Why is our passing so garbage?

[Vapor trail]

Eriksen was a monumental loss the teams performances have taken a nosedive I've been saying this it's very noticeable the games he's in compared to those he's not.

 

[sullydnl]

Basic pass completion for our players versus City's.

De Gea 72.0% vs Ederson 85.8%
AWB - 82.8% / Dalot 77.4% vs Walker 86.5%*
Varane - 85.8% vs Dias 92.3%
Martinez - 86.6% vs Stones 94.1%
Shaw - 81.8% vs Ake 90.3%
Casemiro - 77.1% vs Rodri 91.3%
Eriksen - 78.9% / Fred - 79.5% vs Silva 85.3% / Ilkay 85.6%
Bruno - 72.9% vs KDB - 71.4%
Rashford - 75.3% vs Grealish 83.5%
Antony - 76.4% vs Foden - 80.6%
Weghorst - 71.5% / Martial - 80.5% vs Haaland 73.5%

Makes the focus on Bruno's erratic passing specifically seem odd given we rely on him so much for creativity.

In order to improve, the obvious focus should be on the back seven unit (De Gea, RB, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, CM). Partly because they simply make more passes than the front half of the team, partly because improving in those positions would allow us to make changes tactically and play out from the back more. As is we resort to going long a lot more often, which obviously has an impact on our ability to keep the ball overall.

Of that back seven Casemiro, Martinez, Varane and Shaw are the least likely to be displaced and the most likely to "deserve" to be worked around based on other qualities they provide. Which really places heavy emphasis on upgrading De Gea, RB and CM. Because those are the positions in that unit in which you can most painlessly make key upgrades. If we want to get better in possession, that's where we start.

*Worth noting AWB's pass completion, which actually fares quite well considering his reputation for being poor on the ball. The problem with him specifically is the type of passing he does to make up that high completion rate, being the least progressive of our fullbacks.

AWB - 3.19 per 90, 36th percentile.
Dalot - 3.49 per 90, 46th percentile.
Malacia 4.04 per 90, 59th percentile
Shaw - 4.88 per 90, 73rd percentile.

The other fullbacks (in particular Dalot and Shaw) similarly fare better in terms of passes into the opposition third, passes into the penalty area, etc.

 

[klayton88]

We basically just need to swap our Bruno with the better Bruno.

I'd take Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno over ours

 

[Blood Mage]

Poor technical ability and low football IQ throughout the team. Our best technician is a CB which says it all. We badly need another midfielder.

 

[berbatrick]

Basic pass completion for our players versus City's.

De Gea 72.0% vs Ederson 85.8%
AWB - 82.8% / Dalot 77.4% vs Walker 86.5%*
Varane - 85.8% vs Dias 92.3%
Martinez - 86.6% vs Stones 94.1%
Shaw - 81.8% vs Ake 90.3%
Casemiro - 77.1% vs Rodri 91.3%
Eriksen - 78.9% / Fred - 79.5% vs Silva 85.3% / Ilkay 85.6%
Bruno - 72.9% vs KDB - 71.4%
Rashford - 75.3% vs Grealish 83.5%
Antony - 76.4% vs Foden - 80.6%
Weghorst - 71.5% / Martial - 80.5% vs Haaland 73.5%

Makes the focus on Bruno's erratic passing specifically seem odd given we rely on him so much for creativity.

In order to improve, the obvious focus should be on the back seven unit (De Gea, RB, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, CM). Partly because they simply make more passes than the front half of the team, partly because improving in those positions would allow us to make changes tactically and play out from the back more. As is we resort to going long a lot more often, which obviously has an impact on our ability to keep the ball overall.

Of that back seven Casemiro, Martinez, Varane and Shaw are the least likely to be displaced and the most likely to "deserve" to be worked around based on other qualities they provide. Which really places heavy emphasis on upgrading De Gea, RB and CM. Because those are the positions in that unit in which you can most painlessly make key upgrades. If we want to get better in possession, that's where we start.

*Worth noting AWB's pass completion, which actually fares quite well considering his reputation for being poor on the ball. The problem with him specifically is the type of passing he does to make up that high completion rate, being the least progressive of our fullbacks.

AWB - 3.19 per 90, 36th percentile.
Dalot - 3.49 per 90, 46th percentile.
Malacia 4.04 per 90, 59th percentile
Shaw - 4.88 per 90, 73rd percentile.

