantee that Crystal Palace, West Brom and Leicester all finish below the teams they beat yesterday come the end of the season. You can win isolated games with limited possession of course you can, but over the long term teams with more possession will be more successful. It's fairly logical really, you create more than chances if you have the ball.
I generally agree with the principle that having the ball = good, not having the ball = bad, but if it were as simple as that then surely the team that has more possession than any other is going to be the one that wins the most matches and therefore wins the league?
Which obviously isn't the case.
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I doubt it's too far off, I imagine Man Citeh's possession stats were some of the highest in the league last year and Liverpool's almost certainly were. I agree it's not absolutely certain and some teams buck the trend, but I'd if you looked at the league there would be a trend of the teams with more possession being up the top end and the teams with very little possession being down the bottom end.
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Conceding 65-70% possession to the oppo places a real onus on having a good defence and high player-fitness; without both of which we're bound to leak goals.
If it's a strategy or simply an outcome of being a poor team it gives the oppo manager an easier task because it will effectively mean we're a counter-attacking team.
IMO, it's just not sustainable to operate at these levels throughout the season.
However, the two home games against Stoke and WHU last season showed that the possession / pressing game isn't always effectively: both those teams counter-attacked us brilliantly and saw us off convincingly.
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Maybe they get hung up on the possession stat because it more often than not impacts on small things like chances created, goals scored points accumulated and final league placings.
If Lambert had reinvented the wheel and was some sort of maverick who was consistently delivering top 6/8 league placings with minimal possession, there would be a strong argument to continue on that path.
As it is, it doesn't deliver results (on a consistent basis) and it's dismal to watch.
I have no doubt for clubs like Leicester, Palarse and co staying up is the priority, so scratching a win here and their against the run of play and grinding out the odd home win in a relegation 6 pointer is enough for them, regardless of how they do it.
Despite our regression these past few years, we should be beyond that type of joyless approach to football.
Excellent post.
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I doubt it's too far off, I imagine Man Citeh's possession stats were some of the highest in the league last year and Liverpool's almost certainly were. I agree it's not absolutely certain and some teams buck the trend, but I'd if you looked at the league there would be a trend of the teams with more possession being up the top end and the teams with very little possession being down the bottom end.
Interesting from the guy who wrote that really good Robbie Savage piece in the Telegraph. There's quite a lot more, but this is the relevant bit:
The question is whether possession is actually any use at telling us who’s going to win a football game. And the answer is: it really depends where you look.
In this season’s Premier League, the team with more possession has won 55.3 per cent of games. In the Champions League, the figure is 66.7 per cent. That would seem to indicate a strong correlation between keeping the ball and winning the game.
But as a means for predicting the winner of a football game, possession is deeply unreliable. A far better metric in this regard is shots on goal, or “shot supremacy”: the ratio of shots on goal to shots conceded, which has been proven to have a strong correlation with points.
More often, possession is the by-product of a good team, rather than the other way round. The higher the standard of the competition, the more likely you are to find players with the skill levels required to play successful possession football.
So what happens when the standard is lower? To study this, we looked at a competition some distance removed from the dizzy heights and fancy pirouettes of the Champions League.
Completely at random, and with apologies, we picked the Australian A-League. The standard may be improving, but only a complete dingo dog would claim it was a serious rival to the big European leagues. So, with help from the excellent FourFourTwo Stats Zone app, we looked at all 105 matches played so far this season. And the results were mildly startling.
In the Champions League, remember, the team with more possession wins 67 per cent of the time, if you exclude draws. In the A-League, the team with more possession loses 57 per cent of the time. More remarkably still, the team that completes more passes in the opposition’s final third – proper passing, not just knocking it around the defence – loses 59 per cent of the time.
If you are setting up a team to play in the Australian A-League, it seems that the best thing to do is to kick the ball away as fast as you can.
Why should this be? Perhaps it’s because players of a lower standard are more likely to make mistakes on the ball, more likely to send passes astray, more likely to make a fatal error in a dangerous position. Possession football requires a certain skill level to carry off well, and yet even then it is not foolproof, as Barcelona’s occasional slip-ups have proved. When inferior players try to play keep-ball, it often proves counterproductive.
According to the Spanish journalist Diego Torres in a recent book, Jose Mourinho’s attitude to possession at Real Madrid was summed up thus.
1. The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors.
2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.
3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it's better to encourage their mistakes.
4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.
5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.
6. Whoever has the ball has fear.
7. Whoever does not have it is therefore stronger.
This is tiki-taka’s direct nemesis: not necessarily anti-football, but definitely anti-something. The data from Australia proves that below a certain skill threshold, football is primarily a game of mistakes.
Link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/champions-league/10793482/Do-football-possession-statistics-indicate-which-team-will-win-Not-necessarily.html)
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The premier league is built around counter-attacking football, for all the possession sides have the majority of important goals come from counter-attacks because of the pace the game is played here. Arsenal's first was a counter-attack, Leicester beat Manu by press and counter, man city got a point with a counter-attack, I could go on.
Possession helps but good possession stats where you keep the ball in the right areas is all about confidence, both in your ability to keep possession and in your trust of other players to be able to do the same. That confidence comes from 2 sources, the first, as is the case with the likes of Swansea, is from lots of practice, the 2nd is more general confidence in your ability, which comes from winning games and being part of something.
A final point, which I've made before, I've never been to a villa game where a spell of passing without making things happen hasn't been accompanied by a shout of 'do something with it' or 'get it forward'. Clubs like Swansea don't have that and this is one of those situations where I think us being a big club without a big club squad makes things worse.
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I doubt it's too far off, I imagine Man Citeh's possession stats were some of the highest in the league last year and Liverpool's almost certainly were. I agree it's not absolutely certain and some teams buck the trend, but I'd if you looked at the league there would be a trend of the teams with more possession being up the top end and the teams with very little possession being down the bottom end.
Interesting from the guy who wrote that really good Robbie Savage piece in the Telegraph. There's quite a lot more, but this is the relevant bit:
The question is whether possession is actually any use at telling us who’s going to win a football game. And the answer is: it really depends where you look.
In this season’s Premier League, the team with more possession has won 55.3 per cent of games. In the Champions League, the figure is 66.7 per cent. That would seem to indicate a strong correlation between keeping the ball and winning the game.
But as a means for predicting the winner of a football game, possession is deeply unreliable. A far better metric in this regard is shots on goal, or “shot supremacy”: the ratio of shots on goal to shots conceded, which has been proven to have a strong correlation with points.
More often, possession is the by-product of a good team, rather than the other way round. The higher the standard of the competition, the more likely you are to find players with the skill levels required to play successful possession football.
So what happens when the standard is lower? To study this, we looked at a competition some distance removed from the dizzy heights and fancy pirouettes of the Champions League.
Completely at random, and with apologies, we picked the Australian A-League. The standard may be improving, but only a complete dingo dog would claim it was a serious rival to the big European leagues. So, with help from the excellent FourFourTwo Stats Zone app, we looked at all 105 matches played so far this season. And the results were mildly startling.
In the Champions League, remember, the team with more possession wins 67 per cent of the time, if you exclude draws. In the A-League, the team with more possession loses 57 per cent of the time. More remarkably still, the team that completes more passes in the opposition’s final third – proper passing, not just knocking it around the defence – loses 59 per cent of the time.
If you are setting up a team to play in the Australian A-League, it seems that the best thing to do is to kick the ball away as fast as you can.
Why should this be? Perhaps it’s because players of a lower standard are more likely to make mistakes on the ball, more likely to send passes astray, more likely to make a fatal error in a dangerous position. Possession football requires a certain skill level to carry off well, and yet even then it is not foolproof, as Barcelona’s occasional slip-ups have proved. When inferior players try to play keep-ball, it often proves counterproductive.
According to the Spanish journalist Diego Torres in a recent book, Jose Mourinho’s attitude to possession at Real Madrid was summed up thus.
1. The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors.
2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.
3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it's better to encourage their mistakes.
4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.
5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.
6. Whoever has the ball has fear.
7. Whoever does not have it is therefore stronger.
This is tiki-taka’s direct nemesis: not necessarily anti-football, but definitely anti-something. The data from Australia proves that below a certain skill threshold, football is primarily a game of mistakes.
Link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/champions-league/10793482/Do-football-possession-statistics-indicate-which-team-will-win-Not-necessarily.html)
That's a really interesting piece, thanks Dave.
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That is an interesting article Dave. Although I'd be curious what the balance of 'more' possession is, I just think that once you start having possession stat of 35% and less on a regular basis you're probably going to struggle over the course of a season.
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That is an interesting article Dave. Although I'd be curious what the balance of 'more' possession is, I just think that once you start having possession stat of 35% and less on a regular basis you're probably going to struggle over the course of a season.
As the article says, shots on goal is a better measure, that's actually the stat that upsets me the most about us, we have too many players who just don't get shots away.
