Playing out from the back

[lake district canary 4,531]

We can't do it. Simples. We got away with it under Farke because he had the players moving around much more than they do now.  The players now just stand around waiting for it - there just isn't enough movement - and opposition teams know we aren't good at it.

So how many times does the ball have to travel from the goalie to a player who has three opposition players around him before he realises that all that will happen is the ball will come back to him?  How many times? 

And when the ball does reach a player in space, say Aarons out on the right, very often there's no-one near him to pass to!  No support from midfielders!

So the passing out at the back tactic just uesless............the team as a whole just isn't up to it.  Wagner likes to do it, so we will see more of it, but really, we look like a pub team when we try to play out from the back, not a professional team with players being paid thousands of pounds a week.

Boo.

 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by lake district canary

[Capt. Pants 4,201]

We don't have the players to do it, it's as simple as that.

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,424]

We needed another thread on this . Thanks. 

[Petriix 2,834]

Imagine, for a second, a hypothetical scenario where the keeper passes the ball to a midfielder with three opponents around them. They pass it straight back to the keeper who is immediately closed down by two of those players. The keeper passes it wide to the fullback who is also closed down... 

The fullback passes it inside to the centre back who is now under serious pressure. He passes it back to the first midfielder who is now in space and quickly moves it to the opposite fullback who is surging up the wing.

The ball is now ahead of four opponents who have to struggle to get back. Further up the field everyone is man for man meaning a single positional error leaves a dangerous overload or, if someone loses their man, we're in.

We're lacking a bit of confidence and understanding between the players, but the only way to build that is to keep working at it. Of course we need to mix it up a little, but it would be a massive regressive choice (completely outside the realms of possibility) to suddenly start kicking it long. The game has moved on.

[ricardo 7,347]

So far it has proved counterproductive.  Stop doing things that don't work.

[yellowrider120 761]

16 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Imagine, for a second, a hypothetical scenario where the keeper passes the ball to a midfielder with three opponents around them. They pass it straight back to the keeper who is immediately closed down by two of those players. The keeper passes it wide to the fullback who is also closed down... 

The fullback passes it inside to the centre back who is now under serious pressure. He passes it back to the first midfielder who is now in space and quickly moves it to the opposite fullback who is surging up the wing.

The ball is now ahead of four opponents who have to struggle to get back. Further up the field everyone is man for man meaning a single positional error leaves a dangerous overload or, if someone loses their man, we're in.

We're lacking a bit of confidence and understanding between the players, but the only way to build that is to keep working at it. Of course we need to mix it up a little, but it would be a massive regressive choice (completely outside the realms of possibility) to suddenly start kicking it long. The game has moved on.

Maybe it has but that doesn't mean 'going long' is suddenly not effective or the right thing to do in some circumstances. Once in the first half there were ironic cheers when Krul waved the defence upfield, 'went long', we won the 'second ball' and got into the Burnley box! You may dismiss the guty as many things but Sam Allardyce said once (only a few years ago) that 'the best form of defence was to play with the ball as far away from your goal as you can'. If you have a calamity in goal and a terrified back four then for Christs sake get the bloody ball upfield when you're being closed down! 

[SwindonCanary 455]

Did you notice when krull kicked it long we had the ball a lot more

[ron obvious 1,501]

We should do both.

We should go long when they press us high & play out when they drop back because we're bypassing them. Unsettle them, keep them guessing, & thus hold the upper hand.

We've got Sarge &/or Idah now who can compete in the air. We didn't have the option with only Teemu.

However we seem to have stopped moving off the ball, & this is a crucial part of any decent team's game. I know the last two teams we played aren't up to Burnley's standard but our energy levels looked poor from the beginning today. 

Kick up the collective bum time.

[Bovril 219]

Simply can’t do it with Hanley. It’s not his game at all.

Whereas their No. 36 Jordan showed exactly how to play it. He was confident on the ball, able to bring it out, and if needed take it past someone.

Hanley is a very good old-school defender who is brilliant at making blocks but sadly the game has moved on.

Krul and Hanley have served us well, but time to move on if we want to play this style.

[lake district canary 4,531]

12 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

We should do both.

We should go long when they press us high & play out when they drop back because we're bypassing them. Unsettle them, keep them guessing, & thus hold the upper hand.

We've got Sarge &/or Idah now who can compete in the air. We didn't have the option with only Teemu.

However we seem to have stopped moving off the ball, & this is a crucial part of any decent team's game. I know the last two teams we played aren't up to Burnley's standard but our energy levels looked poor from the beginning today. 

Kick up the collective bum time.

Agree that we should do both. 

On the moving of the ball point, there was one occasion today (and it probably happended more than once) I noticed that Nunez had the ball in midfield and there were five of our players ahead of him. Not one of then was moving - closely marked and static. This is not the way to play.  I mentioned Farke on the op because the fluidity his teams with was marvellous to watch - the opposition at this level often couldn't live with it.  I am expecting to see similar under Wagner, but it isn't there yet.

Not able to play out well, not enough support in midfield, static players up front.....yes it was a good team we were playing against, but we weren't doing the basics. Wagner has a lot to do!!!

Edited February 4, 2023 by lake district canary

[Barham Blitz 652]

It's not just Hanley and the back four though.  It is the positions that the midfield take up ahead of them.  There is just not that movement ahead of them at the moment - or rather today as actually it was noticeably better in the last two games after being non-existent under Smith.

