Long Ball United?

Getsme

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Having thought about this it’s become very evident that when plan A doesn’t work we resort to long ball tactics, tactics I’d associate with a struggling Premiership or lower division side, not for a Club that prides itself on free flowing attacking football, especially when the manager has a reputation for playing a modern style game. Or does he?

According to stats from the World Cup the Netherlands played over 100 more long balls than any other team in the World Cup last summer- they averaged 80 long balls per game. The next most by any quater-final team was 65 per game by Costa Rica, that’s quite a difference in anybody books. We are now 24 games into the season and we are currently 2nd in the league of long balls, we are up there with all the teams promoted to the Premiership this season. We now even have Sam Allardyce of all people calling us a long ball team, and he has a case.

Yesterday’s game was yet another example of this, we played 29 more long balls than West Ham, but it worked, no one can deny we were struggling to score when we tried to play with a patient possession based football. It wasn't until we started to play the long ball game that we started to create chances, even Allardyce admitted they found it hard to cope with our long ball tactics.

My question is, are we deliberately by-passing the midfield and playing to our strengths? Is the team’s instructions to play it long to our attacking players? It would certainly explain the team selections and why Herrera is constantly on the bench? It’s also a tactic our defenders like to play as it gives them less and less on the ball reasonability

I’m starting to think it’s a tactic we will have to get used to until he finds the right players to play his preferred formation (whatever that may be)
 
Yep, second. Only Burnley have played more.
Yeah, those stats could often be misleading. For instance, some of LvG and Pep's philosophies include "switching" play to open up/exploit space - which could be considered a "long ball", but in this case, and pertaining to this season, it's actually been pretty accurate - hoof ball.

Defenders are pressed....hoof ball. Defenders are pressed, pass back to DDG....hoof ball. We're trailing, and can't create many chances...bring on Fellaini and...hoof ball! Rooney gets the ball in midfield....long ball out to Valencia :lol:

It's been one of the stranger things in all honesty. I had a pre-conceived notion of LvG and his methods (now it seems misconceived) - possession based "attacking" football (to be fair to him, we've improved our possession stats in a lot of matches too - without being threatening though).

He's football has made him come across more "defensive" than attacking, IMO. Twitching ass and all.
 
Yeah, those stats could often be misleading. For instance, some of LvG and Pep's philosophies include "switching" play to open up/exploit space - which could be considered a "long ball", but in this case, and pertaining to this season, it's actually been pretty accurate - hoof ball.

Defenders are pressed....hoof ball. Defendes are pressed, pass back to DDG....hoof ball. We're trailing, and can't create many chances...bring on Fellaini and...hoof ball! Rooney gets the ball in midfield....long ball out to Valencia :lol:

It's been one of the stranger things in all honesty. I had a pre-conceived notion of LvG and his methods (now it seems misconceived) - possession based "attacking" football (to be fair to him, we've improved our possession stats in a lot of matches too - without being threatening though).

He's football has made him come across more "defensive" than attacking, IMO. Twitching ass and all.

I'd imagine that definitely makes up a fair few!
 
Yeah, those stats could often be misleading. For instance, some of LvG and Pep's philosophies include "switching" play to open up/exploit space - which could be considered a "long ball", but in this case, and pertaining to this season, it's actually been pretty accurate - hoof ball.

Defenders are pressed....hoof ball. Defenders are pressed, pass back to DDG....hoof ball. We're trailing, and can't create many chances...bring on Fellaini and...hoof ball! Rooney gets the ball in midfield....long ball out to Valencia :lol:

It's been one of the stranger things in all honesty. I had a pre-conceived notion of LvG and his methods (now it seems misconceived) - possession based "attacking" football (to be fair to him, we've improved our possession stats in a lot of matches too - without being threatening though).

He's football has made him come across more "defensive" than attacking, IMO. Twitching ass and all.

All stats can be misleading, but to be the second highest in the Premiership and the third highest in the top 5 leagues in Europe, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a team tactic.
 
Well the only time we look remotely threatening is when we play long balls to Fellaini.

Needs must, but we play shit football.

I bet all the tossers complaining about SAF's last years would love to go back to that now.
 
Thing is there's very little penetration in the final third so hitting it long for say Van Persie to control is pointless at the moment as when we get it there we can't fashion any chances.
 
wednesday's game is going to be a thrill a fecking minute isn't it?
 
It is not only our defenders hoofing the ball. Our so called midfielders often just close their eyes and hoof it forward hoping it somehow ends in the paths of our attackers. Many times it doesn't even end up in the long ball stats because it hits a blocking defender first.
 

All stats can be misleading, but to be the second highest in the Premiership and the third highest in the top 5 leagues in Europe, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a team tactic.

I disagree. Its only tactics for the last minutes, when we are chasing a goal. Thats okay, but for most parts of the game these long balls are forced up on us. We pass around until someone has to hoof it forward, because he is under pressure/doesnt know what to do with it.
 
Anyone remember the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry gets his balls caught in his underwear and gets nicknamed "Long ball Larry?"

Think we may have a new nickname for Van Gaal. Long Ball Louis. :lol:
 
This has its own thread now? Jeez. Ill revise my post from the LVG thread then.

