Playing To Our Strengths

[The Masked Man]

Like many games in the championship today's could have gone either way. Luckily for City it went ours. I often wonder whether it's best to have a good manager or a lucky manager or whether they're the same side of the coin.

I share some others thoughts on whether we have the best players for a possession based game but the squad we have is better than anything Manning has worked with before so given time he should be able to get them playing how he wants too. 

Two tough games coming up but Southampton and Norwich will know they're going to have to work hard to get a result and City will know they have what it takes to get one too. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Still think we need to find a way if we are going towards a more possession game to get Naismith into central areas, especially midfield.

Question is how, who drops out.

[Sir Geoff]

16 hours ago, Jose said:

We’ve got to start somewhere right? He is changing the way we play. It’s going to take time to click. I’d much rather keep the ball than hit a hopeful ball up to Conway wishing for the best. 
 

Add in Boro are a decent team, that we actually gifted them their goals I feel like there are things to be positive about. 
 

Strange place OTIB atm.

we never did hit long hopeful balls to Conway. We hit long balls into the channels for Bell and Sykes to run on to. How do you explain the number of long balls pumped up to Sam Bell by Max yesterday or are you choosing to ignore them?

[Jose]

3 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

we never did hit long hopeful balls to Conway. We hit long balls into the channels for Bell and Sykes to run on to. How do you explain the number of long balls pumped up to Sam Bell by Max yesterday or are you choosing to ignore them?

I’m a Pearson fan but to say we didn’t hit long balls up to Conway/Wells/Cornick is a lie. Yes we worked the channels but we frequently just hit it long at times instead of looking to play out. There were times we had to go long yesterday just to clear the lines but there was definitely a change in outlook on how to play. 

[Davefevs]

3 hours ago, Jose said:

I’m a Pearson fan but to say we didn’t hit long balls up to Conway/Wells/Cornick is a lie. Yes we worked the channels but we frequently just hit it long at times instead of looking to play out. There were times we had to go long yesterday just to clear the lines but there was definitely a change in outlook on how to play. 

Just to add some numbers to it.

Our average number of long balls* per game this season is 56.94.  Yesterday we hit 57.

For context, that average of 56.94 comes from an average of 421.35 passes per game - so 13.5% of all passes are long this season

Yesterday’s 57 came from 441, so 12.9%, a slight decrease looking at it from a percentage point of view.

Also, we were successful with 59.6% as opposed to 48.6% this season, so a decent improvement in success rate.

What was noticeable was how that percentage of long balls increased as the game wore-on.

Some of that is situational, defending a lead for example, Cornick a different option, etc.

Nothing wrong with that, just observations.

 

* Wyscout defines long pass as - 45m ground ball, 25m aerial ball.