Derby v Swansea

CroJack

CroJack

Key Player
Jackflash said:
The same old spiel he used to spout when at MK Dons, always on about how much possession his football produces, he seems to think possession in the opposition half is the be all and end all of football. His footballing style reaches a point where the opposition allow you to play about with the ball in their half, never about the amount of goals his football produces.
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He is aware of the problem, at least in his post-match interviews he keeps repeating that we should be better, more creative, and more clinical in the final third. That's all true, but according to Martin we should acchieve all of this by using mostly defensive players. I simply don't see any logic in his approach. You can't expect defenders and midfielders to be predators in the opposition box.
 
Jackflash

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
CroJack said:
He is aware of the problem, at least in his post-match interviews he keeps repeating that we should be better, more creative, and more clinical in the final third. That's all true, but according to Martin we should acchieve all of this by using mostly defensive players. I simply don't see any logic in his approach. You can't expect defenders and midfielders to be predators in the opposition box.
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But never seemed able to rectify the situation at MKD.
 
Yankee_Jack

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
CroJack said:
He'll do it with us. I know that being patient can be frustrating, but we are young, we can wait 😊 .
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Speak for yourself. This season is getting older by the match. Martin is setting up to control matches but with an extreme emphasis on not losing.

For example, on the back line we have two CBs with Naughton sandwiched in the middle and Downes in front of that line. The CBs act more like wing halves and maraud forward. If they played more conventionally then one of Downes and Naughton would be redundant. In fact we if we played: Naughton, Cooper, Cabango, we could still eliminate Downes as Grimes could fulfill that deeper role and add an extra midfield player (e.g. Fulton) or an extra player up top along side Piroe - Whittaker or Cullen.

Martin is trying to play his favorites with diminishing returns while we have the solution sitting idly on the bench.
 
Jackflash

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Martin now has time too improve our final third play, which is a must as our next game is home to the Scum. Don't want to listen to any post match excuses, this is one of our must win games, I'm sure he's well aware of this, nothing would be nicer than to thrash them, and put another nail in their coffin and make it six losses on the bounce.
 
jackodiamonds

jackodiamonds

Set-Piece Specialist
Staff member
Possession is only good for preserving a lead. To shoot is to relinquish possession. Shooting is giving the ball away, hoping for a goal, but might as easily end up with the keeper saving (turnover), a goal kick (turnover), or a deflection or block (50/50 chance of a turnover).

If the players are coached to keep the ball, there's a certain amount of reluctance to shoot as shooting will concede possession unless a goal is scored. I think this is why possession-based teams try to walk the ball into the net, scared to shoot unless they have a perfect opportunity.

Swansea have been outshot a bunch of times this season by teams with nowhere near as much possession. I'd rather outshoot than out-possess the opponent every day of the week (the obvious caveat about quality of chances aside - and it's debateable that possession creates better chances. If anything it's the opposite, as opponents have more time to organise).

Logically, a possession-focussed team will not score as much as a team more willing to take risks. I'm willing to bet that if you took two evenly-matched teams, one with 80% possession and fewer than 10 shots per game and the other with less than 50% possession and 15-20 shots per game, the 15-20 shots team wins a lot more often.

The possession game was solved by the high-press over five years ago. It's outmoded. The big clubs can play possession and still score plenty because the quality of their players is significantly higher than most of their opponents. It's the talent gap producing those results, not possession, which they end up with almost by default because of that talent gap.

A non-elite team can only take possession so far. Even at the height of possession football, before the high-press, during Swansea's first Premier League season, the Swans were still the 6th lowest-scoring side in the division (15th overall) despite finishing 11th. Nostalgia aside, that team would be destroyed by the high-pressing teams of today.

I'd agree with the comments here regarding defensive player selection. I like Downes a lot, but if Grimes goes in January, Downes is there to take over. There's no reason to play both at the same time unless you're away to one of the better sides, and even then I'd throw caution to the wind and attack because it's more fun.

Patterson's hitting his stride and Piroe is the first legit #9 this team has had in years. I'd go 3-4-1-2 and give Piroe some company up top with Patterson or Ntcham behind. There's plenty of attacking talent in this team, but a tactical system based on ball-retention isn't compatible with attacking talent. These guys need to let loose more, work on fast transitions, balls into space, and getting quick shots away. Every sideways pass in the final third is 3 more seconds a defender has to get his breath back and get into position.

As the saying goes: don't bore us, get to the chorus.
 
CroJack

CroJack

Key Player
Victoria Swan said:
I remember Brendan Rogers' line back in the hey day of possession football: "if we have the ball they can't score." You can add to that now: "if we have the ball (and that's all we care about} WE can't score"!
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Ten years ago possession football was an exception to the rule. Today it's a norm. The majority of the Premier League clubs either play or try to play possession football. Leeds, Brighton, Leicester, Wolves, West Ham and Crystal Palace are all among the top ten for possession stats. Brentford, Norwich, Southampton and Arsenal would love to play possession football but they don't for different reasons. Ten years ago it was top clubs plus Swansea who played possession football and today it's all PL clubs minus Burnley, Newcastle, and a couple of other clubs.

