There's been a lot said about going long and short in terms of passing. Clearly there's times when both are necessary and there's times when we've not given it a good hoof up the pitch or out of play when we should have done. Opta's stats on this are quite telling though - below is a table showing Inaccurate long and short ball passes as a percentage of those type of passes attempted. We're the worst team in the division for making accurate long passes with 66% failing to finding their target. For short passes we were not much better with only Millwall and Cardiff misplacing more short passes than us. There's a whole load of other stats which come into play here, but it's clear that *as a team* we're poor when it comes to hitting long balls. PASSING ACCURACY (sorted by highest inaccurate passes) PLAYER PASSING ACCURACY (LONG) Worst > Best PLAYER PASSING ACCURACY (SHORT) Worst > Best TEAMS - UNSUCCESSFUL TOUCHES Worst > Best
This does not surprise me one bit. Our passing is absolutely shocking. I can’t remember seeing a team give the ball away quite as often as we do.
I think the inaccuracy might be linked to the speed we attempt to play/counter at. We don't play too many leisurely passes in our half to retain possession.
This. Our style of play with the ball is fast and attacking with risky passes which explains why our stats are poor. I’d much prefer this than aimlessly playing the ball around trying to get 60% possession.
I've added chart to show number of times we've had 'unsuccessful touches' (ie poor control). Without checking, guess which Barnsley player has the most....
Yes, little to choose between him and Mowatt, although Mowatt has made twice as many passes as Bahre.
Cauley Woodrow - although to be fair strikers or forward players usually have the most due to how the game is played and it doesnt reflect how many balls they attempted to control. For instance I suspect the Fulham guy at the top of this list gets peppered with balls and its not stopped him scoring a bagful. Most unsuccessful touches for forward players
I've not seen another team in the division who play like we do. There's very little nonsense passing. All that tippy stuff around the back. Within a pass or two it's upfield or given to a wide player to get at the opposition. Stands to reason when you play like we do, home and away, that our passing will be less successful. Teams who pass it around in their own third without doing anything will have equally skewed stats.
Long ball,,,Long pass. Different in my book. Long pass, 120yard pass from the No. 4 to the No. 10s feet. Long ball,,, THUMP,,,, chase after that!!!!
Against Huddersfield it was evident that long passes meant trying to pass to Brown. He ain’t the biggest and lost many of the challenges. When Woodrow gets back - he ain’t the biggest either. Long balls forward - means a centre forward that can hold the ball up. We haven’t a player who’s speciality is playing with his back to the goal. We lost that capability when Kiefer left the club. There’s been many games this season when I’ve thought the option of having someone like Moore available would have won us the game.
The stats are interesting and I'm sure they have value, but don't really give a true indication of a players worth in terms of contribution. The passing stats would suggest that Bahre is doing much better for us than Brown, for instance. But the context is that Brown's passes are often into difficult areas, where there's a greater chance of them being blocked or intercepted, whereas Bahre's passes tend to be simpler and played in open areas of the pitch. Interesting stuff though.
Quite true. I was going to do some on Brown to show how he contributes because those don't do his contribution justice.
Under Keith hill when it went bad we use to make about 200 sideways passes then one hoof to their defence. With quicker more positive play we’re bound to be less accurate.
Dont those stats just show that our defenders are absolutely dross at passing a ball whether that's a shirt pass, a long pass, pass to other defenders, midfielders or attackers All those stats say to me is that we should be avoiding passing to our defenders as much as possible yet we give them the ball at every possible opportunity. That said I don't believe for one minute that diaby's statistics are anywhere bear as good as those claimed. Let's not forget that a couple of years ago every stats site said Hammill had one goal and no assists or something like that despite me producing a video proving he had about 3 assists and goals. I can't remember the amount but I know it proved the statistics were wildly inaccurate
It's strange, because for all his faults, I don't think Diaby does too bad a job of linking between Radlinger and our midfield/wide areas. His longer passes need more work, but even then they're not as bad as people make out - not for a centreback at any rate. I can't help feeling that people are being overly critical of his passing because of his occasional defensive errors.