Percentage Football (Forza Ivano and others)

I've heard time and again on here, the term "Percentage Football", particularly in reference to Paul Hurst. Most recently heard it from Forza Ivano on a thread discussing Shrewsbury and Hursty.

I'm interested to understand what you think "Percentage Football" actually means?

Is it supporters jargon for their perception of how a team sets up, and the style of play they employ?

Not trying to be clever either, just interested to understand what people think it is.

Setting up not to lose, instead of setting up to win.

Found this thread on the topic:

http://www.and-again.com/post/percentage-football-4724455

and to my mind it's hugely uninformative and unconvincing. So a good question to ask.

The significant statistics (which 'inform' this philosophy, I believe) are:
  71%  Home side scores first and wins
  61%  Away side scores first and wins

So you set up to score the first goal - if it happens you're in good shape, if not...live with the noughtie result, maybe.           /* b*gger the fans.... */
The essential thing is not to concede (obviously) so I see it as a synonym for boring, defensive ( watched ManU recently? ) football.

Fans don't appreciate their team's manager saying he intends to play boring, defensive football - so they've called it 'percentage football'
and everybody's happy.

Well, apart from some of the customers paying good money to watch that tripe....

what ginny said, plus i think that he took a calculated view that by having a top 5 budget he should be able to beat most teams in the Conference.
i go back to what i said about him being in  a very vulnerable position when scott was sacked. he was on his own  for the first time with a wife, mortgage and family to support. failure within the first 6-12 months would have got him the sack and made him  almost unemployable within the pro game. i think he he decided that if we were difficult to beat., and generally had superior, fitter players he'd win more points than he lost, therefore he'd keep his job.
through this safety first philosophy he did indeed survive and gradually prospered. if it ain't broke don't fix it, so this philosophy has brought him success and its continued to be his way of doing things.
after a year or 2 , having trophy and play off 'success' (i.e. getting us tot he semis or finals of each every year almost) he slowly became an in demand manager. this continued after promotion,and even if he eventually fails at shrewsbury he will have the contract play off and will be a target for league 1 - conference clubs for the next few years. his financial stability/ independence is guarenteed.. that;'s what i mean by his percentage approach

Quoted from ginnywings

Setting up not to lose, instead of setting up to win.

Interesting interpretation.

In order to succeed, doesn't every coach have to focus on "in possesion >< transition >< out of possession"?

Are you of the opinion that "percentage football" is the focus on defending well then, maybe through your chosen approach to formations?

Paul Hurst then. 53% win rate this season. Do you think this makes him an advocat of percentage football?

Let's look at Grimsby Town under Paul Hurst then in the season we got promoted. He signed or had some fantastic attacking players with the likes of Bogle, Amond, Arnold, Nolan, Disley etc. Even scored an amazing 82 goals which was the best part of an average of 2 goals per game. They was scoring goals for fun. Conversely we conceded more goals that season than most around us. Second worst goals against record in the top six. Does this suggest they were a team with a focus on being defensive and looking to nick games by the odd goal?

The same term is used in other sports Snooker, Golf and cricket readily come to mind. It denotes the safe option rather than the risk taker that may dramatically change the result but more than likely will end up costing you instead.

Slade liked the percentage game but you still need luck albeit your trying to reduce this in preference to tried and trusted methods/systems, of course, it helps if you know how good your players are to start with lol.

One thing you can never compensate for is bad officialism that equation is impossible to factor.

He had Bogle (fantastic talent at that level) Amond (scored 30+ goals that season, on fire) - he dropped them for a while to play Ben Tomlinson didn't he? Did each of them spend time in the bench to accomodate him. This was a player who as striker was as bad as any I can recall for GTFC. Couldn't shoot, no pace, no movement. His one feature was closing down defenders that's all he offered. I maintain that the penny as to just how bad he was only dropped with hurst when he couldn't even slightly trouble the worst defence visiting BP in living memory when they were already 6-0 down I think when he came on. Don't think he played again after that.
Before any1 says that all our current strikers are like that, this was in a team that were playing well and creating chances if anyone cared to put them away.
Anyway, a striker who was willing to close down defneders and do nothing else was enough to replace some of that fantastic attacking talent you mention, in Hursts eyes, at least for a little while. I think that indicates he does have a strong tendency towards the 'percentage game'.

I always thought percentage football was hitting hopeful balls forward for your forwards to battle for and hoping that law of averages loose balls drop to your team mates on  regular basis on a higher percentage of the time. Hence the name.

It's also building your strategy on the statistics relating to set pieces and enforced errors. Most goals are scored from set pieces and crosses. You therefore worry little about passing it, but focus on getting the ball forward quickly, or in to the box and hoping for the best, in an attacking sense.

I think one of the best managers of the percentage game is Danny Cowley. He demands that his wide players put in 30 crosses between them each game because they score from every 26 crosses.