Why is our passing so garbage?

Oranges038 said:
LVG's stucture was very rigid, very slow and very predictable. Players stayed in their zones and moved where they were told. It was incredibly boring football by numbers.

I don't want to watch predictable phases of passing every week. You don't have to be a solely possession based team, keeping the ball for the sake of it when you are ahead is fine by me, control the game and don't the other team
back in, last night was good example of what not to do.

What do I want to see good high tempo attacking football. With good passing and movement, most of the first half last night and the first half against Everton, recognising the opportunities and exploiting the opposition. Not just playing the same way every week regardless of the score or who you are playing.

For me too many of the players in this Utd squad just don't have the required tools to play high tempo 1-2 touch quick passing football. That's the problem, it's just too slow most of the time, they are too slow to recognise the spaces and opportunities, to make the moves, to control and move the ball.
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Not sure, who you are arguing against because I didn't ask for things even resembling the things you pointed out.

Oranges038 said:
They just react to the situations they are too slow to recognise rather than create them to their benefit.
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Which is 100% the reason why people are advocating for adding more control into our game, to get better at creating an environment that will create benefits.

I have to say it - if you want it or not, adding possession game is a natural evolution of every top team. You think Tiki-Taka Barca wasn't able to quickly transition play and hit you when the chance where there? Or Bayern under Pep? Every team that is striving to be better than all others is needed to be able to play both those styles to a high degree. We will not be an exception from that rule.
 
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jamesjimmybyrondean said:
What are you complaining about. What has said they want us to play sideways passes and backward passes
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Quite the opposite, it's other people who are complaining, I'm pointing out that I'm not complaining. I don't care about possession football ahead of attacking football. I like it that we take risks with creativity.
 
NZT-One said:
Not sure, who you are arguing against because I didn't ask for things even resembling the things you pointed out.


Which is 100% the reason why people are advocating for adding more control into our game, to get better at creating an environment that will create benefits.

I have to say it - if you want it or not, adding possession game is a natural evolution of every top team. You think Tiki-Taka Barca wasn't able to quickly transition play and hit you when the chance where there? Or Bayern under Pep? Every team that is striving to be better than all others is needed to be able to play both those styles to a high degree. We will not be an exception from that rule.
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Not arguing against anything, just making the point that his brand of possession based football was too rigid and very boring.

I agree, the top teams can play and have to be able to play both.

But, those transitions have to happen higher up the pitch for them to be so effective. So, you have to be able to play to keep the ball to create the chances and pressure in order to maintain it high for these chances to open up.

To do all these things, you need players that are good at keeping and rotating the ball, moving it forward and keeping the pressure high. You need a defence that can play high, a keeper that can play high. You can't turn over the ball on your own 18 and expect to create from it anymore. Which is what Utd are trying to do most of the time.
 
Midfield is where we need to be absolutely ruthless. move on from mctominay and fred. Bring in at least 2 starter quality CM options who can play deeper and pass well. Add those to case and eriksen and have 4 players who can play deeper in midfield depending on the opponent/strategy needed. Bruno can be the main CAM option, eriksen rotate in there as well. Perhaps if sabitzer is super cheap then keep him as the advanced player next to the CF, but def not as the deep option. We need to vastly improve our deep cm options. Getting a better ball playing Gk wont matter if our midfield still cant pass and move properly.
 
NZT-One said:
Not sure, who you are arguing against because I didn't ask for things even resembling the things you pointed out.


Which is 100% the reason why people are advocating for adding more control into our game, to get better at creating an environment that will create benefits.

I have to say it - if you want it or not, adding possession game is a natural evolution of every top team. You think Tiki-Taka Barca wasn't able to quickly transition play and hit you when the chance where there? Or Bayern under Pep? Every team that is striving to be better than all others is needed to be able to play both those styles to a high degree. We will not be an exception from that rule.
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Would you say Real Madrid play possession football under Ancelotti? They normally give away possession and focus on turnovers particularly in the champions league knockout stage
 
Oranges038 said:
Not arguing against anything, just making the point that his brand of possession based football was too rigid and very boring.

I agree, the top teams can play and have to be able to play both.

But, those transitions have to happen higher up the pitch for them to be so effective. So, you have to be able to play to keep the ball to create the chances and pressure in order to maintain it high for these chances to open up.

To do all these things, you need players that are good at keeping and rotating the ball, moving it forward and keeping the pressure high. You need a defence that can play high, a keeper that can play high. You can't turn over the ball on your own 18 and expect to create from it anymore. Which is what Utd are trying to do most of the time.
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I agree. Probably wouldn't phrase so absolute because when you have a fast player like Rashford, Balls in behind the defence can always be a way to go. But in general, I agree with you - the transitional play has of course its own sub-categories, while the most prominent since a few years is the focus on high turnovers. Who knows, what will come next.