As for "we can't score" I am sure the goals will come if Martin changes formation and includes more attackers/natural goal scorers in his starting XI. The lack of goals is not the result of the possession football we play. It has obviously something to do with the quality of the players we have up front and the lack of goal scorers in the starting XI. Piroe has missed at least 4 good chances, Cullen 3, Bidwell 2, Paterson 2, Obafemi 1, Downes 1, Ntcham 1... That's at least 14 good chances. And how have we created all these chances? By playing possession football. On average we create two really good chances per game. Not bad at all when you know that Obafemi and Ntcham haven't played much, our crossing has been poor, and the fitness levels are not top.

I've made a video with all our chances + goals.

 
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Victoria Swan

Victoria Swan

Key Player
Liked watching that @CroJack, thanks, but I don't see that it sheds light on the contention that we get married to possession so much we fail to take shooting opportunities because we think we'll give up possession if we do. Admittedly I don't have the stats for it but it's my impression that we spend a lot of time on the edge of the penalty area passing back and forth when we could be trying a shot.

I will say, watching these clips I am left in no doubt that Ethan Laird and Joel Piroe were great acquisitions this summer and it doesn't surprise me that Liam Cullen is playing second fiddle to Piroe (and maybe even third fiddle to Obafemi when he gets up to speed).
 
The Blobster

The Blobster

Prediction Champ
Not given much of a chance by Martin , he wants to loan him out in January. He nearly went to Lincoln on deadline day .
 
CroJack

CroJack

Key Player
Victoria Swan said:
I don't see that it sheds light on the contention that we get married to possession so much we fail to take shooting opportunities because we think we'll give up possession if we do.
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Fortunately, that's not the case.

First of all, we don't create many shooting opportunities, and that's either because our opponents park the bus against us, so it's difficult to penetrate their stubborn defences, or because of the lack of creativity on our side. With other words, we shoot when we are in good shooting positions, but we don't create many of them.

Second, there are a couple of players who would rather pass the ball than shoot, but these players are not attackers. Smith, for example. I don't think they are afraid of losing possession, they just think someone else is better at shooting. Piroe, Paterson, Ntcham, Cullen, Grimes, Whittaker and Obafemi are definitely not shot-shy.

What we have to do is to shoot when we aren't in good shooting positions in order to create chaos in the opposition box, and then attack the rebounds. A deflected shot could lead to a goal as well. And we should put more crosses in. There is a psychological effect here - you want your opponents to feel the pressure, and they feel the pressure much more when you shoot and cross, then when you pass the ball around their box. And when your opponents are under pressure then they are error prone.

I disagree with the theory that we don't shoot enough because we are afraid of losing possession. We try many things in the opposition half: forward passes, through balls, long balls, lofted passes, dribbles etc., and we lose possession regularly, but we also regain it quickly.

Here is a video with all Swans attacking actions against Derby. They are not a team afraid of losing possession.

 
jackodiamonds

jackodiamonds

Set-Piece Specialist
Staff member
CroJack said:
What we have to do is to shoot when we aren't in good shooting positions in order to create chaos in the opposition box, and then attack the rebounds. A deflected shot could lead to a goal as well. And we should put more crosses in.
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Exactly my point. If the team aren't taking these types of shots or putting crosses in - and crosses are almost as risky as shots in terms of potentially conceding possession - it is because they over-value ball retention at a time when shooting or crossing could reap more rewards.
 
jackodiamonds

jackodiamonds

Set-Piece Specialist
Staff member
Also, I don't think this team lacks finishers at all. Piroe is a good finisher, Paterson needs to shake some rust off but clearly has technical chops, Cullen can shoot, Whittaker is never scared to have a go (I also agree that he should be a lot more involved in the team), Ntcham is good from range, and Dhanda (who I still like) is also trigger happy and reasonably on-target (not that he's likely to play under Martin though).

When Bony was in Swansea for the first time, he averaged a goal every other game, and was probably the best scorer in modern club history. He also averaged over 3 shots per game, which is way more than most. Top scorers always miss more than they score. It's just a numbers game.

Piroe is averaging 2.8 shots per game, leads the team with 5 goals, and looks the best scorer Swansea have had since Bony Mk I. The next best is Ntcham with 1.4. Nobody scores any serious number of goals with ~1 shot per game. Harry Kane was the Prem's top scorer last season with 23 goals - scored on 137 shots. That's a 17% return (rounding up), which is to say he "misses" marginally more than 4 of every 5 shots. He also averaged 3.9 shots per game. Missing isn't the problem. It's just numbers. Shoot more, score more. Expecting Swansea's players to score while taking so few shots is unrealistic.

Of course a team needs the ball (i.e. possession) first in order to create shooting chances, which is why winning the ball back is the second most important thing to shooting, but holding, holding, holding, holding instead of pass-pass-shoot is the reason Swansea don't win more. I can see what Martin is doing - he's building confidence in his players, making the team solid defensively by playing not to lose first, building a foundation. It's surely time now to start playing with more risk, getting shots away, pressing aggressively to win it back, and shooting again. I want to see Swansea in the opponents box "three times more often than the opponent", but I'd settle for three times as many shots.
 
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