Our 'Possession' stats

[slack_pie]

Dominating possession only seems worth it if it results in more chances created, or if you are trying to run down the clock to protect a lead. If you have 70% of the ball but the opposition has 70% of the chances, something clearly isn't working.

Call me a dinosaur, but I would love to see us play our football in the final third. I don't mean we should launch aimless long balls forward, but it would be nice to move the ball forward with a bit of urgency and get the opposition on the back foot.

Besides, given how error prone we are at the back and how few chances we are creating, I'm sure the opposition will be more than happy for us to have the ball 70% of the time.

[MAD_MAGPIE]

Something regularly mentioned in match threads, but maybe worth a separate topic. It's nearly always in our favour, we invariably have more of the ball than the opposition even in away games. But that's all 'possession' means, that we have the ball. I'm a fan of stats, but this one can be misleading and last night was a perfect example as to why. Apparently we had 70% possession, which I wouldn't dispute. Maybe it should be broken down into 'negative possession', where you have the ball in your own half, and 'positive possession' where you have the ball in the opposition half. Last night our 70% possession would have been around 60% negative and 10% positive. The negative possession created far more chances for them than our positive possession did for us.

I'm not asking for a big change in playing style, but we have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

Like you I like how we play, the fact that we keep the ball so much as the possession stats show and basically give the opposition the runaround making them tired and demoralised. It means we also control the game for large parts and therefore dictate the tempo of the game. The longer you have the ball the less time there is for the opposition to get into the game and hurt you. That’s what we did in the National League and it worked perfectly.

Where it can break down as was the case against Sutton is when the opposition press you and force you into mistakes and errors. The result of which they cease on this and capitalise and punish you for it. This can then affect confidence and then players can go into themselves and look for a safe pass.

If we look at possession a bit more positive possession for me is based on how effective the possession is. We all know the aim of football is to get the ball forward and penetrate the opposition and score goals. There is nothing wrong if you don’t have the option to play it forward in the area of the pitch where the ball is to either recycle the ball back round defence and keeper and try another way or spend time looking for and creating gaps and openings to play forward using the midfielders as pivots and players making forward runs. Eventually you’ll carve our openings, create chances, get some corners and shots on or off target. For me the more of these you have the more positive the possession has been.

We could refer to the past two games as negative possession because the chances created, corners had, shots on target and goals scored has been limited to one goal. So it’s not been effective possession. Then we have to look closely as to why this is. Naturally the level of opposition may mean they are more fitter so they can run around more, press us and force us into mistakes. As they are higher level opposition they maybe more organised out of possession than NL teams, be better defensively so therefore less gaps for us to exploit. We may therefore by default end up having to spend more time looking for gaps and openings.

The 30-40% possession has been efficient possession for the opposition because it’s time they’ve capitalised on our mistakes and errors which has meant they’ve created their own chances. Also aerial balls into our box have to be taken into consideration. I think three of the goals on Saturday and one on Tuesday were high balls into our area.

How to do we get back on course? Firstly it doesn’t take a genius to work out we need to deal with aerial balls into our box first and foremost. Do this and we may see a few draws like 1-1 or 0-0. Secondly cut out the errors when in possession and most of these errors will be forced mistakes from pressure and intercepted passes. So basically smarter passing and more composed passing. It might sound simple, it’s not meant to. What it does need is time and patience while the players find their feet and figure it out.

[keldsyke]

You need to have an understanding of what you are using the data for, then use it in conjunction with traditional methods of analysis to try and identify and realise what you hope to achieve from it.

The data above suggests we've stopped doing in the first two games of this season what we were doing really well last season, using our positive possession to create plenty of high value chances.

Maybe there is a level of anxiety meaning the players are passing much shorter as the confidence going forward has taken a bit of a pasting. Maybe the mix of new players and a change of tactics has impacted it as well. Maybe going down to ten meant we couldn't be as decisive as we would want to be.

You're right about manipulation of stats to suit a certain narrative but when I post stats they are there to generate analytical debate, I don't use them to try and make us look good or bad, that would be pointless.

Exactly, it needs to be measured against known (validated) metrics otherwise it means nothing, so posting we had 70% possession means nothing really unless you can validate it against something, unfortunately then people on here interpret it as they want, data is dangerous if not used correctly and can be pushed to people the way they want someone to see it (advertising for example, Brexit anyone?). So posting we had 70% possession on here can be taken in many different ways, example from my real world data life, (driver analysing a lap although he's not the quickest), 'but I was the fastest on the long straights!'... 'yeah but that extra speed you're carrying into the corners means you have to brake earlier and ultimately you're not carrying the quickest speed through the corners, that is where you're losing the time!' But Billy Big *******s driver thinks he's great because he has a fastest sector. I think as stated earlier the data needs to be broken down more for people to see the whole picture.