I've been vocal in stating that Hanley wouldn't be in my starting eleven for exactly this reason but there needs to be better options for it to work whoever we play at the back.  And ideally those midfield options need to be comfortable receiving the ball under pressure and moving it on quickly which again comes down to movement around them and building familiar patterns of play to a structure.

That's one of the reasons it took Farkeball a while to click.  We (fans) may have to be patient but it is the right way to go.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,131]

The problem is we do it too slowly and lackadaisically. PL teams pass the ball out quickly and with purpose, we do it slowly almost as if to give us time to think about building an attack. This slower approach would have worked 10-15 years ago but teams are too fit, fast and well drilled now and you just get closed down too quickly. I keep repeating that one of our biggest issues and why we always look so hopeless at PL level is because we seem to want to play football at a slower pace than other teams with and without the ball. We want too much time on the ball (usually while we're standing still with it which is another problem) we take too many touches, we play sideways and backwards too often and always delay the forward pass too late. If you're going to play out then pass it around the defence do it quickly, the whole point is to move the opposition about and make them chase you, you have to do it really quickly nowdays. 

We saw signs in the last two games that Wagner is trying tor rectify this, but we came unstuck against opposition who play like PL teams do without the ball and were just too fast, aggressive and well organised for us. It's going to take time to change the players mindsets and natural instincts. Ever since Farke came in and it continued with Smith we've been coached to slow the play down, be patient and overpass in our build up and when under pressure we're reverting to what we're comfortable with. We're going to need a lot of time for new patterns of play to become second nature to the players and to be honest we're going to need some new personnel to make it work effectively as well. A players physical and mental attributes are going to have to become a higher priority in the profile of player we look to sign and if we are going to sign more passing players they have to be able to move energetically and intelligently as well. 

[Barham Blitz 652]

8 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Agree that we should do both. 

On the moving of the ball point, there was one occasion today (and it probably happended more than once) I noticed that Nunez had the ball in midfield and there were five of our players ahead of him. Not one of then was moving - closely marked and static. This is not the way to play.  I mentioned Farke on the op because the fluidity his teams with was marvellous to watch - the opposition at this level often couldn't live with it.  I am expecting to see similar under Wagner, but it isn't there yet.

Not able to play out well, not enough support in midfield, static players up front.....yes it was a good team we were playing against, but we weren't doing the basics. Wagner has a lot to do!!!

Hadn't seen your post before making mine but it carries the same gist.  Your comment about Nunez reminds me of Aaron's signature move earlier in the season where he would receive the ball at full back, get closed down and be forced to wander across the pitch with the ball before passing it back to a centre back because everyone else had disappeared over the horizon and been picked up by the opposition defence.

There aren't enough short vertical or at least forward diagonal pass options in this team due to this lack of movement.  We had addressed this in the last couple of games but lost it again today.

[Branston Pickle 3,638]

The answer is to mix it up, be less predictable.  We can play out from the back, to say that we can’t because of the odd mistake is a pretty dumb assertion, but there’s clearly a time and place for it.

[Well b back 3,190]

Like it or not op you will have to get used to it, this is the way Wagner sets his teams up. I remember exactly the same in Farke’s 1st season and a bit. 
One of two things will happen, either our players will improve in this system, or they will be replaced. One thing for certain is that while Wagner is our manager we won’t be playing a different style of football.

 

[Google Bot 3,259]

"We can't do it" isn't how you approach this conundrum, you use the players who can be coached to do it.

Who thought Burnley could play the way they are this season?   Wagner barely through the door yet, much work to do against the very top teams... We can get away with a lot more with the mid-lower teams.  And that's just a reality of the league.

[mannings bandy legs 385]

Burnley's press was too intense for our players to play around. It was obvious after 5 mins we could'nt handle it. Players are not good enough to play through it.This is when the players on the pitch,especially the so called captain, have to make decisions in play. Hanley or Krul should have decided it was'nt working and gone long.Hanley looks like a rabbit in headlights when asked to play this way. Embarrassing.

[shefcanary 2,388]

In contrast our press was embarrassing at times. We had one player pressing laterally like a headless chicken or 7 year old, rather than up and down in a vertical section in conjunction with their fellow forwards doing likewise in their vertical section. Very poor waste of energy.

[Google Bot 3,259]

1 hour ago, shefcanary said:

In contrast our press was embarrassing at times.

That was the biggest surprise for me, we showed nothing like what we had past 2 games.  I get Burnley are the better/fitter team, but then it would stand to reason that we should UP our game, not DROP it. 

I don't know if this was deliberate approach by Wagner, as they are comfortable under pressure and it would lead us to tire so was looking to counter.  It felt like the players were just off the pace to me though.   

I noted that Wagner talked about weak points he was focusing on with Burnley in the build-up.  It'd be interesting to know what they were in hindsight.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

18 hours ago, Well b back said:

Like it or not op you will have to get used to it, this is the way Wagner sets his teams up. I remember exactly the same in Farke’s 1st season and a bit. 
One of two things will happen, either our players will improve in this system, or they will be replaced. One thing for certain is that while Wagner is our manager we won’t be playing a different style of football.

 

Despite the shaky start it it hadn't been for Krul's howler (which we must be honest and say he repeated in the previous games too but got way with it) we might have grown into the game at 0:0 as oppose to 0:1 down.  Might then have all turned out differently.

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

We don't so much play out from the back as paint ourselves into a corner. 

One of the precepts of playing out from the back is that every player involved has the option of going long if required at any given point....we don't do that, we let ourselves get squeezed  resulting in mistakes.