Now that's not to say that more possession doesn't lead to more shots, it often does, but the key is, if you're going to play deep and let teams come on to you you need to stop them from shooting (we'd been doing this well so far this season before Saturday) and when you break you need to end up with a shot, which we've struggled with because we're breaking out wide (in objection to a comment about us being narrow earlier we actually attack on the wings more than pretty much any other team in the league so far this season) and we're just not getting people in good positions in the centre to make the most of it, this is where Benteke will help.
As I said, and the article agrees to an extent, possession is often a by-product of teams being scared of your quality because they hold their shape and let you have the ball, as we saw under MON. Right now I'm happy to play as well are and then work out how to beat those teams when they start gifting us possession and inviting us to break them down.
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I doubt it's too far off, I imagine Man Citeh's possession stats were some of the highest in the league last year and Liverpool's almost certainly were. I agree it's not absolutely certain and some teams buck the trend, but I'd if you looked at the league there would be a trend of the teams with more possession being up the top end and the teams with very little possession being down the bottom end.
Interesting from the guy who wrote that really good Robbie Savage piece in the Telegraph. There's quite a lot more, but this is the relevant bit:
The question is whether possession is actually any use at telling us who’s going to win a football game. And the answer is: it really depends where you look.
In this season’s Premier League, the team with more possession has won 55.3 per cent of games. In the Champions League, the figure is 66.7 per cent. That would seem to indicate a strong correlation between keeping the ball and winning the game.
But as a means for predicting the winner of a football game, possession is deeply unreliable. A far better metric in this regard is shots on goal, or “shot supremacy”: the ratio of shots on goal to shots conceded, which has been proven to have a strong correlation with points.
More often, possession is the by-product of a good team, rather than the other way round. The higher the standard of the competition, the more likely you are to find players with the skill levels required to play successful possession football.
So what happens when the standard is lower? To study this, we looked at a competition some distance removed from the dizzy heights and fancy pirouettes of the Champions League.
Completely at random, and with apologies, we picked the Australian A-League. The standard may be improving, but only a complete dingo dog would claim it was a serious rival to the big European leagues. So, with help from the excellent FourFourTwo Stats Zone app, we looked at all 105 matches played so far this season. And the results were mildly startling.
In the Champions League, remember, the team with more possession wins 67 per cent of the time, if you exclude draws. In the A-League, the team with more possession loses 57 per cent of the time. More remarkably still, the team that completes more passes in the opposition’s final third – proper passing, not just knocking it around the defence – loses 59 per cent of the time.
If you are setting up a team to play in the Australian A-League, it seems that the best thing to do is to kick the ball away as fast as you can.
Why should this be? Perhaps it’s because players of a lower standard are more likely to make mistakes on the ball, more likely to send passes astray, more likely to make a fatal error in a dangerous position. Possession football requires a certain skill level to carry off well, and yet even then it is not foolproof, as Barcelona’s occasional slip-ups have proved. When inferior players try to play keep-ball, it often proves counterproductive.
According to the Spanish journalist Diego Torres in a recent book, Jose Mourinho’s attitude to possession at Real Madrid was summed up thus.
1. The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors.
2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.
3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it's better to encourage their mistakes.
4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.
5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.
6. Whoever has the ball has fear.
7. Whoever does not have it is therefore stronger.
This is tiki-taka’s direct nemesis: not necessarily anti-football, but definitely anti-something. The data from Australia proves that below a certain skill threshold, football is primarily a game of mistakes.
Link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/champions-league/10793482/Do-football-possession-statistics-indicate-which-team-will-win-Not-necessarily.html)
Although it's speculation, that bit about Mourinho rings true.
His sides have always been about ruthless efficiency, and I bet part of him loves it when he plays a Swansea, Southampton or Liverpool and turns them over with less possession of the ball. His teams won't often come off the pitch with less than 30% possession though.
I'm sure Swansea fans got exasperated at times too last season, with so much possession in games and little end product, if Bony or Michu were out. Or defensive frailties often nullifying what attacking threat they did offer.
But when you have good habits and are comfortable in possession, those other deficiencies can be overcome, sometimes with just the introduction of a new player or two. When you struggle with the basics, a new player here and there isn't going to make a whole pile of difference.
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I doubt it's too far off, I imagine Man Citeh's possession stats were some of the highest in the league last year and Liverpool's almost certainly were. I agree it's not absolutely certain and some teams buck the trend, but I'd if you looked at the league there would be a trend of the teams with more possession being up the top end and the teams with very little possession being down the bottom end.
Interesting from the guy who wrote that really good Robbie Savage piece in the Telegraph. There's quite a lot more, but this is the relevant bit:
The question is whether possession is actually any use at telling us who’s going to win a football game. And the answer is: it really depends where you look.
In this season’s Premier League, the team with more possession has won 55.3 per cent of games. In the Champions League, the figure is 66.7 per cent. That would seem to indicate a strong correlation between keeping the ball and winning the game.
But as a means for predicting the winner of a football game, possession is deeply unreliable. A far better metric in this regard is shots on goal, or “shot supremacy”: the ratio of shots on goal to shots conceded, which has been proven to have a strong correlation with points.
More often, possession is the by-product of a good team, rather than the other way round. The higher the standard of the competition, the more likely you are to find players with the skill levels required to play successful possession football.
So what happens when the standard is lower? To study this, we looked at a competition some distance removed from the dizzy heights and fancy pirouettes of the Champions League.
Completely at random, and with apologies, we picked the Australian A-League. The standard may be improving, but only a complete dingo dog would claim it was a serious rival to the big European leagues. So, with help from the excellent FourFourTwo Stats Zone app, we looked at all 105 matches played so far this season. And the results were mildly startling.
In the Champions League, remember, the team with more possession wins 67 per cent of the time, if you exclude draws. In the A-League, the team with more possession loses 57 per cent of the time. More remarkably still, the team that completes more passes in the opposition’s final third – proper passing, not just knocking it around the defence – loses 59 per cent of the time.
If you are setting up a team to play in the Australian A-League, it seems that the best thing to do is to kick the ball away as fast as you can.
Why should this be? Perhaps it’s because players of a lower standard are more likely to make mistakes on the ball, more likely to send passes astray, more likely to make a fatal error in a dangerous position. Possession football requires a certain skill level to carry off well, and yet even then it is not foolproof, as Barcelona’s occasional slip-ups have proved. When inferior players try to play keep-ball, it often proves counterproductive.
According to the Spanish journalist Diego Torres in a recent book, Jose Mourinho’s attitude to possession at Real Madrid was summed up thus.
1. The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors.
2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.
3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it's better to encourage their mistakes.
4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.
5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.
6. Whoever has the ball has fear.
7. Whoever does not have it is therefore stronger.
This is tiki-taka’s direct nemesis: not necessarily anti-football, but definitely anti-something. The data from Australia proves that below a certain skill threshold, football is primarily a game of mistakes.
Link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/champions-league/10793482/Do-football-possession-statistics-indicate-which-team-will-win-Not-necessarily.html)
Although it's speculation, that bit about Mourinho rings true.
His sides have always been about ruthless efficiency, and I bet part of him loves it when he plays a Swansea, Southampton or Liverpool and turns them over with less possession of the ball. His teams won't often come off the pitch with less than 30% possession though.
I'm sure Swansea fans got exasperated at times too last season, with so much possession in games and little end product, if Bony or Michu were out. Or defensive frailties often nullifying what attacking threat they did offer.
But when you have good habits and are comfortable in possession, those other deficiencies can be overcome, sometimes with just the introduction of a new player or two. When you struggle with the basics, a new player here and there isn't going to make a whole pile of difference.
They had 38% possession when they beat Everton 6-3.
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And there is room for that, the classic away performance.
But how often would they have just 40% possession at home to Newcastle, have less than Hull and so on.
That would be the issue for me. I wouldn't necessarily have expected us to have more of the ball than Arsenal, even in a good performance. Although they can be suspect away from home, Arsenal have the ability to do what they did on Saturday to most teams.
Where the issue comes is when we consistently have less of the ball against even modest sides at home, not just slightly less but quite often substantially less.
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No, I agree pal, just backing up your comments about Mourinho.
I was reading the article with Lambert in the Torygraph late on Friday night, a bit bleary, and he said "I don't like it when it goes over the top"
For a split second my heart jumped, and I thought he was referring to last seasons football, then I re-read it and he was talking about supporters giving the players stick, which left me a bit downhearted.
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Hull is irrelevant, We had dominated that game and had about 55% possession when the game was in question, 2nd half we just took it easy and let them play in front of us.
As I said though, performing well and winning games will naturally see our possession increase, so I'm not overly worried because this season, unlike the last 3-4 we actually look like we know how to play this way and I'm fairly confident that we'll be a lot less worried late in the season than we've become used to.
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And there is room for that, the classic away performance.
But how often would they have just 40% possession at home to Newcastle, have less than Hull and so on.
That would be the issue for me. I wouldn't necessarily have expected us to have more of the ball than Arsenal, even in a good performance. Although they can be suspect away from home, Arsenal have the ability to do what they did on Saturday to most teams.