The other fullbacks (in particular Dalot and Shaw) similarly fare better in terms of passes into the opposition third, passes into the penalty area, etc.

A few small things -
we actually rely on the CBs, especially Martinez, for direct long balls, a lot more than City. Casemiro too. Bruno does many creative passes, but this is the other common route to goal.

The problem with Bruno is a few different things, not all be captured in this stat: poor under pressure - can't dribble his way out of it. And erratic decision-making, not all missed passes are equal.

Now, you'd hope that a more technical player like Sancho could at least have a more consistent touch and be better under pressure, but he clearly isn't, so Bruno is clearly the only real option at 10. And imo there's no way to play both Bruno and Rashford and not be a transition team - you'd be limiting both of their strengths and highlighting their weaknesses.

 

[Woziak]

If we don’t sort this out soon a top 4 position is not guaranteed. We are 2 points ahead of spurs and 5 points ahead of Newcastle with an 8 point lead over Liverpool and by far the worse goal difference of any team.

The passing issue starts from the GK but we’ve missed Eriksen and to a lesser extent Sabitzer, now Casemeiro will be out for another 4 games this is not good ETH has worked miracles but we need 8 wins from 12 games to guarantee CL but more importantly we get at least 10 points from the next 4 PL games; Newcastle(A), Brentford(H), Everton(H), N Forrest(A). We are not scoring enough goals and the squad is threadbare, and completed shattered. We must have 60 points from 30 games

The last 8 games are just as tough with a Spurs away, Brighton away and a rapidly improving Chelsea. We need to navigate Betis on Thursday and then a big win against Fulham next week and hopefully get Martial, Sabitzer, Eriksen back for beginning of April, our passing is an issue but so too is fatigue. International break can’t come quick enough.

 

[TMDaines]

I think ETH really does have his work cut out to take this side from where they are now to being title contenders. A lot of our players, even our better players and big names, aren’t that good at playing out of a high press – and given their age, they are not likely to improve further.

Getting around 70 points in a season is one thing. Getting 90, 95 or more will require is to make massive strides in dominating the ball to increase our opportunities to attack and reduce the amount of defending we have to do.

I think the number of these players who will be at United when we next win a title will be a lot lower than people think.

 

[In Rainbows]

I don’t buy our players are technically deficient to even make simple pass. Many teams below us play better than us when it comes to passing. Newcastle and Brighton don’t have better technical players than us. Not saying De zerbi and Howe are better managers than ten hag but they do prioritise this aspect in their coaching. Ten hag isn’t a possession based manager so I guess he doesn’t emphasise on this passing thing that much in his philosophy.

Not exactly.

United prioritized possession more during preseason and the first 2 games of the season. As his players couldn't handle it, it was pretty clear the players were now given instructions to boot it out if they couldn't find the right pass. That doesn't mean he wants to prioritize possession as much as Pep, but it does mean he does prioritize more than the current United.

It's not just 1 player (the gk) that would end up improving United. He has clearly stated he prefers a striker like Martial, who helps retain possession by being able to turn with the ball. He also wanted De Jong, because he can carry the ball. He acquired Eriksen, as a passing depth piece, but Eriksen isn't exactly physical enough to carry the ball, and defend. I'm willing to bet he also wants a RB more secure in possession, but he's having to do with what he currently has.

Having a player who can carry the ball and be composed on the ball like Scholes is a god send. Teams will press, but they will escape it forcing the opposition to be less intense in pressing because there isn't as much of a chance at a turnover. They're also the player you can dumb it into when unsure of a pass because they're so secure. I remember Scholes helping out his teammates get out of trouble just as much.

 

[KikiDaKats]

Arsenal - Odegard
City - Silva/Gundogan
Madrid - Modric
Barca - Gavi/De Jong
Bayern - Goretzka
Napoli - Zielinski
Paris - Vitinha/Soler

Non of these teams has a hit and hope merchant as game controller. Without Eriksen we can only play one way, by ceding control and exploit spaces. With this approach you lengthen the pitch and your very best passers will all be shit due to the amount of ground they have to cover before kicking a pass.
Good passing teams always shorten the length of the pitch but we don’t. At present I think Iqbal might need to come in, mind he is inexperienced but has a habit of dwelling on the ball a bit longer and allow recipients to move into position.

