Through balls

[riddick]

on a similar note(dont see a real pressing need to open a new thread dedicated to it), why does the team almost never venture inside the penalty area? Just about every shot i can remember last night(besides all of them being blocked) came from outside the box.

 

[Kantareller]

Corners are horrendous aswell. We're bad defending them, and we score almost no goals from corners this season.

 

[lmurkder]

Corners are horrendous aswell. We're bad defending them, and we score almost no goals from corners this season.

Conversely we're scoring lots down the middle and free kicks though

 

[tim cahill]

To play through balls, you need space and in order to have space, you need to attack with speed without giving chance for opponent to regroup at the back.
We're not attacking with enough speed. That's the root of the issue. Nothing else

We could learn a lot from the way Liverpool attack to be fair.

We seem to deliberately hold the ball until the opposition have all their men behind the ball, then try to break them down. Which we have failed to do many times vs poor opposition so far this season. It's the draws that will cost us in the end.

 

[deipnosophist]

Through balls to who? I heard last night that the new lad won,t be ready for 4 weeks !

4 weeks?..is that a joke? I thought we were supposed to be getting reinforcements, not more sick notes!

 

[billycopper]

I think for a through ball to work your striker either needs to arc his run to stay onside or he needs to run diagonally. Jelavic used to try it but the midfielder wouldn't spot it in time and he'd end up not being able to hold his run any more and straying offside. Lukaku tends to play up against the defender, so it's easier to track his run.

The midfielders are at fault too. Very often, when Romelu does ask for the ball in behind, the man in possession will use it as a decoy and shoot themselves instead. We're also pretty ponderous on the ball, so we get closed down quickly. Whereas someone like Silva will play with his head up and spot the through ball much earlier.

I think that teams tend to defend quite narrowly against us too because they know that we're not likely to get to the byeline and put a ball over. Whereas City or Arsenal attack from all angles and can draw the fullbacks out to create space in the channels.

 

[WA Toffee]

on a similar note(dont see a real pressing need to open a new thread dedicated to it), why does the team almost never venture inside the penalty area? Just about every shot i can remember last night(besides all of them being blocked) came from outside the box.

Because outside the box is where the space is. Taking the RS as an example, their back 4 sit well inside the 18 yard box, they than have another bank of 4 just inside the edge of the box. Even if we commit 5 players into the box, it is still 8 vs 5 - very unlikely that we are going to find the killer pass. So what we do is pass around just outside the 18 yard box with the aim of either finding an angle to get a shot away or drawing one of their players out of position leaving room for a cute pass into the box. Or we put it out wide hoping to draw their full back out of position. And when they can counter attack with the speed that they have, there is no real reason for them to break their shape - just hold firm and eventually launch it to their front players

Unfortunately when teams play with 8 defenders inside the box, it is very very difficult to find a way through.

 

[TX Bill]

Great posts in this thread.

Not that it matters but Osman had a really good through ball for Naismith that lead to a goal against Stevenage.

I think the players would love to play them when the opportunities present themselves but as astute posters mentioned before, Liverpool allowed neither the time nor the space for any type of through ball to be effective. That and would Naismith have been able to get anywhere near it anyway since he was up top on his own? I doubt it.

 

[Furey1878]

Through balls all over the show this season.

 

[Ollie d]

I read an interview with Eto'o years ago and he said he always played behind a striker until he got to Barcelona ,can see he has the vision for a through ball or two'o !

 

[Fresh Prince of Belle Val]

Thought Wolfsburg played some
Lovely through balls last night too.

 

[Eggs]

.....our game is very much geared to getting wingers and full backs around the back. To counter this we have two defensive central midfielders who offer little in the top third. You would think Barkley would be a creative asset but he's yet to provide a single assist, clearly something he needs to work on. It does leave Naismith and I do think he can pick a pass.

Good point though, both Lukaku and Eto'o will prosper with that type of support.

 

[SerenityNigh]

He's got a point though. Even when there is space, we rarely try them and when we do they always seem to get cut out because the passer dithers.

Barry and Eto'o both like them, as does Barkley

 

[moyeslovechild]

Is it just been me or have we been hitting it long alot more this season?

 

[EverBlue86]

Really hope we start feeding these through to lukaku as don't want the lad to start getting frustrated with the lack of service would only lead to him wanting out and if he ain't scoring we couldn't even command the money we paid for him in the first place!