We play more passes than anyone bar City, so yes we play more long balls. It also means we've also completed more short passes than Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool (from squawka).

We certainly play more long balls as a mix of our passing. However as a mix of out total passes we're 12th in the league (not 2nd or 3rd).
 
Did anyone see Sam Allardyce take a pop at us over this? :lol:

I think that judging by the very existence of this thread the op certainly did.

So sections of the caf have gone from complaining about us passing it too much to now playing a long ball game?

Ally this with complaints of us crossing the ball too much alongside complaints of us playing too narrow and without width and it would seem that no matter what kind of football we play some bleary eyed tool somewhere will have a problem with it.
 
LVG definitely likes the long ball, pretty sure he said it himself before.

There isn't anything wrong with it aslong as we have the players to work it, but obviously most would prefer a game on the floor.
 
I disagree. Its only tactics for the last minutes, when we are chasing a goal. Thats okay, but for most parts of the game these long balls are forced up on us. We pass around until some has to hoof it forward, because he is under pressure.

In every game? The stats aren’t just from last night, it’s been pretty clear now for a few games that we resort to long ball tactics when things aren’t going our way. Against Cambridge at Old Trafford we played the long ball game from the start.

We are second in the league for long balls, third in the top 5 leagues in Europe, it’s a tactic we are using, it’s a tactic the manager used at the World Cup as well.
 
I think that judging by the very existence of this thread the op certainly did.

So sections of the caf have gone from complaining about us passing it too much to now playing a long ball game?

Ally this with complaints of us crossing the ball too much alongside complaints of us playing too narrow and without width and it would seem that no matter what kind of football we play some bleary eyed tool somewhere will have a problem with it.

Who’s complaining about it?
 
This has its own thread now? Jeez. Ill revise my post from the LVG thread then.

We play more passes than anyone bar City, so yes we play more long balls. It also means we've also completed more short passes than Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool (from squawka).

We certainly play more long balls as a mix of our passing. However as a mix of out total passes we're 12th in the league (not 2nd or 3rd).
Yeah we pass it around a lot between midfield and defenders. But how much short passing can be seen in the final 3rd? It's not more impressive because we are patient before we hoof it.
 


We're playing a similar amount of long balls to relegation threatened sides...

...poor
 
What exactly constitutes a long ball? A pass more than 20m? What's the criteria exactly?
 


We're playing a similar amount of long balls to relegation threatened sides...

...poor


That's a good way to show sensationalism over numbers. If a team plays 20 long balls out of 50 passes, that's not alarming, instead if a team plays 12 long balls out of 15 passes, that is quite alarming. We in general keep a lot more possession and attempt a lot more passes than relegation threatened sides and just showing up total long balls wouldn't make sense for comparison unless it is accompanied by total passes attempted as well.
 
Who cares? We have a player in Fellaini and it's not a bad idea to try and make good use of him. Besides, when we used it as a plan B yesterday we got ourselves and equalizer (and several other good chances). Who cares if we're playing as many long balls as relegation teams, if we're still sitting in the top 4?
 
That's a good way to show sensationalism over numbers. If a team plays 20 long balls out of 50 passes, that's not alarming, instead if a team plays 12 long balls out of 15 passes, that is quite alarming. We in general keep a lot more possession and attempt a lot more passes than relegation threatened sides and just showing up total long balls wouldn't make sense for comparison unless it is accompanied by total passes attempted as well.

Nice attempt at a save. However:



As Adam Bate highlights in the article linked above: 'The last three Premier League champions – as well as both Chelsea and Manchester City this season – rank among the bottom five for long balls per game, despite the fact that they make far more passes than the average team overall'.

There's no way to dress up the fact that we are hoofing it a huge amount.
 
Nice attempt at a save. However:



As Adam Bate highlights in the article linked above: 'The last three Premier League champions – as well as both Chelsea and Manchester City this season – rank among the bottom five for long balls per game, despite the fact that they make far more passes than the average team overall'.

There's no way to dress up the fact that we are hoofing it a huge amount.


I never said we don't launch it as often as City or Chelsea, for starters we play with 2 strikers every game and RvP especially likes to be released early with a ball over the top of defense, I was merely pointing out that we should not be compared to relegation sides over a raw number of long passes per game.
 
Who cares? We have a player in Fellaini and it's not a bad idea to try and make good use of him. Besides, when we used it as a plan B yesterday we got ourselves and equalizer (and several other good chances). Who cares if we're playing as many long balls as relegation teams, if we're still sitting in the top 4?

Because we're sitting in the top 4 purely through luck and only by a single point, above three teams who are all playing significantly better than us. It's highly unlikely we're going to stay there. Definitely not if we carry on playing as we have been.

Of course the panic wont start on here until we actually drop to 5th or below. Until then the "we're playing top 4 football" argument will be blindly trotted out as a defence.
 
We should be playing exciting attacking football which the club is famous for. Long percentage balls are not that.

However the problems are not just the manager and his tactics, it's more than that.

The defenders lack intelligence and can't pass. We don't have enough midfielders with creativity or bravery. Most of all the whole squad lacks understanding and cohesion.
 
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