Where the issue comes is when we consistently have less of the ball against even modest sides at home, not just slightly less but quite often substantially less.
Yep completely agree, and it's no coincidence that our home form is so poor as a result.
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You need to have possession in the final 3rd to have attempts at goal. How many times over the Lambert years we have seen very low possession with few and even no shots on target.
I think the original point remains. You will not get far playing our brand of possession less non offensive football.
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I was thinking today, one big problem of keeping possesion in the final third is we don't really have a forward who can drop deep into midfield and link up with them and get some moves going.
Benteke has the quality to do this but obviously you want him on the shoulders of defenders and in fairness Weimann was doing it first half v Hull quite well which was our most convincing game this season at passing and creating.
But nothing to the standard of what Robbie Keane was producing in his short loan spell here.
I wish we could sign that type of forward once in a while instead of more speed merchants for us to kick long and them to chase it. That's why I was disappointed Helenius never worked out as in his brief cameos he at least looked like a forward with different skills compared to the rest of our strikers.
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You need to have possession in the final 3rd to have attempts at goal. How many times over the Lambert years we have seen very low possession with few and even no shots on target.
I think the original point remains. You will not get far playing our brand of possession less non offensive football.
Totally agree, Villa's final third possession is very poor most of the time.
Possession statistics would be more meaningful if they were divided into the possession in the defensive and offensive halves.
Lots of possession in your own half knocking the ball to and fro across the pitch and not threatening your opponents doesn't win matches unless you already have the lead ala the Gooners on Saturday.
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This is what worries me. The shitness of the opposition doesn't really seem to change very much, the statistics always look terrible.
Passes completed this season.
Villa 192 Stoke 427
Villa 266 Newcastle 439
Villa 342 Hull 463
Villa 148 Liverpool 653
Villa 227 Arsenal 753
Villa 344 Chelsea 637
Villa 269 Man City 687
Possession
Villa 35 Stoke 65
Villa 40 Newcastle 60
Villa 45 Hull 55
Villa 25 Liverpool 75
Villa 28 Arsenal 72
Villa 36 Chelsea 64
Villa 30 Man City 70
I appreciate possession and passing do not translate directly into points, but over the course of a season, if the opposition out passes you and keeps the ball better than you do to that extent, there is a limit to how much you are ever going to improve.
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Pauli - you've missed out the stats on our most important match to date v Orient. Why does nobody care about that match ?
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This is what worries me. The shitness of the opposition doesn't really seem to change very much, the statistics always look terrible.
Passes completed this season.
Villa 192 Stoke 427
Villa 266 Newcastle 439
Villa 342 Hull 463
Villa 148 Liverpool 653
Villa 227 Arsenal 753
Villa 344 Chelsea 637
Villa 269 Man City 687
Possession
Villa 35 Stoke 65
Villa 40 Newcastle 60
Villa 45 Hull 55
Villa 25 Liverpool 75
Villa 28 Arsenal 72
Villa 36 Chelsea 64
Villa 30 Man City 70
I appreciate possession and passing do not translate directly into points, but over the course of a season, if the opposition out passes you and keeps the ball better than you do to that extent, there is a limit to how much you are ever going to improve.
That's quite shocking when you see it in black and white. Bearing in mind we did quite well against Liverpool in the first half, we can't have had more than 10-15% possession in the second half. Of course, points are all important, but if those stats are repeated over the season, I think we'll be in for another season of struggle.
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Pauli - you've missed out the stats on our most important match to date v Orient. Why does nobody care about that match ?
I couldn't find them!
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If we had kept the ball better today we would have had a better chance of holding on for a point at least. When you know you are going to be under pressure for so much of the game anyway, and are more likely to be punished by a mistake, then it is doubling important to be better in possession than we have been.
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We panic and turn over possession sloppily, I think a lot of it is down to a lack of confidence, understandable when you are under pressure like we have been the last few games but I think the form from the last few seasons puts us under pressure in every game.
We just need a few results and games to establish a bit of form.
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Is it panic or is it Lambert's style of attacking quickly (which is fine for counter attacking but when you're looking to impose yourselves on the opposition shouldn't be the only style of play).
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I think we're just shit-scared of losing the ball and not being able to get back into our defensive shape quickly enough when playing these teams (which will include Everton next week) who have these top-quality players who will absolutely plaster you when breaking into space.
The first two games were pretty rubbish possession-wise as well but that first half against Hull, even though they made it kinda easy for us, those two goals were genuinely a product of a sensible passing game, and that was without Cleverley or Benteke, both of whom in theory are pretty tidy on the ball, so there's clearly potential there. Yesterday was dire, but I'm not quite ready to accept defeat on this thing just yet, at least until we see whether this nonsense continues against some of the more mediocre teams.
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It was hard to have any possession against Liverpool with the way they stroked the ball imperiously from centre half to centre half and back again. We dominated the game in the way an Italian side would have from the early 90s. They had no answer to us and were deservedly beaten; they're manager said as much.
That's what counts, what you see, he context of those stats. Like Hull having more possession. In the second half they did, because we had already won the game and gone home. They had one chance after they had score and it was straight at Guzan, an easy home when, gods be praised. Stoke was another stroll, I really hope they struggle you know, as they created Jack all, with both Gabby and Bacuna missing open goals.
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That delusional myth still doing the rounds then? It's a shame how we forgot to dominate like Italians in the last three games. The reality is we just defended well and rode our luck a bit against a not very good Liverpool side. The trend over the last few seasons would suggest we can't keep the ball very well and generally get punished as a result.
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What delusional myth?
I watched the game live. Normally at Anfield when you're winning by one goal in the last 10 minutes, you think you might feel the squeeze, not at that game though. Nothing in the proceedig 80 minutes had given me any cause to think Liverpool would do anything to trouble Guzan, even With England's great hope comig on. They did nothing and looked entirely in effectual. We didn't ride luck at all, luck doesn't exist. They had one attempt at Guzan and spent the majority of the game passing from centre half to centre half. Lovren must have touched the ball more times than any other player.
Even Rodgers, who is actually not in the Sam Allardyce school of myopia, conceded we deserved it. Granted, the defence wasn't really stretched, but we were as solid as anything. You're re-writing history to suit a narrative.
Liverpool aren't in the class of Arsenal, Chelsea or Man City. They are the epitome of a one man band, highlighted further by Gerrard's slow walk to retirement. Much like Spurs proved, it doesn't matter if you spend £100 million, if you lose a world class player in Suraez or Bale and replace him with three or four good ones, you're still poorer for it.
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To say we controlled the Liverpool game by playing like Italians is to suggest we had some kind of master plan, so it's strange that we haven't seen that happen before or since. Rather, we simply defended as resolutely as we could against a below par Liverpool team without the deadly threat of last season, who'd run out of ideas yet still managed to hit the woodwork.
The next time the ghost of Franco Baresi et al is channelled through our defence, do let me know and I might change my mind.
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Let's not give credit, let's just chalk it up to imaginary forces. Clearly there was no strategy, no game plan and Lovern passing the ball inside to Gerrard, in his own half every other minute with no option but to lump it into the channels, with no threat to our goal, was all down to the great Fortuna. Lambert and Keane performing the necessary offerings to her pre-game.
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I give full credit for our performance, but I won't overstate it on the back of a much welcome away win against underperforming opposition struggling to find their feet following the loss of their main attacking threat. Especially when that performance appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
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No, you didn't give any credit and decried the existence of a strategy and referenced myths, yet placed the result in the hands of imaginary forces.
I don't see it as an exception, I see a pattern; the sides to occupy 14th to 6th, whom we played from Stoke to Liverpool, we were very competitive and took 10 points. Against this seasons too three, they're world class players proved their worth, as they collectively will for most of the season.
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What delusional myth?
I watched the game live. Normally at Anfield when you're winning by one goal in the last 10 minutes, you think you might feel the squeeze, not at that game though. Nothing in the proceedig 80 minutes had given me any cause to think Liverpool would do anything to trouble Guzan, even With England's great hope comig on. They did nothing and looked entirely in effectual. We didn't ride luck at all, luck doesn't exist. They had one attempt at Guzan and spent the majority of the game passing from centre half to centre half. Lovren must have touched the ball more times than any other player.
Even Rodgers, who is actually not in the Sam Allardyce school of myopia, conceded we deserved it. Granted, the defence wasn't really stretched, but we were as solid as anything. You're re-writing history to suit a narrative.
Liverpool aren't in the class of Arsenal, Chelsea or Man City. They are the epitome of a one man band, highlighted further by Gerrard's slow walk to retirement. Much like Spurs proved, it doesn't matter if you spend £100 million, if you lose a world class player in Suraez or Bale and replace him with three or four good ones, you're still poorer for it.