 

[always_hoping]

If we don’t sort this out soon a top 4 position is not guaranteed. We are 2 points ahead of spurs and 5 points ahead of Newcastle with an 8 point lead over Liverpool and by far the worse goal difference of any team.

The passing issue starts from the GK but we’ve missed Eriksen and to a lesser extent Sabitzer, now Casemeiro will be out for another 4 games this is not good ETH has worked miracles but we need 8 wins from 12 games to guarantee CL but more importantly we get at least 10 points from the next 4 PL games; Newcastle(A), Brentford(H), Everton(H), N Forrest(A). We are not scoring enough goals and the squad is threadbare, and completed shattered. We must have 60 points from 30 games

The last 8 games are just as tough with a Spurs away, Brighton away and a rapidly improving Chelsea. We need to navigate Betis on Thursday and then a big win against Fulham next week and hopefully get Martial, Sabitzer, Eriksen back for beginning of April, our passing is an issue but so too is fatigue. International break can’t come quick enough.

I believe fatigue is a big reason for our passing issues.

 

[sullydnl]

A few small things -
we actually rely on the CBs, especially Martinez, for direct long balls, a lot more than City. Casemiro too. Bruno does many creative passes, but this is the other common route to goal.

The problem with Bruno is a few different things, not all be captured in this stat: poor under pressure - can't dribble his way out of it. And erratic decision-making, not all missed passes are equal.

Now, you'd hope that a more technical player like Sancho could at least have a more consistent touch and be better under pressure, but he clearly isn't, so Bruno is clearly the only real option at 10. And imo there's no way to play both Bruno and Rashford and not be a transition team - you'd be limiting both of their strengths and highlighting their weaknesses.

We're always going to have a heavy emphasis on transitions due to the strength of some key players, but I don't think it's an either/or situation so much as a spectrum.

As it stands we average just the 6th highest possession per game in the league (behind City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Brighton), have the second deepest defensive line (albeit apparently having improved since the WC) and tend to go long to avoid playing out from the back through opposition pressure quite a lot (7 teams' goalkeepers haved gone long less frequently than ours, 14 from goal kicks).

We might not be able to turn into City with the likes of Rashford, Bruno, Casemiro, Varane, etc. as key players in our team. But we can move further along that spectrum and improve our ability to retain possession under pressure by bringing in different player types around them and adjusting tactically as the makeup of the squad shifts.

 

[giggs-beckham]

If you want to play possession based football it's quite simple, Bruno must be benched or better still, sold.

I've been trying to find the courage for days now. I hate him as a player and he'd get nowhere near my 1st 11. Nothing to do with him being a bad captain or whatever.

 

[Okey]

Because we decided to build our team on technically deficient footballers.

Simple really. All the Peps in the world couldn't coach our team to become good passers of the ball. At best they keep it safely a la LVG.

 

[Okey]

The more technically adept players we get, the more the passing will improve. Should happen over the next two windows.

 

[Hammondo]

Our squad lacks technical ability.

This.

 

[giggs-beckham]

I'm not even convinced we want to be a possession based team by the way we play. Even when we had Eriksen. We don't set up to control the game and, as others have said, we're looking more of a transition team. Which I have now been told is what Ajax were anyway, so why are we expecting us to control games? Basically, we're seeing a pumped up version of Ole and José's football due to having better players now.

We're literally the only side who I see regularly go against smaller teams who are doing shite, and we invite them into the game by allowing them possession. We then usually give chances away, which they don't convert because they're crap, and we score eventually.

Completely agree. ETH isn't a possession manager and some are hoping he will be. Still looks counter attack/press to me.
I don't expect that to change much with Bruno and the god awful ddg as 1st choice

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Really disappointed with this aspect of the coaching tbh. Was expecting more.

You can't make poor passers good one's magically. Christ.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

A team with De Gea, Bruno, Fred, AWB and Casemiro will never be a good passing team. Each of them are sloppy and it's part of their game. One or two in the team you can manage but not all of them starting every game.

It also doesn't help when Bruno and Casemiro happen to be our two best playmakers especially with Eriksen out.

Its a fundamentally flawed squad for a team that wants to be possession based.

Agreed. Which is also why ETH is fine with us playing more direct as (like any good manager) he's adapting to what he has.

