Niggly Forest

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Forest played the way most Championship sides do by evening things up with a bit of the rough stuff that mainly goes unnoticed by the match officials. The first side to make us aware of how they can niggle successfully was Burnley.

 

[BaconSaver]

You guys must have pretty bad memories, do you not remember our game at the City Ground last season?

Do agree Halford could have gone though, 10 minutes after coming on! One bizarre decision was when we had a free kick, the ref blew for some off the ball thing before it was taken involving Halford, only for the ref to talk to him and then let us take the free kick! I was dreading the worst then.

 

[house your seagull]

It's an O'Driscoll thing and it makes sense.

I read an interview with him, he's an interesting guy, basically he said that teams are very vulnerable from any set play - players subconsciously lose shape because the game stops and they stop. He said that when he brought Donny up from League 1 to Championship they were conceding sloppy goals and he couldn't work out why.

Eventually he figured that Championship teams try and disrupt deadball and throw in situations, and that doesn't happen in League 1 so much.

So, everytime a ball was going out for an opposition throw, he instructed his players to boot it high into row z so they couldn't take it quickly. Same goes when conceding free-kicks, you nudge it away, or you pick the ball up and walk off, anything to allow your team time to get into shape and work out what play the opposition are going to make. You see a lot of teams do it these days. It's total possesion, even when the game isn't in play.

Even I do this now when I play football, it annoys people, but it allows your team to be better prepared for the deadball.