MO_Football92 said:
Would you say Real Madrid play possession football under Ancelotti? They normally give away possession and focus on turnovers particularly in the champions league knockout stage
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Unfortunately I haven't seen any Real Madrid game for quite some time. Aparst from the odd Clasico, mostly only one half and not focussing much on the game. What I know about Ancelotti is, that he is very pragmatic and will chose a playstyle that he feels is best suited for the game. Against Barca, with fast attackers like Vinicius and Rodrygo available and Passers like Kroos, he certainly could choose a way with a compact defense and focussing on fast counter attacks. But Real certainly also has the players to play more possession oriented when needed.

Statswise based on fbref, they seem to be pretty comparable to Barcelona.
 
MO_Football92 said:
Would you say Real Madrid play possession football under Ancelotti? They normally give away possession and focus on turnovers particularly in the champions league knockout stage
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The difference is often how and where they give possession away though. It's rarely cheaply or through some shitty decision made, the ideas and intent are normally very good and the level of technicality is extremely high even if they aren't in a robo-Pep esque system on the ball.

Just go watch the match the other day when they schooled Chelsea. It's very free flowing and fast paced without being the modern "structured" type of play you see from teams like Arsenal or City that look to just choke the life out of opponents.
 
It's always about quality of the individual's technically. You can't really make a silk purse out of a sow's ear when it comes to complete control of games and possession football. Not in the modern game where the physicality is high, pressing is high, mistakes are going to be magnified. I don't even know if you'd get away with a LVG style, slow as feck possession football that is risk averse with lesser players anymore. So those little feck ups we do, passing it to the wrong foot, a heavy touch, passing it behind or in front of people, they're all going to add up and compromise your ability to keep the ball. Our probablity of doing any one of those things is higher than teams that have dominated the ball.

I think once the ball leaves the feet of Martinez and Shaw, who are extremely reliable in any situation, it feels like anything can happen. I don't see too many like a Rodri or Bernardo Silva where you know the touch is going to be perfect, the pass probably perfect. There are varying degrees of reliability through our team, but I think it's fair to say, the average technical level is lower than it should be. We have our own qualities such as pace with Rashford, good individual skill with Bruno, the grit and positioning of Casemiro, the creativity of Eriksen, but who are you nailing your colours to the mast on being extremely reliable at keeping the ball as one of their primary skills? It just isn't there, really. Furthermore, I would say it is not really there in any part of these player's careers which tells me it is not just coaching, it is fundamentally about the qualities we have and the balance of this side.

If we inject someone totally reliable in midfield, a striker who is good at holding it up (as we've seen with Martial), then the dynamic starts to change. Then you've got a spine coming together focused around possession. But I think this manager is not possession obsessed. I do believe he values control because he talks about it all the time, but it is with a view to dynamic, quick interchanges. I don't think we are trying to recreate a Pep style side.
 
I almost don't want to hear about individual defensive errors until we learn to pass the ball.

The ability to keep the ball is truly horrendous. The whole team from attack, midfield, defence and keeper couldn't complete a 5 yard pass tonight.

Games like Forest where we passed the ball well are the rare exception.
 
Because serious lack of technical players so our quality on the ball leaves much to be desired
 
Our team is very weird, you don’t know what you will get.

It literally felt that we had already played 90 minutes just before the game. I couldn’t believe the number of simple passes being played 10 yards to either side of the team mate. This was literally every player. I am very concerned that Ten Hag is not setting up the team with motivation for every game, as you can also see we hardly ever start the game with high energy.
 
Possession isn't coached to the players we've never been a team that looks after the ball. LVG managed it with some poor players but was the wrong manager in the end obviously.
 
And in the Caicedo thread I look like a mad man because I said I would rather we go for someone who can control matches. Someone who can use the ball at his feet to calm these idiots down when they start making their rushed wayward passes.
 
We don't have the players to do it, in fact I'd argue we only have one, Martinez.

Look at Man City and they are full of them. KDB, Silva, Gundogan, Grealish, Foden.

All high IQ, composed, technically proficient players. Our players shit themselves at the slightest press.
 
I remember many getting excited about seeing passing drill training videos last summer. Doesn't make any difference with the same players.
 
flappyjay said:
And in the Caicedo thread I look like a mad man because I said I would rather we go for someone who can control matches. Someone who can use the ball at his feet to calm these idiots down when they start making their rushed wayward passes.
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Like who?
 
We don’t have calm, technical midfield players.

Even players like Kovacic and Jorginho, who are hardly world beater midfield players, are the reason Chelsea were able to go so far in the CL as they are so technically good at retaining the ball and keeping possession ticking over. Chelsea may be lacking a player on Bruno’s level which is why we did better than them in the league even when they’re winning CLs.