But anyone here that wants a quality, controlling the ball type side better not be a Bruno Fernandes fan because the two will never go hand in hand. As for the rest, Casemiro can play in a possession based side with less responsibility and we know Fred/AWB/DDG are all just shit passers in general

 

[RU Devil]

Doubt we will ever have a metronomic team. ETH seems to encourage looking for that killer pass to try to spring a big play. With Bruno, he is always trying something, be it a one time pass or quick flick. A lot of times, it goes awry, but a decent percentage comes off (decent being maybe 15%). It's not all about the successes but the volume. Even those that don't come off puts pressure on the opposing team. Case does similarly but doesn't attempt as many reckless balls. It's all about quick transitions and unbalancing the other team.

Today was interesting because it was such an attack oriented lineup with Bruno paired with Case. Made it a very open game, so loads a misplaced passes for both teams. Don't think Sancho got enough of the ball as a 10 before Case was dismissed.

 

[Red the Bear]

We just don't have the players for it as of now , we'd do well with some upgrades especially in the middle.

Our first choice backline is serviceable enough, especially if dalot gets back to his best but David certainly needs upgrading.

A much better ball playing and press resistant player than what we already have to partner casemiro in the middle is of utmost priority, there are certain candidates out there that you probably know of but whether we could get them or not is another matter.

A striker with decent ball playing abilities.

That's a minimum of three players and should be the least of our expectations for next summer.

 

[TheRedHearted]

Our players (collectively) just aren’t good passers. Nobody in that team is a high volume or a high accuracy passer. Have an FBRef search of our 5 central midfielders (Bruno; Eriksen; Casemiro; Fred; McTominay) and I doubt any one of them is higher than the 50th percentile or so in the PL this season for accurate passes. It’s a huge issue.

We are too engrossed in playing transition based football, and that’s mostly because our players only really excel in that aspect of the game.

Who are 3-5 options we could sign in the summer?

 

[Woziak]

I believe fatigue is a big reason for our passing issues.

It is, 100% agree plus the distinct lack of options when you have DVB and Ericsen out for long term injury and now we Have Garnaucho, Martial and Sabitzer still injured and Casemeiro out for 4 games, right now I’d rotate the squad and defintely give players a rest on Thursday.

We need to negotiate a difficult week by probably playing this side Thursday ;
D De Gea, AWB, H Maguire, V Lindelof, T Mallacia, Casemeiro (DM), Fred, S Mctominay, Antony, Weghorst, Sancho

And then change the team for West Ham ;
D De Gea, Dalot, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Sabitzer, S Mctominay, Bruno, Antony, Martial(if fit), Rashford

 

[united_99]

Just look at our midfielders. Since Scholes and latest since Carrick retired we haven’t had anyone even close to their ball playing ability in midfield. It would be good to finally have someone like them again regardless of which system we want to play.
Also ETH will (need to) find / adapt the right system for us.
We are not Ajax, nor are we in the Dutch league, the PL has a lot of money and therefore also some other very good teams. He can’t just copy what he did at Ajax and hope for the best.

There are also many more ways to be successful than just trying to be Barca lite.
I will leave Madrid out as they always seem to win regardless of the system or strength of their opponents.
But Liverpool’s midfield when they won the league and CL with Klopp was nothing special and their aim seemed to be to get the best out of TAA and their forwards.
Same with Barca under Enrique. Focus was understandably on the forwards much more than midfield.

ETH will only succeed if he finds a formula to implement a successful system which at the same time takes the strengths of our best players into account (at least most of them). Then he can add more of his own players to that (gk, striker and a ball playing progressive midfielder would be top of my list, rb second priority).

Just selling everyone because they are not doing very well or their passing rate is not over 90% is not the solution. Otherwise he would need to start with at least two of his own players (Antony and Case). The less said about WW the better, he is a loan signing and hopefully it stays like this. Hopefully we will also not sign Sabitzer.

 

[johnnyteutonic]

Just look at our midfielders. Since Scholes and latest since Carrick retired we haven’t had anyone even close to their ball playing ability in midfield. It would be good to finally have someone like them again regardless of which system we want to play.
Also ETH will (need to) find / adapt the right system for us.
We are not Ajax, nor are we in the Dutch league, the PL has a lot of money and therefore also some other very good teams. He can’t just copy what he did at Ajax and hope for the best.

