This post is response to Indian_Gonner’s previous post “Why Don’t We Just Shoot”? It’s an interesting subject.
I remember Wenger once being asked “Why is Arsenal not buying a target man”? Arsene’s reply was - should we have a target man, he feared our attack would start relying on crossing the ball into the box rather than tryng to penetrate the oppositions’ defence like we are doing right now. It’s an intelligent point. Players, just like us the ordinary people, would tend to go for the easy way out when there is one. Why bother to dribble and pass your way through the oppositions’ defence when we could just throw a high cross into the box, knowing that we have a target man at the receiving end? Without a target man, the players have no choice but to create their scoring chances by constant moment and good passing. It’s more effective football in a bigger picture. Otherwise, every team would play like the old Wimbledon.
The same theory applies on why we are not taking the long shot outside the penalty area. First of all, the percentage of hitting the target is low.
Secondly, the teams which tend to take long shots are more often than not the teams which do not have enough quality to penetrate opposition’s defence.
Thirdly, in Henry, Pires and Bergkamp, we have 3 unique players who are extremely unselfish depsite being high profile forwards. You don’t see too many players like these in the world football today. Their mentality is always looking to pass rather than shoot. With 3 of our biggest stars willing to play team football, it inspires the whole team to do the same. It results in our trademark one-touch passing football. If we are asking them to look to shoot whenever there is an opportunity - not that they are not good enough to shoot from outside [all the 3 of them have a track records on shooting accurate long shots] - but it would hurt the team play, and set an example for the rest of the team to do just the same. Imagine, players like Ljungberg, who works tirelessly running himself into good scoring position, yet the pass never arrives as his teammates choose to shoot than pass, how that would affect his morale?
We do have a player who loves to shoot from long rang - Edu. Last season, I watched in many occassions, during our attacking build up, when the ball reached Edu, he just hit the ball onto roll Z while he should really have passed. That kind of play really frustrates me.
I agree our players at times should be a little bit less unselfish and just strike the ball when they are in a clear open chance. but, in the big picture though, I love our players’ pass-first mentality.
11 Responses to “Pass Vs Shoot”
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January 27th, 2005 at 8:50 am
Having said that, I must stress that I do agree with many points Indian_G have made, good analysis and good observation. It’s true if we could shoot a bit more from outside of the box, it would pull the oppositions away from their box, and open up more space for our attackers. I also agree at crucial moment, such as when we are trailing, we could be a bit more direct rather than over complicated with too much passing.
I guess, the bottom line is to seek for a right BALANCE. But it’s easier said than done.
Personally though, i just love our passing game!
January 27th, 2005 at 9:04 am
Yes, balance. I suppose the idea is to try a few things on the fly as one sees fit, all the while communicating with your teammates.
I think Wenger thinks that the ideal game is quick, one-touch stuff no matter how many they have behind the ball or how deep they are. Eventually, a good team can compromise their opponents shape. Look at the Chels/ManU game yesterday. Eventually the easiest of opportunities opened up for them to exploit.
What it requires is that everyone be close to top form, healthy, and in a spirit of togetherness. Its ten men becoming one, and that can be upset easily with injuries, inexperience, and a lack of determination?all things we’ve been plagued with at one time or another this season.
One thing I’ll say for Chelsea, they make very few mistakes and rarely EVER lose focus. I’m not sure if that’s the manager or the money. I offer that its a bit of both.
Steve Cohen said yesterday that he feels Chelsea’s style of play keeps them from injury, whereas Pool practically asks for it. Don’t know if that’s true, or how much that could be attributed to us, but it is interesting.
All in all, I agree Andez. Very soon, our new batch of Gunners will start HELPING improve our pass game, which I prefer.
January 27th, 2005 at 10:00 am
Good point Andez. You make me feel good. I think, unlike some writers on this site, you look like someone who knows something about football and our team.
Our friend Indian_Gonner indian should congratulate for his effort to keep this site lively, but I think we have everything we need for a succesfull attacking team.
I don’t undertsand why we should look like others premiership team. We show the world that we pratice one of the most effective and pleasant football of game history. As Gerrad Houiller constantly says we can to the opposite box in a matter of few second and 2 or 3 passes.
We have the best attack. We may have some problems when defending but it’s just difficult to think we have any sort of problems in scoring goals.
SOme ‘fans’ just speak about us as we were a bad team and they to tell us that there’s better team England than us. That’s far from truth. I know some ‘fans’ have already gieven all four trophies to Chelsea.
That’s not a good feeling for our team. Yannick Noah once ask french people watching the davis cup final on TV to realise that their team them to believe that victory is possible. He said that feeling and the belief can help the team win trophies. That applies to any sport. Around the world all the fans should think that we can everything with the team we have.
Target man ? We do have Henry. He knows how to score at any distance. If you watched the game against Newcastle it was a long ball from our defense that led to Berkamp. Every bady remember Henry scoring from long ball as btarget man. He scored many goals even this season playing like a perfect target man. He can be anything the manager wants him to be. People forget that Henry played was a striker in World Cup 98. He can play anywhere, even as a central defender (a waste but he can do it).