Eriksen and Bruno may have the productivity, but they lose the ball an awful lot, sometimes criminally. Casemiro also is a great defensive midfielder but not great on the ball. When you’re losing the ball that often you’re giving the opposition a huge chance in the game which in Europe you get punished for.

This is why we are so bad in Europe and so bad at keeping hold of leads, and so bad to watch. We need technical players in the middle of the park.

People used to moan about Carrick and yes he wasn’t a world beating midfielder, but that calmness and ability just to keep possession ticking over is why our best years in Europe were when he was at his best.

My point being we don’t need the complete midfielder, they can even be average going forward and love going sideways and backwards just like Carrick was, but we need someone who is technically excellent at retaining possession.
 
Offside said:
We don’t have calm, technical players.

Even players like Kovacic and Jorginho, who are hardly world beater midfield players, are the reason Chelsea were able to go so far in the CL as they are so technically good at retaining the ball and keeping possession ticking over. Chelsea may be lacking a player on Bruno’s level which is why we did better than them in the league even when they’re winning CLs.

Eriksen and Bruno may have the productivity, but they lose the ball an awful lot, sometimes criminally. Casemiro also is a great defensive midfielder but not great on the ball. When you’re losing the ball that often you’re giving the opposition a huge chance in the game which in Europe you get punished for.

This is why we are so bad in Europe and so bad at keeping hold of leads, and so bad to watch. We need technical players in the middle of the park.

People used to moan about Carrick and yes he wasn’t a world beating midfielder, but that calmness and ability just to keep possession ticking over is why our best years in Europe were when he was at his best.

My point being we don’t need the complete midfielder, they can even be average going forward and love going sideways and backwards just like Carrick was, but we need someone who is technically excellent at retaining possession.
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Could have just left it at that.
 
giggs-beckham said:
Possession isn't coached to the players we've never been a team that looks after the ball. LVG managed it with some poor players but was the wrong manager in the end obviously.
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He managed it by giving them strict instructions on where to be and where to play the ball. That why it worked to some extent but was ultimately the most boring football I've ever seen.

It was like paint by numbers football.
 
flappyjay said:
Midfield is where we lost and these stats prove it.
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Well no I'd say we lost it by making 3 abysmal errors that gave away goals, none of which were midfield errors.

End of the day we were shite all over the pitch but without those errors there's no goals.
 
jamesjimmybyrondean said:
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Problem with pass % it doesn't account for getting tackled, or giving it away with a poor first touch.

We need a "total losses of possession" stat. And an unforced errors stat like in tennis. The amount of 5/10 yard passes we misplace is just criminal at this level.

I'd like to see a compilation video of all our losses of possession across a 90 minute game to highlight how frequently we lose the ball in the most unforgiveable circumstances.
 
croadyman said:
Because serious lack of technical players so our quality on the ball leaves much to be desired
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This plus it takes more then a few months to learn a new system. If we had a WC team the transition would have been easier but we do not. So too many mediocre players that are yet to fully understand the system.
 
We call it rubbish not 'garbage' in this country!
 
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Offside said:
We don’t have calm, technical midfield players.

Even players like Kovacic and Jorginho, who are hardly world beater midfield players, are the reason Chelsea were able to go so far in the CL as they are so technically good at retaining the ball and keeping possession ticking over. Chelsea may be lacking a player on Bruno’s level which is why we did better than them in the league even when they’re winning CLs.

Eriksen and Bruno may have the productivity, but they lose the ball an awful lot, sometimes criminally. Casemiro also is a great defensive midfielder but not great on the ball. When you’re losing the ball that often you’re giving the opposition a huge chance in the game which in Europe you get punished for.

This is why we are so bad in Europe and so bad at keeping hold of leads, and so bad to watch. We need technical players in the middle of the park.

People used to moan about Carrick and yes he wasn’t a world beating midfielder, but that calmness and ability just to keep possession ticking over is why our best years in Europe were when he was at his best.

My point being we don’t need the complete midfielder, they can even be average going forward and love going sideways and backwards just like Carrick was, but we need someone who is technically excellent at retaining possession.
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Yeah definitely not enough players who are capable of retaining possession
 
Not to take away from the result but worth noting we had 39% possession today with our first choice midfield and attack starting, and only really Martinez missing in defence (Lindelof as good as Varane on the ball so not much relevance there).

Brighton are a good side but it's almost surreal that they can keep the ball and build up play that much better than us.

I'm still crying out for an "unforced errors" stat in football like in tennis, for every time we inexplicably lose the ball under the most basic circumstances.
 
Dominos said:
Not to take away from the result but worth noting we had 39% possession today with our first choice midfield and attack starting, and only really Martinez missing in defence (Lindelof as good as Varane on the ball so not much relevance there).

Brighton are a good side but it's almost surreal that they can keep the ball and build up play that much better than us.