There are also many more ways to be successful than just trying to be Barca lite.
I will leave Madrid out as they always seem to win regardless of the system or strength of their opponents.
But Liverpool’s midfield when they won the league and CL with Klopp was nothing special and their aim seemed to be to get the best out of TAA and their forwards.
Same with Barca under Enrique. Focus was understandably on the forwards much more than midfield.

ETH will only succeed if he finds a formula to implement a successful system which at the same time takes the strengths of our best players into account (at least most of them). Then he can add more of his own players to that (gk, striker and a ball playing progressive midfielder would be top of my list, rb second priority).

Just selling everyone because they are not doing very well or their passing rate is not over 90% is not the solution. Otherwise he would need to start with at least two of his own players (Antony and Case). The less said about WW the better, he is a loan signing and hopefully it stays like this. Hopefully we will also not sign Sabitzer.

Yep, we haven't had a proper 'deep-lying playmaker' since Scholes retired.
We could have replaced him with Thiago who was available on two separates occasions (2013-14 summer and 2020-21 summer) but we neglected to do so.
Also could have got Kroos if LvG had approved of him.
I get what you're saying that not all teams in the recent era have been possession-heavy teams but I would say that Liverpool at their best certainly were able to dominate games in ways we are nowhere near capable of doing so at the moment.

I'm new to this forum so I'm sure this has been said before but we simply lack the personnel to dominate games and progress the ball rapidly and frequently to our forwards.
Everyone knows it but yes we need at least one press-resistant ball-carrying type (the FDJ role). I would say two so we could experiment with Eriksen as a rotation option at number 10 to see what effect him playing at no 10 has on the team, because we are so reliant on Bruno's creativity at the moment.

I would be looking at Enzo Le Fée from Lorient and Caqueret from OL as cheaper options if FDJ still isn't available in the summer. Both of them rank relatively highly with progressive passing and ball-carrying metrics on fbref. The former's pass completion stats are a bit average however, whilst the latter doesn't rank as highly with progressing passing and ball-carrying but ranks higher in pass completion. Bennacer from Milan is another option worth exploring.

 

[Fahad Jawaid]

I think this is one thing that tilts the balance of signing from Osimhen to Kane. One thing Kane has is, his general passing, holdup is very good and rarely you will see him messing up simple passes or being erratic, which is the case at times with Osimhen.

Plus if we can sign Frenkie alongside Kane it would allow us to dominate the ball in a better way and keep possession.

Next season I would start with this lineup assuming we get our three main targets (Kane, FDJ and Frimpong).

Kane
Rashford Eriksen Antony
FDJ Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Frimpong

This team is more equipped to keep possession and dominate against top teams and hopefully this issue will be minimized.

 

[noodlehair]

Is our passing even that bad?

I mean it's horrible when Casemiro and Eriksen are missing, but that's because our midfield then has bad/negative passers in it so what do you expect? There's a reason we signed both of them and are still after another CM.

Generally though it's fine. We're quite a direct team as our forwards rely on quick service and having space to run into. So I don't want to see us knocking the ball about for the sake of it unless we're already a few goals up and are killing the game.

Are people expecting us to pass teams to death ala City? I don't get the criticism tbh. If we've been off a bit recently it's because of injuries/fatigue which is just going to happen in a 60 game season where we have barely any reliable players who aren't in our starting 11.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

I think this is one thing that tilts the balance of signing from Osimhen to Kane. One thing Kane has is, his general passing, holdup is very good and rarely you will see him messing up simple passes or being erratic, which is the case at times with Osimhen.

Plus if we can sign Frenkie alongside Kane it would allow us to dominate the ball in a better way and keep possession.

Next season I would start with this lineup assuming we get our three main targets (Kane, FDJ and Frimpong).

Kane
Rashford Eriksen Antony
FDJ Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Frimpong

This team is more equipped to keep possession and dominate against top teams and hopefully this issue will be minimized.

I agree with you on this assessment although statistically, Ramos would be the suitable striker in terms of being able to keep possession. Even though Kane has good passing and hold up play, he does lose the ball quite frequently. Dalot is also actually better than Frimpong at keeping possession statistically. Would really love De Jong here too but he doesn't seem interested

 

[ZainCRse7en]

The answer is simple really. We are not built for a possession based team like City or Arsenal. We still have players bought by OGS, playing the OGS way. It will take a few windows and you need to swap out our talisman Bruno with an odegaard or kdb kind of player. Till that happens, just play to our strengths with the type pf players we have.

