Back-passing

[Bare Ben]

I noticed yesterday the large amount of times our defenders chose to play the ball back to Roche for him to hoof it upfield. Alot of people on here have mentioned our habit of playing the long ball and I think this is the catalyst for most of it. Sometimes they dont even need to, they don't have an opposition player within 10 yards of them, but instead of putting their foot on the ball and having a look, they are putting Barry under constant and unneeded pressure by playing (and sometimes over-hit) back-passes to him. In the second half he messed up a couple of times on his distribution and although he can't be expected to kick it perfectly every time, I believe this was because of the sheer amount of times he was given the ball back and was rushed into playing high long balls before their striker closed him down. Simple stuff but I hope either Sammy noticed it or Barry has a word with the back four about it. In the end it didnt cost us but we don't want a repeat of a certain Joe Lewis last season at home to Mansfield.

[marky]

That was a problem back in the Harvey days. It seems to be the Morecambe way. Anyone remember Artell's horrendous back-pass to Joe Lewis last year which resulted in conceding a goal? It's a tactic we've always overused and one which puts far too much pressure on the goalkeeper. It rarely achieves anything positive (in fact we probably lose possession 80% of the time).

[Heysham_Shrimp]

I noticed yesterday the large amount of times our defenders chose to play the ball back to Roche for him to hoof it upfield. Alot of people on here have mentioned our habit of playing the long ball and I think this is the catalyst for most of it. Sometimes they dont even need to, they don't have an opposition player within 10 yards of them, but instead of putting their foot on the ball and having a look, they are putting Barry under constant and unneeded pressure by playing (and sometimes over-hit) back-passes to him. In the second half he messed up a couple of times on his distribution and although he can't be expected to kick it perfectly every time, I believe this was because of the sheer amount of times he was given the ball back and was rushed into playing high long balls before their striker closed him down. Simple stuff but I hope either Sammy noticed it or Barry has a word with the back four about it. In the end it didnt cost us but we don't want a repeat of a certain Joe Lewis last season at home to Mansfield.

The back passes are as a result of a lack of quality in midfield. Players who can take the ball from the back 4 and do something with it. Stanners and Drummy being good examples but not selected at present.
Hopefully this will be dealt with before midnight tonight.

[P/T Indie]

The back passes are as a result of a lack of quality in midfield. Players who can take the ball from the back 4 and do something with it. Stanners and Drummy being good examples but not selected at present.
Hopefully this will be dealt with before midnight tonight.[/quote]


Exactly I would like to see Drummond in the team as he is the only one who could probably organise the midfield and hunter next to him so that he can do all the running for him.

On saturday Sammy admitted that his two new signings weren't good enough and he got the midfield wrong when he had to replace them like for like.

The other point as well as a good midfield is you need good fullbacks all good teams have good fullbacks who can overlap get down to the line and put crosses in to provide an extra outlet. Unfortunaley Mcstay is a CB so I can't see him bombing down the wing and Adams isn't able to do it so this cuts down our attacking options even more.

O'Carroll was different class and a step ahead of the rest of the team when running into positions but our players were to slow to notice half the time if he doesn't start next week then we seriously have to start asking questions.

Managers live and die on their transfers and results it will be an intresting couple of weeks for Sammy to see if his new players can settle in a bit better and start to produce the performances he was expecting from them.

[sandgrown]

back passing, quite often it's just one way of passing the buck !

[Sammy h]

If there isn't a player within 10 yards of the defender then passing the ball to the keeper means there probably isn't a player within 20 yards of him?

It is what football players are told to do, if you facing your goal with a defender on your back instead of knocking it out for a throw in you pass it to your keeper who then gets rid of the pressure, simple football, however i do agree that sometimes it is not needed.

Maybe a lack of communication, nobody telling the defender that he has time to turn?

However this shouldn't be an issue within the team, it's not hard really is it?