Agree re the Liverpool match. But your using one game to try to expose a myth which it doesnt. Paulies facts are plain to see. There is no myth. We are very defensive, cant pass and keep possession and are generally total sh1t to watch. Another long hard season awaits
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I think we're just shit-scared of losing the ball and not being able to get back into our defensive shape quickly enough when playing these teams (which will include Everton next week) who have these top-quality players who will absolutely plaster you when breaking into space.
The first two games were pretty rubbish possession-wise as well but that first half against Hull, even though they made it kinda easy for us, those two goals were genuinely a product of a sensible passing game, and that was without Cleverley or Benteke, both of whom in theory are pretty tidy on the ball, so there's clearly potential there. Yesterday was dire, but I'm not quite ready to accept defeat on this thing just yet, at least until we see whether this nonsense continues against some of the more mediocre teams.
Everton is two weeks away. By which time Benteke should be fit to start and consequently we will have a forward who can hold it up to bring others into play around him and I would expect to see our share of possession begin to improve.
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Please don't tell me where I do and don't give credit, especially when I said we defended "well", which you obviously failed to see through misty eyes.
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I think we're just shit-scared of losing the ball and not being able to get back into our defensive shape quickly enough when playing these teams (which will include Everton next week) who have these top-quality players who will absolutely plaster you when breaking into space.
The first two games were pretty rubbish possession-wise as well but that first half against Hull, even though they made it kinda easy for us, those two goals were genuinely a product of a sensible passing game, and that was without Cleverley or Benteke, both of whom in theory are pretty tidy on the ball, so there's clearly potential there. Yesterday was dire, but I'm not quite ready to accept defeat on this thing just yet, at least until we see whether this nonsense continues against some of the more mediocre teams.
Everton is two weeks away. By which time Benteke should be fit to start and consequently we will have a forward who can hold it up to bring others into play around him and I would expect to see our share of possession begin to improve.
Well, we'll see. Now the top 4 are out of the way, there's no excuse not to at least see an improvement. I really don't like Lambert's style of play at all, but I'll live it with it if delivers results.
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I haven't liked Lambert's style of football at Villa from day one. We play every game like we're a lower league side playing one of the big boys in the Cup, and it's absolutely horrible to watch. Frankly I'm surprised he's got away with it for so long and it seems to me that the fans have been battered into submission by Lerner. I'm sure Ellis is scratching his head in disbelief considering the grief he used to get over the years.
Please show a bit of ambition in January, Randy!
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The facts of 10 from 12 are far more significant than how many times Bojan passed the ball back inside or to his full back at Stoke or how many times Huddlestone passed it sideways or back to no effect.
This site has been singularly obsessed with possession since Real Swansea breezed into town and had 70% of it to create one chance. That isn't to say that I want is to needlessly waste possession or lump it or any of the negatives such as that, just that before we played the rich boys, their inability to use the ball compares to ourselves counted for very little in what matters in football; chances, goals and points.
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Please don't tell me where I do and don't give credit, especially when I said we defended "well", which you obviously failed to see through misty eyes.
You said it yourself; no strategy, down to luck, myths.
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Please don't tell me where I do and don't give credit, especially when I said we defended "well", which you obviously failed to see through misty eyes.
You said it yourself; no strategy, down to luck, myths.
Ads, do you actually enjoy our style of football? Do you enjoy watching us surrender possesion to the opposition while we sit back and defend for most of the game?
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I think the biggest problem is Westwood.He is a bugbear of mine.Because he has no pace he plays too deep, only plays safe passes, and doesn't move around the pitch with enough energy.His lack of movement, mobility, strength, means he protects himself by keeping away from trouble, consequently going forward he offers little support to Delph or Cleverley, let alone the front 3.
Because he doesn't know how to play the defensive midfield role, you could argue as the deeper lying midfielder it was his job to confront Toure last night, Delph and Cleverley have to play too deep as well.All this means that we are continually p[laying on the counter attack.The problem with that is the ability of the attackers, on the ball, to make the right pass, or right decision, is not there, see Richardson and N'zog last night, and they are over as quickly as they started.
Get a good defensive midfielder, i think Sanchez can do that, push Delph and Cleverley 5 yards further up, and get a better footballer(s) to play off CB, and we will be fine.Gabby and Weimann are not good enough i'm afraid.
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I think the Cleverley, Delph, Westwood trio looks very promising as the core of our midfield. I would hope that will see us retain the ball much better but it is pure fantasy to think that we can dominate against clubs with the quality and depth of squad as Man City and Chelsea.
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The midfield sit deep against City because you have the best right back in the league playing a line effectively equivolent to a winger and a massive Serb on the other doing the same.
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I think the Cleverley, Delph, Westwood trio looks very promising as the core of our midfield. I would hope that will see us retain the ball much better but it is pure fantasy to think that we can dominate against clubs with the quality and depth of squad as Man City and Chelsea.
We don't dominate anyone no matter who we play. That's the problem.
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I really enjoyed winning at Anfield, it was as comfortable an away win as Stoke. I didn't enjoy Newcastle, as I was nervous in our need to avoid defeat. Fortunately the game was something of a non-entity.
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I really enjoyed winning at Anfield, it was as comfortable an away win as Stoke. I didn't enjoy Newcastle, as I was nervous in our need to avoid defeat. Fortunately the game was something of a non-entity.
Neither of those games were comfortable. Great results but to say they were comfortable is stretching it a bit. We barely touched the ball second half at Anfield.
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Guzan should have brought a good book with him for both games; Stoke and Liverpool created nothing, played in front of us and wouldn't have scored if they were still playing now. The only criticism I would have is for Gabby, Bacuna and Senderos missing sitters.
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Well as I say, we'll probably soon see if this season is going to stay decent or descend into the abyss of the last two seasons' dismal fare. The defence is much easier improved but the midfield looks crap still.
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With Benteke now back in the reckoning, it'll be interesting to see if Lambert goes back to the 4-3-3 we played with for a while (with Weimann and Gabby either side of Benteke).
I'd like to see us be a bit more solid in the middle as well. The defence did well considering the pressure they were under at times yesterday.
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I like our defence this season (especially now we've actually got fullbacks worthy of the PL), but the midfield is still weak (I'm not a Westwood fan, never have been). Hopefully Lerner will put that right in January when he opens his wallet.
I hope we eventually do away with this horrible tactic of defending for 80% of the games and actually grab the match by the scruff of the neck and give the fans something to get excited about. Our home form under Lambert has been unforgivable.
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We're still severely lacking guile in midfield. The trio of Westwood, Cleverley and Delph is tidy and balanced. The trouble is that there's no one who'll break forward to make a killer pass. TC and Westwood are both too similar. I think one needs to be sacrificed, certainly in home games. And I'd like to see us be brave enough to play a more attacking formation. Whether that be a 4-2-3-1 or to opt for two up front.
But again, what we perennially have failed to address is our creativity under Lambert. We've got no decent number 10. Joe Cole's legs have gone and N'Zogbia will continue to be inconsistent. The nearest we have to a decent number 10 is Grealish but we can't rest all our hopes on him at this age.
Likewise pinning all our width on two fullbacks isn't working. We sorely miss what we lost when Ash Young left, and that's a reliable creative source. Someone who could make things happen, even if he wasn't in particularly great form.
There's still work to do in January because the last thing we want to do is slap back into the shite again. We need 1-2 players who can provide a cohesion between our midfield and attack. And we most certainly need to add some technical quality. Gabby should be an impact player now. Weimann shouldn't be in the side at all.
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I like our defence this season (especially now we've actually got fullbacks worthy of the PL), but the midfield is still weak (I'm not a Westwood fan, never have been). Hopefully Lerner will put that right in January when he opens his wallet.
I hope we eventually do away with this horrible tactic of defending for 80% of the games and actually grab the match by the scruff of the neck and give the fans something to get excited about. Our home form under Lambert has been unforgivable.
We have plenty of central midfielders now although you're right still hardly anyone with a creative spark in them.
Only transfer I can see in January is Cleverley on a permanent deal and maybe a loan as in terms of numbers we're fine in most areas.
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I was pleased we got Cleverley, but he's got a lot to prove before January. He isn't worth anything like £8m as it stands.
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I have not looked into this but I bet our possession % equals almost our win ratio over the last 4 seasons. So despite the say that possession isn't everything it would appear that possession is most things.
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I have not looked into this but I bet our possession % equals almost our win ratio over the last 4 seasons. So despite the say that possession isn't everything it would appear that possession is most things.
So then surely increasing our possession stats would be a good thing?
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Yes that is obviously what's required.
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If you have the ball the opposition doesn't, and while they don't have it it's unlikely they'll score against you. Simples. If we persistently give opposition sides, even poorer sides, 60% possession, the liklihood is that we'll lose significantly more than we win, as has been proven over the last few seasons.
It's undoubtedly something we have to improve upon because our ball retention is appalling.
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Please don't tell me where I do and don't give credit, especially when I said we defended "well", which you obviously failed to see through misty eyes.
You said it yourself; no strategy, down to luck, myths.
I said no such thing, but please allow me to spell it out for you in simple terms so you can stop putting words in my mouth.
