Possession is King? (1 Viewer)

[Samo]

I have always believed that possession, in general, is the crucial stat for obvious mathematical reasons.
I still believe that but... Chelsea won tonight with 35% possession only and there have been other notable examples recently.
Sorry if this has already been discussed, I feel sure it must have been!
Thoughts?

 

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[ccfcway]

Chelsea were very organised in defence

 

[ConnorDevine]

Depends who you're playing really, Man City obviously play so high up and with such attacking force if you can counter well you've a good chance of winning, generally.

 

[wingy]

Were they employing Victorian tactics?

 

[covmark]

Even with far less possession Chelsea were the far more threatening team. It's what you do with it that counts. 30% of quality possession is better than bumbling around with 70% possession.

 

[skybluebal]

Possession is only the way to attack with a view to scoring a goal - at the end the only statistic that matters is the final score. Having said that, I don't bother with the possession stats, but with the ratio of attempts/attempts on target and then attempts on target/number of goals.

i remember watching the City on tv a few years ago, I think it was away to QPR. They battered us for 89 mins. We got a penalty and scored and won 1-0. One attempt, one on target one goal and won 1-0. Mind you it was no fun sitting through the whole game for that, but we won and got the 3 points and the history books show a 1-0 to City!

 

[Samo]

Possession is only the way to attack with a view to scoring a goal - at the end the only statistic that matters is the final score. Having said that, I don't bother with the possession stats, but with the ratio of attempts/attempts on target and then attempts on target/number of goals.

i remember watching the City on tv a few years ago, I think it was away to QPR. They battered us for 89 mins. We got a penalty and scored and won 1-0. One attempt, one on target one goal and won 1-0. Mind you it was no fun sitting through the whole game for that, but we won and got the 3 points and the history books show a 1-0 to City!

Agreed but... does anyone have the stats for percentage of possession/winning games? Statistically, does possession equal win?

 

[ccfcway]

Agreed but... does anyone have the stats for percentage of possession/winning games? Statistically, does possession equal win?

http://www.soccerstatistically.com/blog/2011/7/27/does-more-possessionmore-wins-in-the-mls.html

Its the MLS, but interesting none the less.

"Teams that possess the ball more don't win more; they actually lose more."

 

[lordsummerisle]

We had a lot of possession under Thorn, but passing to each other in your own half, whilst helping possession stats, doesn't help you to win games.

Remember several games at the Ricoh when teams would sit off us the first half, thinking "Christ, thses guys are good, can't get the ball off them", then relaising that we weren't actually doing anything of consequence with it, just having a go, knowing that if they scored it was unlikely we'd be able to do the same.

Strangely enough, looking at his stats at kiddermister in the League games, same story developing, generally majority of possession, but no cutting edge(Apart from winning his first league game in charge, before he'd had chance to put his stamp on the team!).

P4 W1 L2 D1.

At least his 25% win average is up on here at the moment!

We used to do it to teams like Liverpool in the past, let them have the ball as much as they liked in areas that didn't hurt us, then hit them hard and fast when we did get the ball.

 

[Sky Blue Kid]

While agreeing that having greater possession doesn't guarantee the win, I tend to think that while you have the ball the opposition can't score. How many times have Barcelona been beaten?

 

[covcity4life]

possession is king

counter is king

parking bus is king

whatever you do, make it work.

however tiki taka done properly does probably yield the best results.

 

[The Gentleman]

I have always believed that possession, in general, is the crucial stat for obvious mathematical reasons.
I still believe that but... Chelsea won tonight with 35% possession only and there have been other notable examples recently.
Sorry if this has already been discussed, I feel sure it must have been!
Thoughts?

I know your question is more generic but on last night's game, I watched it and was surprised that Chelsea had as little as 35% possession. I think it was tactics that determined the game in the way that Chelsea played in the space that players like Villa and co usually do their magic. If you make any team play in front of you they can have as much possession as they want and it will rarely hurt. I also thought that despite Chelsea having less of the ball, they played better football and it does prove that the Barca, Bayern, Arsenal way of playing does not always work and this would be one of my only queries on Pressley's ethos in following these teams is that sometimes a change of tactics during games is needed. Just ask Chelsea fans if they would have rather tried to match up to Bayern Munich or come home with the European Cup.

 

[covcity4life]

I know your question is more generic but on last night's game, I watched it and was surprised that Chelsea had as little as 35% possession. I think it was tactics that determined the game in the way that Chelsea played in the space that players like Villa and co usually do their magic. If you make any team play in front of you they can have as much possession as they want and it will rarely hurt. I also thought that despite Chelsea having less of the ball, they played better football and it does prove that the Barca, Bayern, Arsenal way of playing does not always work and this would be one of my only queries on Pressley's ethos in following these teams is that sometimes a change of tactics during games is needed. Just ask Chelsea fans if they would have rather tried to match up to Bayern Munich or come home with the European Cup.

but barca,munich and arsenal have success more often than not.

surely we want SP to use tactics that have a high % chance of working?

or do you want a tactic that leads to 100% win ratio? because it doesnt exist mate.

 

[RoboCCFC90]

Chelsea had so much pace going forward with Hazard, Willian, Eto and Ramires.. Posession is an important stat, but the most important stat is how many goals you can score, as one former England U21 Captain once said to me "Posession doesn't win you games, Goals do"

 

[The Gentleman]

but barca,munich and arsenal have success more often than not.

surely we want SP to use tactics that have a high % chance of working?

or do you want a tactic that leads to 100% win ratio? because it doesnt exist mate.

If you read my post again you will see I am not asking for a change in tactics in general but sometimes during games, this might put a stop to conceding so many late goals and help to see games out. That is the sign of a great manager, one who can get a team playing different tactics during games and be successful. I remember watching a game a few years ago when Arsenal played Barca at the Emirates and I think the Gooners won 2-1. Arsenal started the game still passing but were very tight and organised and let Barca play in front of them and then towards the end of the game once Barca had tired somewhat, Arsenal then came out of their shells and won the game. All I an saying is that there is more than one way to skin a cat (or win a game) and I think we need to be a bit more flexible at times.

 

[RoboCCFC90]

If you read my post again you will see I am not asking for a change in tactics in general but sometimes during games, this might put a stop to conceding so many late goals and help to see games out. That is the sign of a great manager, one who can get a team playing different tactics during games and be successful. I remember watching a game a few years ago when Arsenal played Barca at the Emirates and I think the Gooners won 2-1. Arsenal started the game still passing but were very tight and organised and let Barca play in front of them and then towards the end of the game once Barca had tired somewhat, Arsenal then came out of their shells and won the game. All I an saying is that there is more than one way to skin a cat (or win a game) and I think we need to be a bit more flexible at times.

You're memory is good, Wilshere and Arshavin scored the goals for Arsenal.

 

[Sutty]

If anyone's read 'The Numbers Game' there's a good discussion on this in there. Basically they draw a graph of average % possession over the season against final league position and find an almost perfect linear relationship between the two.

There was basically only one anomaly. Pulis' Stoke side consistently over performed given their possession stats. They then discuss the reasons that Stoke were able to buck the trend.

 

[Hobo]

Scoring more than the opposition is king!

 

[shmmeee]

Correlation doesn't equal causation though. It could be that teams with better technical players tend to win more and also tend to have more possession because simply they're better players.