We kill of team because we play our way and player like Morientes our Hesky cannot do the business for us.
I’ve always think even when I am on the pitch playing football that crosses are the most ineffective passes you see in a game. If we were crossing we wouldn’t be so effective in front of goal. Every team want to play like but they can’t. Why we should like inferior like Chelsea, Manure , Everton or other.In term ofeffective attacking football we are one of the best of all time. Time will makejustice to the invincibles that won unbeaten the primer league early in the 21th century. It’s time to stop shooting ourselves and make ‘comments’ that we usually find in Manure or Chelsea biased papers.
It’s time to back strongly the manager in his attempt to compete with big spending team. You have to be different and play a different football to beat Manure or Chelski. We cannot have all the player we love but as we showed in the past we don’t need any big to lift trophies.
January 27th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Simply put, our passing game is one of the biggest reasons I love Arsenal. Wouldn’t change it for all the Russian money in the world.
Victoria Concordia Crescit
January 27th, 2005 at 10:44 am
thanks paul! Personally i don’t dislike the idea of a target man, just that i do realize it’s difficult to have a target man in our team yet at the same time we are playing the same fluid football as we been doing. the same speaks for the long rang shot. so i guess either one way or other, if had to choose, i perfer the one-touch game, just make u feeling good watching it!
January 27th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Yes scott, i also watched the game. The more i watch them [chelsea], the more i fear of them. They just look so difficult to beat, it took Giggs a brilliant effort to score against them. their defence simply don’t make mistake.
January 27th, 2005 at 10:52 am
Still need a Plan B when our attack isn’t working and Henry is merely human. If that’s the long ball, great. But there are still ten heads out there.
Set-pieces would help for sure. Hence, the talk of a Morientes type player. Madrid was bringing him in at the death JUST for that purpose. Drogba too for Chelsea, earlier in the season. Its just part of the evolution of the game in these days of big money and specialization. Ignore any part of your attack, and eventually that ignorance will burn you.
But I agree that patience and time are two ingredients that fans and supporters don’t like to consider. That and a charged up crowd. But with all due respect to Mr. Noah, 99% of the time its going to come from preparedness and the will within.
January 27th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Part of our problem this year seems to be that we very rarely get an early goal. Last year it seemed that especially against weaker opposition at home we would be 2 up after 15 mins and then really turn on the one touch stuff. This year for some reason they are not going in, Flamini could have scored inside of a minute which would have changed the game . We did get one and then through a combination of bad luck,poor finishing ang great goalkeeping we were left playing out the last couple of minutes by the corner flag!
I would not have been surprised to see Bowyers shot catch Kolo’s ankle and deflect through Almunia’s legs especially the way things have gone this year.Since the end of Oct this season has been a struggle and we have not had a game where we could truly relax and play our brand of football,every time we dropped a point Chelsea picked up 3.
January 27th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Reminds me of what Arsene said on our style and chelsea’s. We play a risky but wonderfully entertaining style of football. When things go wrong our style of play is affected more because of this. It’s a price to pay but it’s worth it. Chelsea’s style doesn’t impress him but he thinks they’re very effective. Which led to their assistant manager saying that winning trophies will entertain their fans. That’s a tad shallow isn’t it?
Johan Cruyff, possibly the greatest player ever and one whom I have a great respect for believes that footballers have a responsibility to entertain their fans. He got it spot on. The passing ability of Arsenal is breathtaking, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
January 27th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
i would not want a mug like hesky either, but morientes could very well benefit from our style of play. he’s proved he can score goals at the very highest level, with his head indeed. but i don’t think the point is to overhaul our style of play and go to the long ball. it kind of goes back to the whole plan b concept. when we could not get through the packed midfields against 3 of the weakest teams in the league, it would have been nice to bring on someone like a niall quinn (of sunderland and man city(?) vintage) to hold off a defender, take a long punt down to his feet and lay it off, or head it down to henry. let’s face it we do not have a player like that. but in some situations that player would be good to have. but i would never want to change our style of play to play the old wimbledon style, never.
January 29th, 2005 at 10:45 pm
There is so much to admire in our team and the way Arsene Wenger has built it, and the football he has encouraged it to play. In fact there is nothing really negative I can say about the way we play as there is nothing negative about it. On-song, we are the BEST attacking team in the WORLD. If the defense shows up those days, we are the BEST TEAM in the WORLD. The way we play right now. Our problem is we are not nearly as COMPLETE a team as many sides at or near our level. I do not believe we need to snap shots off from thirty yards, or become a footballing flying circus, heading home tons of crosses. But the fact that simply DON’T do EITHER - moreso don’t even get CHANCES from corners given how many we get every match has allowed defenses made up of players who aren’t half the players our attacking players are find a way to frustrate us. That’s not just the back four but the second four most managers put back in the box with them. We are too reliant on our style of play and when there are eight or nine in front of us in the box, it simply can’t work nearly as well, and hasn’t too often against inferior sides this year. You hit it on the head in your own follow-up - we need more balance in our attack - more options. More VARIETY. Not much more at all. Just enough to keep opponents honest. That little bit of surprise every so often will ensure more chances, more goals, more wins, and more silverware for Arsenal this year and years to come.