I'm still crying out for an "unforced errors" stat in football like in tennis, for every time we inexplicably lose the ball under the most basic circumstances.
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I thought it seemed obvious that we were content to let their centre backs have it and not get drawn in by the la pausa.

Brighton want you to come on to them, the easiest counter is to not engage their back line in a full on manner.
 
Stobzilla said:
I thought it seemed obvious that we were content to let their centre backs have it and not get drawn in by the la pausa.

Brighton want you to come on to them, the easiest counter is to not engage their back line in a full on manner.
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We were pressing them really high in the first half, but they were playing round it. Eriksen in particularly was finding himself pressing weirdly high.

Whilst we're certainly not a team who tries to have as much possession as possible at all costs, I can't buy this idea that our ball retention is this level by design. If you offered ETH a chance for the team to make 50% less unforced errors in possession, and as a by-product we end up having more possession in games, he'd snap your hand off. No one goes into games hoping we inexplicably lose the ball a lot so we can hit teams on the counter when they lose it.

Even if you're relying on quick transitions in attack when you do win the ball back, you can pass the ball well on those transitions. We don't, which is why we couldn't score a goal and barely looked like scoring across the last 2 games.
 
Malone_Post said:
Eriks not a magician.

He’s not going to be able to make the likes of De Gea, AWB, Mct, Fred, Weghorst etc great technical passers. They just don’t have the ability.

Martinez & Eriksen are a step in the right direction. We need more in the summer.
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I do agree, however we even lack the basic passing skill. So many of our passes are just a slight behind our player or straight to our player. While if you look at City or Arsenal, they almost always try to pass slightly in front of the player. This way the player can receive the ball and keep moving all in one motion.

So many times that we are building towards the final 3rd but then kill our own momentum by slowing the game down because of our passes.
Just try to pay attention when we start to pass and you'll notice so many times that even our basic passes are below top tier and this goes for almost all of our players and it happened through so many managers ( Ole, Mou, Ragnick )

We are also a team that stands still a lot. This way the defense can always reorganise and defend, so passing becomes more difficult.
 
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Dominos said:
We were pressing them really high in the first half, but they were playing round it. Eriksen in particularly was finding himself pressing weirdly high.

Whilst we're certainly not a team who tries to have as much possession as possible at all costs, I can't buy this idea that our ball retention is this level by design. If you offered ETH a chance for the team to make 50% less unforced errors in possession, and as a by-product we end up having more possession in games, he'd snap your hand off. No one goes into games hoping we inexplicably lose the ball a lot so we can hit teams on the counter when they lose it.

Even if you're relying on quick transitions in attack when you do win the ball back, you can pass the ball well on those transitions. We don't, which is why we couldn't score a goal and barely looked like scoring across the last 2 games.
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Our high press against Brighton imo failed because the defense failed to compress the space between midfield/defense. I lost count of how many times they found a free player with acres of space in front of our defense when we were pressing high. If you’re gonna press Brighton, City or similar style teams high you have to do it 100% correctly, or you’re gonna concede big chances.

Back on thread;
I actually think our passing has improved under EtH. I used to be so unbelievably annoyed at how slow our passes were, and still they even managed to be behind the player, or even worse, misplaced.
I’d love for Opta or someone to do stats on avg. passing speed of teams, and preferably also players, split into short, medium and long range passes. Ours should have increased, especially in short and medium range, and also especially among the back 4.
Now, as far as i can see, we increased the speed, without reducing the precision(which had a bad starting point). If we can keep improving by improving precision without sacrificing speed we’d see significant improvement. I’m hopeful we’ll see improvements over the next years, both due to change of personell and due to new signings.
 
GwilDor said:
Our high press against Brighton imo failed because the defense failed to compress the space between midfield/defense. I lost count of how many times they found a free player with acres of space in front of our defense when we were pressing high. If you’re gonna press Brighton, City or similar style teams high you have to do it 100% correctly, or you’re gonna concede big chances.

Back on thread;
I actually think our passing has improved under EtH. I used to be so unbelievably annoyed at how slow our passes were, and still they even managed to be behind the player, or even worse, misplaced.
I’d love for Opta or someone to do stats on avg. passing speed of teams, and preferably also players, split into short, medium and long range passes. Ours should have increased, especially in short and medium range, and also especially among the back 4.
Now, as far as i can see, we increased the speed, without reducing the precision(which had a bad starting point). If we can keep improving by improving precision without sacrificing speed we’d see significant improvement. I’m hopeful we’ll see improvements over the next years, both due to change of personell and due to new signings.
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Agree with this. Lindelof was great yesterday but he's not a very proactive CB compared to Varane or Licha. Shaw was a bit more aggressive but even then he's not going to read the game as quickly in a new position. But like you said it meant that Brighton could receive and turn against our backline where normally they wouldn't be able to.
 
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