 

[Semper Fudge]

Is our passing even that bad?

Yes. The stats have been posted in this thread.

 

[noodlehair]

Yes. The stats have been posted in this thread.

Those stats and our possession stats show that we're not actually that bad?

Unless you mean the ones comparing us to City which is dumb as we don't play anything like City.

We're a very direct team and our midfielders (the good ones anyway) have a high percentage of passes that are aimed at direct chance creation. Those are the type of passes where your stats would still suffer if the midfield was prime Paul Scholes and Luka Modric.

I've been pretty happy with our overall play since we got the first two games out the way and our passing is certainly qbout 10x better (and quicker) thwn before this season, so don't really get threads like this.

It will be frustrating as hell the next few games watching us constantly go sideways, but unless people think ETH can turn Fred, Sabitzer and Mctominay into Xavi clones I'm not sure what anyone expects.

Also don't think I want us having 500 more completed passes a game or something when our runaway top scorer thrives on counters/direct balls that won't always come off.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Pass completion stats

Bruno - 45 percentile
Eriksen - 28 percentile
Casemiro - 38 percentile
Fred - 41 percentile

None of city main midfielders bar De bruyne are below the 85 percentile. None of Arsenal midfielder are below the 75 percentile bar Odegaard

And the add to it our RB and GK especially the latter who I’m sure is low on the scale too

 

[Hammondo]

Basic pass completion for our players versus City's.

De Gea 72.0% vs Ederson 85.8%
AWB - 82.8% / Dalot 77.4% vs Walker 86.5%*
Varane - 85.8% vs Dias 92.3%
Martinez - 86.6% vs Stones 94.1%
Shaw - 81.8% vs Ake 90.3%
Casemiro - 77.1% vs Rodri 91.3%
Eriksen - 78.9% / Fred - 79.5% vs Silva 85.3% / Ilkay 85.6%
Bruno - 72.9% vs KDB - 71.4%
Rashford - 75.3% vs Grealish 83.5%
Antony - 76.4% vs Foden - 80.6%
Weghorst - 71.5% / Martial - 80.5% vs Haaland 73.5%

Makes the focus on Bruno's erratic passing specifically seem odd given we rely on him so much for creativity.

In order to improve, the obvious focus should be on the back seven unit (De Gea, RB, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, CM). Partly because they simply make more passes than the front half of the team, partly because improving in those positions would allow us to make changes tactically and play out from the back more. As is we resort to going long a lot more often, which obviously has an impact on our ability to keep the ball overall.

Of that back seven Casemiro, Martinez, Varane and Shaw are the least likely to be displaced and the most likely to "deserve" to be worked around based on other qualities they provide. Which really places heavy emphasis on upgrading De Gea, RB and CM. Because those are the positions in that unit in which you can most painlessly make key upgrades. If we want to get better in possession, that's where we start.

*Worth noting AWB's pass completion, which actually fares quite well considering his reputation for being poor on the ball. The problem with him specifically is the type of passing he does to make up that high completion rate, being the least progressive of our fullbacks.

AWB - 3.19 per 90, 36th percentile.
Dalot - 3.49 per 90, 46th percentile.
Malacia 4.04 per 90, 59th percentile
Shaw - 4.88 per 90, 73rd percentile.

The other fullbacks (in particular Dalot and Shaw) similarly fare better in terms of passes into the opposition third, passes into the penalty area, etc.

Where are you getting those statistics from?

 

[Siorac]

We're a very direct team

And that's a problem. We're still way too direct, we still aren't good enough at retaining the ball under pressure, and concede control against just about any technically proficient team because of being careless with the ball or always trying to force the counter-attack. We cannot reliably control games even against the bottom half of the table. It's part of the reason why we rarely have the sort of easy, comfortable wins like Arsenal's win at Fulham on Sunday.

Having both Casemiro and Eriksen available helps but even with them we can expect to have only 30-40% possession against our strongest rival. Passing teams to death is a necessary tool for a top team and as long as we don't have it, we have a ceiling. Our average possession is 52% but there's a chasm between us and the top 5 (Chelsea are 5th with 58.1%). We need to improve by quite a bit.

 

[RC89]

1. None of our available forward players play much of a passing game
2. Eriksen is out
3. The squad is becoming quite tired

All that being said, we do see passages of much quicker short passing. Were not yet where we need to be but I'm over the moon with the progrss. I wanted ETH in but I expected to have a season where 'it would get worse before it gets better'. A bit like Klopps and Peps start.

