Why we don't score - finally unlocked

I analysed every goal from last season and discovered the bleeding obvious when comparing it to this season.

A couple of stand out facts.

1. We scored from opposition mistakes.

2. We crossed the ball better and sooner.

3. Half chances became shots, even from distance.

4. We did everything faster.

5. The overriding factor in all cases was the speed and the quickness of the decision making.



Analysis of each point.

1. OPPOSITION MISTAKES

It wasn't as simple as the goal keeper scuffing a kick and us scoring from it.

It was a full team approach to any mistake made be the opposition, anywhere in their own half. Its an approach we are not using this season, either through lack of motivation or a change in mentality and tactics in favour of being less gung ho, more reserved, more cautious and more "in control".

Last season, if the opposition scuffed a clearance or a pass our whole team reacted. And its not something that just happens, its a specific plan to carry out.

Example, a scruffy pass deflects and goes to our midfielder or winger. People didn't worry at that point about keeping the shape.

Both wingers would set off at the same time and both the strikers would head straight to the box. It would be a matter of 3 - 5 seconds and 1 to 2 passes before that mistake became a cross and a goal threat.

Joining the strikers in the box would be at least one midfielder, usually more. We overloaded them instantly. Almost always, one player would be deep to pick up deflections or overhit crosses, thus keeping the pressure on. And if the ball came to the deep player he would either shoot or cross immediately.

This was great when it worked. And you might think, why don't we do that now?

Well, it comes at a cost. That's why we saw so many end to end games last year. Like I said, this was a team mentality and we would execute this like clockwork every single time we pounced on a loose ball.
But, in reality, you simply don't score every chance you get and that leads to your players being far more exposed if you do lose the ball.  That's why we conceded more often but it's also why the matches were so exciting to watch.

This season, the approach is more considered but it leads to over playing and lost opportunities. However, it also leads to more control, energy conservation and being less likely to be caught out. Its all a balancing act.

Possibly the idea this season is to be more measured in order to control outcomes of each play, but as we are still adapting  we are getting in our own way a bit and lacking that bit of decisiveness needed to turn potential opportunities into actual goal threat.

My thoughts. It will come good soon.

Can any body say if they want me to do point 2,3,4,5? If its interesting enough.

Yes would love to hear your thoughts.
I would add that we signed 7 players in January, changed how we play and now we’ve been worked out.

2. Crossing the ball better and sooner.

This sort of ties into point one in that, when an opportunity was starting to develop more of our players were committed to getting into the box and getting there with less concern for getting back in position if the shit hit the fan.

This allowed the player with the ball, usually a wide player to cross quickly, this would be done from wide attacking places but also, when needed, from deep as long as there were enough players in the box to give us the advantage numerically.

Crossing sooner meant we scored more. Simple.
And crossing sooner meant we had less need to over play it with overlap runs and reverse passing around the side edges of the box.

Again though, this was only really permitted by the willingness to be more gung ho. The early crosses were only so successful because of our mentality of being very attacking and commitment to allowing our strikers and midfielders the chance to overload the opposition penalty area and around it, at speed.

Don't get me wrong, we did over play it last season and we saw many slow build ups and plenty of overly complicated passes around the edge of the opposition box. But in general, above, I'm talking about what we did that brought goals. The overplaying looked nice, but in the main it didn't result in goals.

The thing that gave us the edge when attacking last season was the swiftness of everybody doing it all at once. As soon s you slow that down it means the defenders have time to get organised and they get loads of men behind the ball. This makes crossing less successful in terms of goals because its harder to be accurate if there are 6 or 7 extra bodies in the box.

And just to hammer home a point, this isn't something that develops really slowly over minutes. The window of opportunity is 3 or 4 seconds once the opportunity arises. Longer than that and the advantage swings to the defence. Football is fast. And that's why you know its a team mentality thing. It can't happen by chance. Everybody has to know their job and what to do in that scenario. (I'm not saying that our players don't know. They do know. They have just been given a different script to last season. They are doing their jobs, but the job description has changed).

So because crossing is less successful, we pass it wide, then we over lap, then we look in the box and find that there are two attackers and 5 defenders. So to outfox them, you either go back again, or you try to cross it anyway, but the statistics are against you by now, so even if you cross well there is a higher chance that a defender will read it.

And knowing this, the crosser, attempts to cross the ball harder or higher or ends up clipping it or trying to execute a cross that is technically more difficult. All of these have an effect on the accuracy of the cross. And if you go a step further, our players know this, so they delay the cross again, and pass it backwards only to start all over again...

And then you move into a period called out foxing. And all of our attacks come down to the need to try to outsmart a defender by faking a pass, slipping the ball through to someone's feet, even though there are two men on him, and so on. And if it's not going well, it results in basically no shots because we are beginning to even outfox ourselves and strikers and midfielders end up over dribbling with the ball or confusing their own team mates.

And what we see from the stands are mis-placed passes, failed through balls and confusion. It looks like we have "no ideas when we get forward".

What do we do about it? Simply up the tempo. But be prepared to face more counter attacks. Bring in the players who got it right last season and then tweak from there by litmus testing other players.

Bring in players like Fossey?

wanderlust wrote:Bring in players like Fossey?

Yes lol.

But even without him, we have the sane team as last year in the main. Well from Jan onwards.

John, Afolayen, Morley, and earlier in the season Isgrove, Sheehan.

Trouble is. We need about 12 players in the bench.

As mentioned previously, we don’t have raw pace to counterattack quickly, individuals who can beat a defence by themselves, forwards who can score regularly from distance, a set piece threat or athletes in midfield that can cope without needing the strikers to press so what we are left with is a ponderous approach that is easy to defend and predictable.

wanderlust wrote:As mentioned previously, we don’t have raw pace to counterattack quickly, individuals who can beat a defence by themselves, forwards who can score regularly from distance, a set piece threat or athletes in midfield that can cope without needing the strikers to press so what we are left with is a ponderous approach that is easy to defend and predictable.

Its tactical. And if not tactical its a slump in mentality through the whole team at once. If you can be bothered, pick 3 mistakes at random from this season, and try to find 3 similar mistakes from last season (from the opposition). Pause it before anything happens. Try to predict what our players will do.

You will find that the same exact players will react differently this season compared with last season. And all 3 of this seasons reactions will match each other. And all three of last seasons reactions will match each other.

Its hard to explain in writing. But a simple illustration is.
A defender scuffs a clearance. The ball falls to our wide right player midway in to the attacking half.

Last season, his first touch is forward.
At least one centre mid will run straight to the box.
The player wide left will set off running immediately either into the box or wide left.

This season. His first touch will be to control the ball. As in stop the ball to assess options. The centre kids, rather than set off running, drop their pace, and the player wide left bunches closer to the middle pack, but also doesn't set off into an attacking run.

We may eventually break forward. But it doesn't happen in the first instant. It's those 1, 2 or 3 seconds which are the key to how things end up. And it's not about pace.