I think it's a myth that we controlled the game against Liverpool like an Italian team of the ’90s. We didn't. We had 25 percent possession, probably less in the second half, but defended well against a below par Liverpool team trying to find its way without the all-conquering strike force of last season.
There was luck involved in our win, but it wasn't entirely down to luck. I'll say it again, we defended well.
Obviously we had a strategy, but to control the game by nullifying the opposition like Italians probably wasn't it. I don't think Lambert intended to give Liverpool 75 percent possession, while we comfortably swept up every attack with aplomb.
Rather, whenever we got the ball we couldn't keep hold of it. Liverpool didn't do much with it, however, and we defended well (there, I said it again). They hit the woodwork, they had chances. We dug out the result and it looked more of an opportunistic win rather than some masterful, assured, controlling display.
As I said above, the pattern would appear to suggest that we can't keep hold of the ball very well, and are generally punished as a result.
In any case, I want to watch the Villa play football, not run around while the opposition plays football.
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I tend to agree Jimbo. Unless the plan really did extend to throwing the ball to a Liverpool player from a Villa throw-in, almost every single time.
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It really depends on whether this is some temporary tactic to keep us out of relegation places until we can sign some footballers, or a log term footballing principal. The former I can stomach. The latter isn't good enough.
Let's see what happens when we're playing teams from our league again.
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Thats the whole point. We are now back to playing teams from our league now, lets see if we play a bit of football. I think Cleverley will be a good player for us and he delph and Westwood will dominate play against all but the top teams. They were yesterday and they had to change their tactics by bringing another midfielder on
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What I'd really like to see at Villa is a pass where you just stop and say, 'fuck, that's brilliant'. But as we have trouble passing it ten yards between players, I don't think I'll be having my breath taken away any time soon.
It's frustrating that the team tries to play in such tiny areas of the pitch, when counter attacking naturally relies on pace and attacking empty space. What tends to happen is that a man will take it into a crowded space in midfield, fire it at somebody's shins and hope for the best.
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It really depends on whether this is some temporary tactic to keep us out of relegation places until we can sign some footballers, or a log term footballing principal. The former I can stomach. The latter isn't good enough.
Let's see what happens when we're playing teams from our league again.
The former has been happening for 3 years under Lambert and still going unfortunately. He even briefly found an alternative which seemed to work to a point, between feb and May of his first season, but it got found out very quickly and he's had no answer since, other than to revert to how McLeish liked to play. That will work to a point, but lose 2-3 of your better players to injury or sale, as McLeish found, and Lambo last season, then your fragile grounding can implode. Both came very close to taking us down after we'd lost the talismanic striker who can nick you the odd win here and there. We lost Bent in 11/12 and couldn't score. We then lost Benteke last season and couldn't score.
It's a dangerous tactic.
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You didn't say no strategy, you said no masterplan. You're wrong. From Gabby pressing Gerrard back, after half an hour we reverted to a clear plan and Liverpool did not have a shot on target or do pretty much anything there after. We were excellent in our shape and discipline and forced Gerrard to make forty yard passes into space on the channels, as they had no other options. There is no such thing as luck, why ascribe decisions of players or managers to some intangible figment of imagination?
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Our style is limited, but its limitations lie well above 17th place, so I'm okay with it. We do at least appear to be quite good at this style this year.
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Our style is limited, but its limitations lie well above 17th place, so I'm okay with it. We do at least appear to be quite good at this style this year.
I agree that we are much better than previous seasons but don't see any positivity in giving the opposition so much of the ball or creating so few chances.
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Our style is limited, but its limitations lie well above 17th place, so I'm okay with it. We do at least appear to be quite good at this style this year.
I agree that we are much better than previous seasons but don't see any positivity in giving the opposition so much of the ball or creating so few chances.
The positivity comes from results. I can't pretend I'm happy watching Villa chase shadows, but I don't suppose I'll mind if we beat the likes of Liverpool with it. However, we'll be one of those sides everybody hates, like Stoke or the Spammers, so it depends if that bothers you. Myself, I watch Villa in a constant state of anxiety, waiting for the opposition to make one of their seven billion half chances count.
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How much did the Man City team cost compared to ours? That may be a slight reason why they had so much possession
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How much did the Man City team cost compared to ours? That may be a slight reason why they had so much possession
I do take that line to a certain extent, but it doesn't explain why we can't do the basics well enough. Better players see space that others don't, they may have better technical skill and all of that, but a bloke that plays in the Evo-Stik Premier Division Nine surely knows how to take a throw in, or not to blast the ball vaguely in the direction of a team-mate and hope for the best.
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It really depends on whether this is some temporary tactic to keep us out of relegation places until we can sign some footballers, or a log term footballing principal. The former I can stomach. The latter isn't good enough.
Let's see what happens when we're playing teams from our league again.
The former has been happening for 3 years under Lambert and still going unfortunately. He even briefly found an alternative which seemed to work to a point, between feb and May of his first season, but it got found out very quickly and he's had no answer since, other than to revert to how McLeish liked to play. That will work to a point, but lose 2-3 of your better players to injury or sale, as McLeish found, and Lambo last season, then your fragile grounding can implode. Both came very close to taking us down after we'd lost the talismanic striker who can nick you the odd win here and there. We lost Bent in 11/12 and couldn't score. We then lost Benteke last season and couldn't score.
It's a dangerous tactic.
I'm willing to give them (Lambert+Keane) the benefit of my patience for a while. But I do agree to an extent.
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You didn't say no strategy, you said no masterplan. You're wrong. From Gabby pressing Gerrard back, after half an hour we reverted to a clear plan and Liverpool did not have a shot on target or do pretty much anything there after. We were excellent in our shape and discipline and forced Gerrard to make forty yard passes into space on the channels, as they had no other options. There is no such thing as luck, why ascribe decisions of players or managers to some intangible figment of imagination?
So why say: "You said it yourself; no strategy, down to luck, myths."? To prevent you from tying yourself up in any further knots, I'll agree with you and have done with it. Gabby played the hassling game very well, it was great to watch. And we always knew Coutinho's shot would hit the post, we had it well covered, no sweat. But controlling the game like Italians? Nah.
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How much did the Man City team cost compared to ours? That may be a slight reason why they had so much possession
Nobody is saying otherwise, though.
But what about when the same thing happens at home to Newcastle? Or Hull? Or pretty much everyone we play?
I'd love to know when was the last time we had more of the ball or passed more than our opposition.
We are perennially amongst the worst teams in the league for passes competed or possession, we just seen unable to improve this.
Possession and passing doesn't always translate to points, and as Monty said, the limitations of that style are above where we have actually been finishing, but teams which spend so much time without the ball or who rarely pass never do very well.
They also aren't great to watch, which is one reason for our poor attendances of late.
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That's the worst part about it. Absolutely turgid shit is served up week after week. If you were paying 40 or 50 quid for the theatre and they performed like we do you would be quite within your rights to demand a refund. But because its football fans anything goes.
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How much did the Man City team cost compared to ours? That may be a slight reason why they had so much possession
I do take that line to a certain extent, but it doesn't explain why we can't do the basics well enough. Better players see space that others don't, they may have better technical skill and all of that, but a bloke that plays in the Evo-Stik Premier Division Nine surely knows how to take a throw in, or not to blast the ball vaguely in the direction of a team-mate and hope for the best.
Who is this bloke you speak of, and why haven't we signed him yet!?
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How much did the Man City team cost compared to ours? That may be a slight reason why they had so much possession
Nobody is saying otherwise, though.
But what about when the same thing happens at home to Newcastle? Or Hull? Or pretty much everyone we play?
I'd love to know when was the last time we had more of the ball or passed more than our opposition.
We are perennially amongst the worst teams in the league for passes competed or possession, we just seen unable to improve this.
Possession and passing doesn't always translate to points, and as Monty said, the limitations of that style are above where we have actually been finishing, but teams which spend so much time without the ball or who rarely pass never do very well.
They also aren't great to watch, which is one reason for our poor attendances of late.
Maybe judge after the next 7 games, I think with Benteke back and the middle 3 we have, we will have more possession and play better football, but maybe it is the cider and wine making me think that lol
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Our middle three are capable of keeping it well
But Weimann and gabby either side of benteke don't offer the quality of movement or touch to help with that.
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Our middle three are capable of keeping it well
But Weimann and gabby either side of benteke don't offer the quality of movement or touch to help with that.
I'd be tempted to play two up front. Gabby alongside the Beast. Then either the midfield 3 with Zogbia ahead in a free role, or a diamond with Westy at the base and Zog at the tip.
Two up top is back in fashion now and I think it would benefit us to give Benteke support. Plus he and Gabby both like to work the channels so they can drift wide as and when, or drop deep.
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I really enjoyed winning at Anfield, it was as comfortable an away win as Stoke. I didn't enjoy Newcastle, as I was nervous in our need to avoid defeat. Fortunately the game was something of a non-entity.