These threads pop up because, as we do better, our expectations change too and I think it's worth remembering that.

 

[Shark]

And that's a problem. We're still way too direct, we still aren't good enough at retaining the ball under pressure, and concede control against just about any technically proficient team because of being careless with the ball or always trying to force the counter-attack. We cannot reliably control games even against the bottom half of the table. It's part of the reason why we rarely have the sort of easy, comfortable wins like Arsenal's win at Fulham on Sunday.

Having both Casemiro and Eriksen available helps but even with them we can expect to have only 30-40% possession against our strongest rival. Passing teams to death is a necessary tool for a top team and as long as we don't have it, we have a ceiling. Our average possession is 52% but there's a chasm between us and the top 5 (Chelsea are 5th with 58.1%). We need to improve by quite a bit.

This is why ETH wanted De Jong. Fred/Mctomminay are simply not good enough for retaining any sort of possession. Casemiro can only do so much running the midfield on his own. We need a top class carrier of the ball in midfield who can also control a game. Eriksen injury didn't help either.

 

[noodlehair]

And that's a problem. We're still way too direct, we still aren't good enough at retaining the ball under pressure, and concede control against just about any technically proficient team because of being careless with the ball or always trying to force the counter-attack. We cannot reliably control games even against the bottom half of the table. It's part of the reason why we rarely have the sort of easy, comfortable wins like Arsenal's win at Fulham on Sunday.

Having both Casemiro and Eriksen available helps but even with them we can expect to have only 30-40% possession against our strongest rival. Passing teams to death is a necessary tool for a top team and as long as we don't have it, we have a ceiling. Our average possession is 52% but there's a chasm between us and the top 5 (Chelsea are 5th with 58.1%). We need to improve by quite a bit.

I don't think you'll see us hammering teams or racking up easy wins all that often until we have more than 1 reliable goalscorer, regardless of our possession stats.

I mean you defeat your own argument there with the stats. 3 of the teams with better possession stats are below us in the table, and unless we get significantly worse than we have been, they will be staying there, because its not like its a small gap. Chelsea can barely score a goal.

That leaves City and Arsenal and if you take Arsenal who are top, their possession stats away from home are nearly identical to ours, yet that is where they've picked up the extra points. Their home games where they have had more possession, their form is no better than ours, and they've had a few extremely late winners thrown into that as well.

I think this thread and argument in general is just trying to over complicate things. Our problem has been all season that we have a lot of games and a squad that can't sustain many injuries/suspensions/players out of form. We have one regular goalscorer, two reliable midfielders, and two reliable centrebacks. We can't really do without more than 2-3 of our first team without it making games into a struggle, and we have 2x games every single week and are already making do with a loanee from Burnley as a striker and with one of our key midfielders injured long term. So we're pretty much at our limit before you throw anything else in.

Pep, Klopp, even Arteta needed more than 1 season to put together a squad capable of challenging, and they didn't inherit the mess ETH did. Our play and football improved unrecognisably already so I'm not to fussed nitpicking at stats after every draw or defeat, and i do expect us ultimately to tire and tail off because it'd be borderline unbelievable if we didn't.

I think the next 4 games will be a real struggle without Casemiro as well, because without him and Eriksen, we HAVE yet to prove we can control a game.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Really disappointed with this aspect of the coaching tbh. Was expecting more.

I think it’s more fair to judge this from next season. There’s at least the spine of a team now that we know ETH likes:

———————— TBD ————————
TBD ——Varane ——Licha —— Shaw
————— Case —Eriksen——————
————————Bruno ————————
Antony ——————————Rashford
———————— TBD ————————

Nearly half of them have been at the club less than 9months.

Once we get a GK in that back line wil be awesome in possession, we really just need a CF and then an elite CM like FdJ who can knit it all together from deep and push Eriksen into competing with Bruno for #10

 

[sullydnl]

Where are you getting those statistics from?

Fbref. They'll have updated with this weeks' games since.

 

[Buster15]

Eriksen was a monumental loss the teams performances have taken a nosedive I've been saying this it's very noticeable the games he's in compared to those he's not.

Yes indeed. Big loss.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Because we have to practice against ourselves, so training doesn't do much good.