They play badly when, they take two or three touches before passing it backward or to the goalkeeper. They look for an opening that’s never there, because they spent too much time taking two or three touches. Get hit by a breakaway and lose 1 - 0 but have 65% possession. They play well when they take a risk and ping the ball forward, don’t give the opposition time to organise. Sometimes lose the ball and don’t give a s*** about possession statistics. Run at the opposition at pace and make the opposition take risks to stop us.
The funniest thing that happened yesterday for me was, we had a spell of possession at 1-0. We were largely going along the halfway line with the ball, but we were slowly advancing up the field. We were winning and Forest Green weren't putting us under any pressure. The fans started grumbling because we weren't getting forward at pace. There were shouts of 'get it forward'. The ball then went to kitchen, who played a long ball up towards Norwood, it drifted straight over his head and to the Forest Green goalkeeper. There were more grumbles. The problem isn't, 2 or 3 extra touches. The problem is that there isn't enough movement off the ball, or the right sort of movement. Connell often drops deep to receive the ball, but then Kane or Benson go either left or right of him, rather than into space further forward. Cole and Norwood are both marked out of the game, so then we have to go to the full backs or centre halves. There was one instance yesterday where Kane dropped the ball off to Williams I think it was, and rather than moving into the space in the middle of the park, immediately made a b-line for the opposing full back, meaning Williams didn't have a forward pass to play. We do need to take more gambles, but for me that's with our movement off the ball, rather than hopeful punts up field. Some of our fans do seem happy with us turning over possession in the opposition half, rather than recycling the ball when there isn't a pass on, and looking for an opening. We won yesterday because we got the first goal. The opposition couldn't sit back and frustrate us. I firmly believe we would have beaten Exeter, Morecambe, Wycombe and Lincoln had we done the same then too.
Annoys the hell out of me when midfielders stop and give it back or sideways to a defender. Sometimes only two yards away. It’s abdicating responsibility for the ball. Like they don’t know what to do so let someone like Kitching lump it forward. Saves them having to make a decision. I think Kane is the worst culprit for this. He’s perfectly capable of doing something with a pass or running with the ball but often he doesn’t seem willing to risk it.
I totally agree about the lack of movement. When we have the ball there is very little movement to encouage the player in possrssion to play a pass. It was a joy to me, yesterday, to dee Tedic keep onside, point to whete he wantrd the ball to be played and then, unselfishly, padd the ball to Martin gor a tap-in. Intelligent play, I wish some other players had that capability. Thought Jorfan Williams was excellent yesterday. Without Thomas he's the only player in our team who gets foreatd at pace - and thus puts pressure on the opposing team.
I honestly don't think it's that Kane is unwilling to make a forward pass, quite the opposite in fact. There's just nobody ahead of him wanting to receive a pass. In the second half yesterday, Williams and Cadden were finding space to run into out wide, and that's when we started to make those more purposeful passes forward.