Neither of those games were comfortable. Great results but to say they were comfortable is stretching it a bit. We barely touched the ball second half at Anfield.
Stoke were complete rubbish opening day, they never looked like scoring.
It was only nervous because 1 nil leads are always dodgy no matter how both teams are playing, look at Man. United comfortably being the better team for 75 minutes today and then going into panic stations when Everton started to throw more men forward.
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Good shout tbh
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Eh? Tying myself in knots? You're back peddling. Masterplan/strategy it means the same thing and anybody who watched the game would have recognised a deliberate ploy after half an hour to retreat back, at a point when we should have been two up. This wasn't a result of Liverpool pressure.
You mentioned myths and you brought up the fiction of luck. You mention one shot in 90 minutes that didn't hit the target and use it as if it proves your point! We controlled it and were never in any damager, especially when Rodgers brought on Lambert and took off his wingers.
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The Hull example I must it I'm finding a bit puzzling.
We completely battered them in the first half, no complaints if we were 4 up at half time and Bruce admitted that was the worst they've played for ages.
Yes we sat back in the second half to see what they had but you often see prem teams relax when they go 2 up as a sort of earnt the right sort of thing. West Ham did it with QPR today, just let them have the ball for the last 20 minutes and QPR did nothing with it.
QPR had 52% of the ball today btw.
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Some stats today highlight the way in which the possession percentage on its own has little indication as to how a game went; according to the beeb, Everton, Arsenal, Southampton and QPR each enjoyed over 50% possession this afternoon, yet, from what I can gather, all deservedly lost.
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Chelsea were one up and allowed Arsenal to play in front of them second half, but they lacked any penetration and Chelsea did them on the break.
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Our possession stats are pretty awful. Over a prolonged season they will impact on our results. Against the top teams we are hitting the low 30%. We really shouldn't be playing on the break against every team we play at VP.
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We didn't against Hull, we bossed them for forty five minutes then called it a day job done. Maybe we are just not used to routine home wins anymore.
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We didn't against Hull, we bossed them for forty five minutes then called it a day job done. Maybe we are just not used to routine home wins anymore.
I'd say it was the perpetual inability to string two good halves of football together.
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We might occasionally do ok, but it's fairly clear that we struggle with keeping possession of the ball and if we are going to have any long term success at home we're going to need to address that.
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Whats our best team for the coming games then?
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Our possession stats are pretty awful. Over a prolonged season they will impact on our results. Against the top teams we are hitting the low 30%. We really shouldn't be playing on the break against every team we play at VP.
Part of that might be to do with the fact that our back five (including Guzan) are not overly comfortable in possession. For teams that do tend to have a lot of possesion in games, quite a bit of it tends to be in their own defensive third. I wouldn't feel too comfortable seeing our current back four and Guzan knocking the ball around between each other and I'm sure that has been something that has been discussed.
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Whats our best team for the coming games then?
For Everton away (assuming Vlaar and Benteke will be fit), I'd be tempted to go back to:
Guzan
Hutton Senderos Vlaar Cissokho
Westwood
Cleverley Delph
Weimann Benteke Gabby
I would like to see us try a different formation at home, with either Cole, N'Zogbia or Grealish coming in as a "number 10" behind Gabby and Benteke.
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Posession matters, but posession stats are a red herring. Whether a team hoofs from the goalie and loses posession or knocks it among the back four for a minute and then hoofs and then loses posession the outcome is the same.
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Posession matters, but posession stats are a red herring. Whether a team hoofs from the goalie and loses posession or knocks it among the back four for a minute and then hoofs and then loses posession the outcome is the same.
Exactly. 60% possession my look on paper like a team were dominant, but if a lot of that possession consisted of them playing it around the back while the opposition sat off then it can be a bit misleading.
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Whats our best team for the coming games then?
For Everton away (assuming Vlaar and Benteke will be fit), I'd be tempted to go back to:
Guzan
Hutton Senderos Vlaar Cissokho
Westwood
Cleverley Delph
Weimann Benteke Gabby
I would like to see us try a different formation at home, with either Cole, N'Zogbia or Grealish coming in as a "number 10" behind Gabby and Benteke.
I would have Nzob in the hole and Baker ahead of Senderos just about
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Guzan
Hutton Senderos Vlaar Cissokho
Sanchez
Richardson Delph
N'Zogbia Benteke Gabby
That team takes points at Goodison.
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I would have Nzob in the hole
(https://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/516173355.gif?1329132866)
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It just never gets old. Whoever made that gif should be king of the internet.
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It just never gets old. Whoever made that gif should be king of the internet.
As far as I am concerned, they are the king of the internet.
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It just never gets old. Whoever made that gif should be king of the internet.
As far as I am concerned, they are the king of the internet.
And me. But it should be official. They should be given a crown and a sash.
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Posession matters, but posession stats are a red herring. Whether a team hoofs from the goalie and loses posession or knocks it among the back four for a minute and then hoofs and then loses posession the outcome is the same.
Exactly. 60% possession my look on paper like a team were dominant, but if a lot of that possession consisted of them playing it around the back while the opposition sat off then it can be a bit misleading.
That's true, but the point I was making with those statistics isn't that in any one game we gifted the possession, it is that we pretty much always gift it.
It's also not just possession, it is pass completion, too, and in both of them we are amongst the worst teams in the league - if not the worst.
We fail to keep hold of the ball, and we do not pass it around anything like enough.
I dont understand why people keep bringing up the "yeah, but in this game, we had this tiny amount of possession and still won" or "team x had 99% possession today and lost". Nobody is suggesting for a moment that possession = victory. It isn't anywhere near that simple.
I also don't see why people seem to think that raising it means we're overlooking areas where we have improved. We are tighter at the back, yes. FWIW I also thought we deserved the points at Liverpool
There's really no need to reduce the argument to "we're always shit" or "if you have the ball more, you're always going to win", neither of which are true, but they're not even the matter at hand.
The issue being raised is that a team which *never* passes the ball much and pretty much never has the lion's share of possession is going to struggle to achieve anything, and it is a situation for us which doesn't seem to be improving at all.
We have had three whole seasons of this now. Attendances are taking a nose dive. Maybe if we played a bit of football - or tried to - we'd have more people willing to pay to watch us?
The football we play, particularly at home, is not unlike Pulis's Stoke, except without the crafty cynicism, and some of the excuses we hear for it sound exactly like Stoke fans used to when they were defending their way of play.
I just think we're Aston Villa, we're better than that, we shouldn't be playing like a pub team, with next to no artistry, we should be playing the game the way it is meant to be played.
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This is it, we may well still get some results with counter attacking football but we should be above this. It's fine to counter attack when we go to Chelsea, Man Citeh, Liverpool etc but it shouldn't be our only tactic. At Villa Park and against poor sides we should be able to retain the ball and create chances by playing through them. It's about entertainment and Villa should offer more than we are. I'm pleased we've got more defensive grit this season, but that's not enough on it's own, 9 shots on target from 6 games is simply not enough. We need to aspire and show that we're aspiring to be better than that.
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This is it, we may well still get some results with counter attacking football but we should be above this. It's fine to counter attack when we go to Chelsea, Man Citeh, Liverpool etc but it shouldn't be our only tactic. At Villa Park and against poor sides we should be able to retain the ball and create chances by playing through them. It's about entertainment and Villa should offer more than we are. I'm pleased we've got more defensive grit this season, but that's not enough on it's own, 9 shots on target from 6 games is simply not enough. We need to aspire and show that we're aspiring to be better than that.
We did this v Hull though.
That's what I don't understand, games where we actually play good football and create chances we're still getting criticised like Hull and Stoke.
Yes I accept the criticism point but I save that for extreme games against team on our level like when we won at Southampton last year with something ridiculous like 25% of the ball and home v Swansea which was something like 28%.
Those are unacceptable games, not Hull at home when we should've been five up at half time.
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For all this griping, and it's understandable, you have to remember that in the last 3 weeks we lost at home against Arsenal when the team were ill, at Chelsea who look head and shoulders above everyone, and at home against the current champions. Against Liverpool we were talking about (I think it was paul e's point) how we were very reminiscent of a Serie A team circa 1990(s) in controlling a game 1-0 without having the ball.
We started well against Arsenal and ran out of steam understandably after about half an hour. First half against Chelsea was very even, and Man City just played better than us.
I wouldn't get too down hearted about it because we are set up to play the way we are. We expected to get very few wins during this run of games and so it has proven - with a good win at liverpool. Everton next, and then a series of games that we should see exactly where we are and how good the team really is.
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For all this griping, and it's understandable, you have to remember that in the last 3 weeks we lost at home against Arsenal when the team were ill, at Chelsea who look head and shoulders above everyone, and at home against the current champions. Against Liverpool we were talking about (I think it was paul e's point) how we were very reminiscent of a Serie A team circa 1990(s) in controlling a game 1-0 without having the ball.
We started well against Arsenal and ran out of steam understandably after about half an hour. First half against Chelsea was very even, and Man City just played better than us.
