Ball possession

[Chris Smith]

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.

[supertom]

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.

[PaulTheVillan]

Gabby the pass master.

Shocking.

[Risso]

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.

[Ads]

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.

[PaulWinch again]

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.

[pauliewalnuts]

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.

[pauliewalnuts]

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.

[PaulWinch again]

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.

[pauliewalnuts]

It also isn't just about having more technical players, is also about a lack of movement into space to receive the ball.

[dave.woodhall]

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.

[supertom]

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.

[Chris Smith]

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.

[pauliewalnuts]

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.

[KevinGage]

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.