Playing out from the back

Arsenal are shocking at it . They gave the ball away constantly against Liverpool in their own third , they often didn’t even get out their own box and gave away corners .

I'm all for it myself. Sick to death of watching League 2 games where the ball is in the air constantly, going from one end to the other bypassing midfield. Yes, there will be mistakes; it's inevitable with players at this level, but even Prem players get it wrong from time to time.

Just launching the ball aerially plays into the strengths of your average League 2 defender, but playing around them, and getting them facing their own goal is the last thing they want to be doing. If you have skilful and fast forwards constantly probing when we have the ball and closing down their defence quickly when they have the ball, they will make mistakes.

Ollie got it spot on last night and we could have had 5 or 6 with better finishing. We will concede, but hopefully we will outscore the opposition. Ollie has said many times that is what he wants to do. We will also get better at it with time and practice.

I'd rather we lost going for the win, than have a manager like Hurst who had a must not lose attitude, which led to many draws and quite a few 0-1 defeats.

Quoted from ginnywings

I'm all for it myself. Sick to death of watching League 2 games where the ball is in the air constantly, going from one end to the other bypassing midfield. Yes, there will be mistakes; it's inevitable with players at this level, but even Prem players get it wrong from time to time.

Just launching the ball aerially plays into the strengths of your average League 2 defender, but playing around them, and getting them facing their own goal is the last thing they want to be doing. If you have skilful and fast forwards constantly probing when we have the ball and closing down their defence quickly when they have the ball, they will make mistakes.

Ollie got it spot on last night and we could have had 5 or 6 with better finishing. We will concede, but hopefully we will outscore the opposition. Ollie has said many times that is what he wants to do. We will also get better at it with time and practice.

I'd rather we lost going for the win, than have a manager like Hurst who had a must not lose attitude, which led to many draws and quite a few 0-1 defeats.

If I could nominate this for post of the week please!

It’s pretty simple really . You don’t give it to players who can’t do it !!

Thing is Arsenal against Liverpool, who at the moment are the best at closing defenders down. So if the defenders at our level may be suspect then surely forwards are not the best at closing down. Personally I love it, let’s at least have a go at playing Football as it should be, on the deck and not in the air, also by playing this style there is always the hope that more of the premiership/ championship teams will be happy to send us their up and coming players in the future.

It is clearly the managers wish, the players seem to try and follow the orders even when its not really a good option, dont try and force it , use it as and when its properly set, giving the ball to a player who is isolated, not in good position to receive  and under a press is asking for a disaster.
With practice and a bit of automony for the players then it can be very effective, our newly adopted long diagonal switch ball is set up very well with playing out from the back but same with anything, overuse it and the opposition will be ready for it and it then becomes your weakness.

Remember too that in a few weeks many pitches could be in quIte a poor state which will lead to more mistakes when playing out.
Generally though I think it’s good to see, and as a previous poster mentions does tend to leave more space in midfield which (for once) we have the pace to exploit  

Quoted from ginnywings

I'm all for it myself. Sick to death of watching League 2 games where the ball is in the air constantly, going from one end to the other bypassing midfield. Yes, there will be mistakes; it's inevitable with players at this level, but even Prem players get it wrong from time to time.

Just launching the ball aerially plays into the strengths of your average League 2 defender, but playing around them, and getting them facing their own goal is the last thing they want to be doing. If you have skilful and fast forwards constantly probing when we have the ball and closing down their defence quickly when they have the ball, they will make mistakes.

Ollie got it spot on last night and we could have had 5 or 6 with better finishing. We will concede, but hopefully we will outscore the opposition. Ollie has said many times that is what he wants to do. We will also get better at it with time and practice.

I'd rather we lost going for the win, than have a manager like Hurst who had a must not lose attitude, which led to many draws and quite a few 0-1 defeats.

The problem with Hurst was that we might get 1-0 up and then start to play for a draw.

I’m with you on liking football played from the back but like I said earlier, it has to work or it is worse than a John Beck Route One master class. The reason L2 managers so often choose long ball is simple - playing out from the back is easy to stop unless it is a very good side doing it and even then it can be negated by a determined opposition..

So they do a Hurst, play us percentage game.

Do it when we can as if not it usually results in giving the ball away and getting pinned back deep.

Though it was scary at 2 - 1 up 90 odd minutes in last night it wasn’t the wrong thing to do and there was more than occasion last night when Town did it reasonably well and looked like they ultimately will be comfortable with it.

Quoted from mimma

Remember hoofball, Macca's aimless punts upfield with both teams bunched up on the right or left side of the halfway line.

Keeping players back to receive the ball means that the opposition push right up leaving more space to exploit around the pitch.

Problem with that is they had two players pushed up near Waterfall and one of them robbed him and it led to their goal.

Macca did something similar in the last few minutes when he took what I call as daft goal kicks when it doesn't have to go out of the penalty area and the young centre half who came on and nearly got caught in possession.