I wouldn't get too down hearted about it because we are set up to play the way we are. We expected to get very few wins during this run of games and so it has proven - with a good win at liverpool. Everton next, and then a series of games that we should see exactly where we are and how good the team really is.
Good post Peter and exactly how I see it.
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It's not really griping though, it's identifying an issue that we clearly have. Our record at home has been really poor for years and it's because we struggle to engineer opportunities if we're not counter attacking. So really instead of just saying 'it's the way we play', it should be something that's looked at and addressed. Also it's not particularly entertaining for the crowd for their team's tactics to be based on sitting back and soaking up pressure at home.
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If Clark takes his chance agaisnt Arsenal and Richarson against Man City, then who knows. Small margins in these games.
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It's not really griping though, it's identifying an issue that we clearly have. Our record at home has been really poor for years and it's because we struggle to engineer opportunities if we're not counter attacking. So really instead of just saying 'it's the way we play', it should be something that's looked at and addressed. Also it's not particularly entertaining for the crowd for their team's tactics to be based on sitting back and soaking up pressure at home.
It is also not something that has just appeared this season, we've been like this for three years.
Playing that way doesn't mean you never win games - of course it doesn't, look at Hull or Liverpool - but if your opposition almost always passes the ball twice as much as you do, or if you never have the lion's share of possession, there's not much football going on there.
I also thought we'd realised - after having it graphically proven over the course of a couple of seasons - that just expecting to counter attack all the time is not good enough, because that is not always going to be an option.
Hopefully that will change this season, but I haven't seen much evidence of that so far.
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If Clark takes his chance agaisnt Arsenal and Richarson against Man City, then who knows. Small margins in these games.
To resuscitate that disagreement you were having with Jimbo - you could say "well, if Coutinho hadn't hit the post..." surely?
These things happen, both in our favour and against us, over the course of a season.
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If Clark takes his chance agaisnt Arsenal and Richarson against Man City, then who knows. Small margins in these games.
To resuscitate that disagreement you were having with Jimbo - you could say "well, if Coutinho hadn't hit the post..." surely?
These things happen, both in our favour and against us, over the course of a season.
You need to take your chances against the top sides, as they don't give you many. That can apply to Clark, Richardson and Countinho's efforts.
More seriously and specifically I think Clark's chance was harder to miss and came at a time where I thought we were on top.
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It's not really griping though, it's identifying an issue that we clearly have. Our record at home has been really poor for years and it's because we struggle to engineer opportunities if we're not counter attacking. So really instead of just saying 'it's the way we play', it should be something that's looked at and addressed. Also it's not particularly entertaining for the crowd for their team's tactics to be based on sitting back and soaking up pressure at home.
It is also not something that has just appeared this season, we've been like this for three years.
Playing that way doesn't mean you never win games - of course it doesn't, look at Hull or Liverpool - but if your opposition almost always passes the ball twice as much as you do, or if you never have the lion's share of possession, there's not much football going on there.
I also thought we'd realised - after having it graphically proven over the course of a couple of seasons - that just expecting to counter attack all the time is not good enough, because that is not always going to be an option.
Hopefully that will change this season, but I haven't seen much evidence of that so far.
Precisely, of course we'll get isolated results with our smash and grab approach. I don't even particularly mind it if we're away to the sides at the top of the table. However at home to the top sides and home or away to weak sides, we need to learn how to use the ball and create our own chances. It's also pretty obvious our current tactics aren't drawing in the crowds at home, so something needs to change.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I agree. A good defensive display is not luck.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I agree. A good defensive display is not luck.
I agree, no luck there, the defensive displays were very good.
However, that doesn't change the point across a wider period of time, that we fail to pass the ball with any real conviction, and invariably find ourselves having less of it than the opposition - an approach which isn't going to get us very far (like it didn't last year, or the year before that, when we also went to Anfield and won).
We finished last year with only one side having less possession than we did - Crystal Palace.
I don't think it is nay-saying or doom mongering to suggest that we might want to improve that sort of statistic (which in turn, might help us get more people to attend our matches).
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
Not as such no, but the lack of goal scoring opportunities we create will come back to haunt us at some stage.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I agree. A good defensive display is not luck.
I agree, no luck there, the defensive displays were very good.
However, that doesn't change the point across a wider period of time, that we fail to pass the ball with any real conviction, and invariably find ourselves having less of it than the opposition - an approach which isn't going to get us very far (like it didn't last year, or the year before that, when we also went to Anfield and won).
We finished last year with only one side having less possession than we did - Crystal Palace.
I don't think it is nay-saying or doom mongering to suggest that we might want to improve that sort of statistic (which in turn, might help us get more people to attend our matches).
Exactly it's not just a results issue, it's also an entertainment issue. If the club want to get fans back to home games there needs to be entertainment on the pitch. We've tried our current tactics at home for years and it clearly hasn't worked on a consistent basis, hence why our record is so poor.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I didn't see the Stoke game, but against Hull we went 2-0 then sat back second half and let Hull have all the possession and they nearly got something out of the game. Against Liverpool we played well first half but in the second we barely crossed the half way line.
Are you happy with our style of football both home and away?
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If Clark takes his chance agaisnt Arsenal and Richarson against Man City, then who knows. Small margins in these games.
To resuscitate that disagreement you were having with Jimbo - you could say "well, if Coutinho hadn't hit the post..." surely?
These things happen, both in our favour and against us, over the course of a season.
In football matches things happen which could quite easily have gone the other way. Such an incident can be good for one side, and not so good for the other. Some people call the phenomenon 'luck', but luck doesn't really exist. Neither does God, but I still say things like "God, we were lucky that Coutinho shot hit the post." etc.
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We'd probably be quite good in Europe away from home with a full strength side.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I didn't see the Stoke game, but against Hull we went 2-0 then sat back second half and let Hull have all the possession and they nearly got something out of the game. Against Liverpool we played well first half but in the second we barely crossed the half way line.
Are you happy with our style of football both home and away?
Brady gave Hull a bit of dynamism when he came on, but beyond the own goal, they had one opportunity and it would have been unfair on the balance of the game for them to have got anything. They deserved a sounder beating than they got. I enjoyed how we played and felt that not getting beat by Newcastle at home really exorcised a mental daemon for us.
At Stoke we contained them completely and really should have scored two more. Gabby literally missed an open goal and Bacuna skied one from six or 7 yards with ten minutes to go. Both that and the Liverpool game were pretty similar, us containing them defensively with us exerting a great deal of control- these were not the footballing equivalents of Rourkes Drift, and spurning better chances. We could have scored more at both Stoke and Liverpool with the gilt edged chances, but nevertheless I was impressed by what good away performances they were. Especially at Stoke, where our records isn't very good.
Against Arsenal, I felt we took the game to them, could have been in front when we were hit hard by a few quick goals in succession. We lack the fitness and physical strength to press the issue due to the virus. Chelsea had far too much for us unfortunately, despite some eye pleasing moves through the midfield. I have spoken a lot about the Man City game on that particular thread.
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The possession thing doesn't bother me half as much as the all too few chances we're creating. That's one thing that must significantly improve and probably will with Benteke back. But improving our ball retention should result in us creating a bit more.
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The possession thing doesn't bother me half as much as the all too few chances we're creating. That's one thing that must significantly improve and probably will with Benteke back. But improving our ball retention should result in us creating a bit more.
The lack of chances and lack of possession are linked though, even when Benteke was in the side we still didn't create an awful lot. I agree it's not just having more of the ball, you need to know what to do with it. But if we get more comfortable with keeping the ball it's a start.
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The possession thing doesn't bother me half as much as the all too few chances we're creating. That's one thing that must significantly improve and probably will with Benteke back. But improving our ball retention should result in us creating a bit more.
The lack of chances and lack of possession are linked though, even when Benteke was in the side we still didn't create an awful lot. I agree it's not just having more of the ball, you need to know what to do with it. But if we get more comfortable with keeping the ball it's a start.
Certainly the haplessly giving it away so often has to change. You can keep the ball brilliantly and still end up with 30% of the ball against a side like Arsenal. But a lack of movement, misplacing simple passes, or our bloody throw-ins always going to the opposition are all avoidable.
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I've been to VP 4 times this season, including Parma, and haven't seen us score yet. You'll be glad to know I currently don't have a ticket for either Spurs or Saints.
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There's a lot of odd opinions in this thread.
% of possession doesn't dictate the result, it has very little bearing on it in general, I'm pretty sure the analysis about that very subject has been linked to on this thread already.
The key metric is conversion rates which are almost impossible to find on the internet because they require some real analysis, how many times does having the ball in the final 3rd lead to a shot, how many times does passing the ball around in defence lead to a hoof forward, how many crosses do you put in that aren't blocked in front or cut out by the keeper?
These are the real statistics that make a difference, look at those 3 in the context of the liverpool game and you get (for Liverpool): not many, most and very few. Now if you let a side like Man City gets shots off around the box they will get 1 or 2 right over 90minutes, so what let us down on Saturday was that we allowed too many shots when they were in our 3rd (15 of them (we blocked 12 which is pretty impressive).
On the flip side we lacked accuracy on the break (in general) which is absolutely essential when you're playing a fast counter style, too many times we broke but then misplaced a pass or tried to do too much (nzog in particular) or didn't work the keeper with the odd shot we got.
Against Liverpool we were very accurate in the first half hour, we looked incredibly dangerous whenever we attacked, ditto Stoke and Hull. So the key thing for us is carrying that genuine threat on the break, Against Arsenal we did for half an hour but didn't take the chances and then we got caught at our own game with a couple of quick accurate breaks, after which they just kept the ball in their defence and we held back to avoid a battering. Chelsea and Man City genuinely just outclassed us, but being half billion £ squads makes that pretty easy to do.
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We played very well against Liverpool first half, and deservedly went ahead.
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The point is it's not good enough to only carry a threat on the break, because you're going to come up against sides who are happy enough not to be too attacking. That's why we often have poor results against poor sides at home, we need more strings to our bow than just counter attacking. There is of course a place for counter attacking and it can be great, but you need to be more adaptable when the opposition don't come to attack.
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We played very well against Liverpool first half, and deservedly went ahead.
We did, and we deserved the win. Second half we sat back and defended for practical the whole half. I haven't got a problem with that away from home. Trouble is though we play like that at home as well. That's not acceptable and it's absolutely horrible to watch.
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On the rare occasions we go ahead in a game, we almost always sit back and try to defend our lead, no matter who we're playing. We often come unstuck as a result.
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On the rare occasions we go ahead in a game, we almost always sit back and try to defend our lead, no matter who we're playing. We often come unstuck as a result.
We've won every game we've taken the lead in this season.
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On the rare occasions we go ahead in a game, we almost always sit back and try to defend our lead, no matter who we're playing. We often come unstuck as a result.
We've won every game we've taken the lead in this season.
Three games, and this season alone doesn't tell the whole story. The defence is better, but have the tactics changed?
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On the rare occasions we go ahead in a game, we almost always sit back and try to defend our lead, no matter who we're playing. We often come unstuck as a result.
We've won every game we've taken the lead in this season.
Last season we came unstuck though and it could easily happen this, unless we find a plan B.
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On the rare occasions we go ahead in a game, we almost always sit back and try to defend our lead, no matter who we're playing. We often come unstuck as a result.
We've won every game we've taken the lead in this season.
Three games, and this season alone doesn't tell the whole story. The defence is better, but have the tactics changed?
But we can only judge this season on the games we've played in it, given the number of changes to the squad it's just not fair to judge them against last season.
7 games in having played all of last seasons top 4 just isn't the right time to be complaining, particularly when we've managed to get 10 points from those games.
if the next 7 games yeild similar 30-40% possession stats then a pattern emerges but the reality is we were effective in the first 4 games and haven't had our confidence completely destroyed in the next 3, which is about as much as you'd have asked from those games.
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We played very well against Liverpool first half, and deservedly went ahead.
We did, and we deserved the win. Second half we sat back and defended for practical the whole half. I haven't got a problem with that away from home. Trouble is though we play like that at home as well. That's not acceptable and it's absolutely horrible to watch.
Away from home I don't see the issue, how many teams would continue attacking Liverpool at Anfield one up. The only other team to win there in living memory were Chelsea at the end of last season.
Went 1 up right on half time through the hilarious Gerrard slip and then spent the second half camped on the 18 yard box before breaking clear in injury time when Liverpool had 10 in their box to score a second.
I'm fine how we play away from home because for a bottom half team we frequently win more away games than many teams around us. The likes of Stoke, West Ham, Hull etc. this lot only tend to win 2-3 away games a year.
Home, different story. I just wish Lambert would attempt to develop some sort of plan, either a different formation or mixing up the team, even narrowing the pitch if our size is over prem regulations. The criticism is justified on the most part but the Hull game was the best we've played at VP in a long time, well from games I've attended so that's why I'm surprised that game is being used as an example.
Go back to the Norwich post match thread from last season and I'm pretty sure the likes of Paulie were commending us on the professionalism of not wasting energy in the second half when we just gave Norwich the ball for the whole of the second half and didn't waste energy trying to score a fifth so not sure why there's a sudden change of opinion.
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For clarification, are we calling our wins against Stoke, Hull and Liverpool smash and grab? As I would say that is a pretty inaccurate description of all three games.
I agree. A good defensive display is not luck.
I agree, no luck there, the defensive displays were very good.
However, that doesn't change the point across a wider period of time, that we fail to pass the ball with any real conviction, and invariably find ourselves having less of it than the opposition - an approach which isn't going to get us very far (like it didn't last year, or the year before that, when we also went to Anfield and won).
We finished last year with only one side having less possession than we did - Crystal Palace.
I don't think it is nay-saying or doom mongering to suggest that we might want to improve that sort of statistic (which in turn, might help us get more people to attend our matches).
The fact that we lost that Palace game shows the problem even more starkly - when the opposition sit behind the ball, we have absolutely no idea what to do.
The source of this is obvious - we don't really train for this. Our attacks are meant to be fast, instinctive, direct (though not necessarily hoofy). Breaking defences down requires a slow game, and we're just not built for this. You can see the players whenever they get time panic - they're completely improvising, with no practiced way of moving off the ball or anything. This is obviously the way to play on the break, when you have to use the space and time quickly and suddenly, but when you're trying to break a team down you just look like someone charging headfirst into a door.
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A few more shots on target might help. We must have the worst record in the Premiership.
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Am I correct in thinking I have read somewhere that after 7 games last season, which included Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea and L'pool, we had the same number of points as this year but had scored more goals and conceded less, thus having a better goal difference than this season?
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We're comfortably bottom of both shots per game and shots on target per game, 10 shots on target all season (which means 40% of our shots on target have been scored, which is ridiculously high).
You can find a whole load of stats like this here (http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/4311/Stages/9155/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2014-2015) - most o that make pretty poor reading though, however my opinion was always that with Benteke and Kozak missing at the start and then a really shit run of playing last years top 5 if we could scrap a few points together and have 4-5 goals on the board by this point we'd have rode out the storm pretty safely, which is the case. What we really need now is 10-12 points from the next 6-7 games and a few more goals and then we can start to see what kind of team we really are, the stats so far are fine in the context of who we've played but they need to improve from now.
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Am I correct in thinking I have read somewhere that after 7 games last season, which included Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea and L'pool, we had the same number of points as this year but had scored more goals and conceded less, thus having a better goal difference than this season?
Yes, that is true, but this time last year we'd just lost our main striker to injury and even though he came back pretty quickly he didn't really do anything of note until the new year.
What screwed us last year was 10 points from 12 games from mid october until the End of the year and and 11 points from 15 from the start of feb to the end of the season, 10 in 7 at the start and 7 in 5 in January (coincidentally the 2 periods where Benteke was at his best, 4 in 5 at the start and 3 in 5 in jan) are the points that saved us last year.
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I can recall that we had 15 points after we played the Albion away in late November. You'd hope that we will be able to push above that over the next four games.
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On the flip side we lacked accuracy on the break (in general) which is absolutely essential when you're playing a fast counter style, too many times we broke but then misplaced a pass or tried to do too much (nzog in particular) or didn't work the keeper with the odd shot we got.
We've been missing that creative player who can link up play in the final third for a number of seasons now. When Vlaar's back, I think the defence and midfield are pretty much as good as we could hope for sseing as the position the club is in. What we are really lacking is that player who can transition play from the middle to the final third. Ireland showed it in all too fleeting glimpses, but we haven't had that kind of player since we had Robbie Keane on loan.
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I think cleverley will offer more than KEA did as he moves further forward in coming weeks; and Delph is improving there too. But if we could get someone in to replace one of the front three and offer either genuine width (Sinclair?) or genuine creativity (don't know who) that would help a lot.
I can't see how we get a proper number ten into this side unless we play a diamond or drop cleverley. And I can't see joke hole offering much
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On the flip side we lacked accuracy on the break (in general) which is absolutely essential when you're playing a fast counter style, too many times we broke but then misplaced a pass or tried to do too much (nzog in particular) or didn't work the keeper with the odd shot we got.
We've been missing that creative player who can link up play in the final third for a number of seasons now. When Vlaar's back, I think the defence and midfield are pretty much as good as we could hope for sseing as the position the club is in. What we are really lacking is that player who can transition play from the middle to the final third. Ireland showed it in all too fleeting glimpses, but we haven't had that kind of player since we had Robbie Keane on loan.
I would've liked Zarate who's been in and out of West Ham team but is a decent creative player.
The frustration with all that is Lambert never makes it the absolute target of any transfer window, to get in a creative player above all other positions.
You'd like to think now we're well stocked in all positions in the squad we could maybe look at getting one in January. Not holding my breath though.
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It has to be. Even if they're not brilliant it will make a difference