Starting Brighton attacks with a hoof ball

[Diego Napier]

As our current forward line (ignoring all their other abilities) are unlikely to win a ball in the air or hold it up, why does Stockdale hoof 90% of his distribution up the centre of the park? It used to be that a pass or throw out was the standard and the aerial route was an occasional variation but it has now become his stock ball. Given the speed and slickness of our ground-based counter attacking capabilities and the height of the oppositions defenders it seems perverse to use the tactic so frequently.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

To get it past those 3 *******s in midfield who were bossing the game?

 

[Bigtomfu]

This is also my partial fear about GG coming back in. Someone needs to reign in his quarterback tendencies.

 

[Diego Napier]

To get it past those 3 *******s in midfield who were bossing the game?

Possibly but we ripped through them a number of times in the first half down the wings and through the centre.

Anyway, we don't play Derby every week!

 

[Sheebo]

Derby were closing the options down and pressing - happens with better teams who do their homework I'm afraid so no options left a lot of the time...

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Anyway, we don't play Derby every week!

We might be very soon

 

[Deadly Danson]

As our current forward line (ignoring all their other abilities) are unlikely to win a ball in the air or hold it up, why does Stockdale hoof 90% of his distribution up the centre of the park? It used to be that a pass or throw out was the standard and the aerial route was an occasional variation but it has now become his stock ball. Given the speed and slickness of our ground-based counter attacking capabilities and the height of the oppositions defenders it seems perverse to use the tactic so frequently.

Agree with that. I'm not criticising the team at all after such a superb season, but we win games playing "our" way - every time we get it on the ground we look like we could score and everyone we hoof it up in the air we don't. If we play football on Saturday I fancy our chances.

 

[Machiavelli]

A few things on this:
-- the hoofball tends to happen only when Stockdale has the ball in his hands, and he will try to avoid picking up the ball if possible
-- Hemed is more proficient at winning the ball in the air than the OP credits
-- one option is that he flicks it on, and Baldock is running beyond their defence -- this will rarely occur, but the benefits are obvious
-- a more regular occurrence is that we win the second ball from the Hemed/opposition defence combination
-- Stockdale also regularly (c30%?) out to the touchline, either more advanced to the winger, or not as far up the pitch, to the full-back
-- Dunk hit a very long ball in the first half yesterday, which Le Petit Magicien, took down sublimely; that wasn't hoofball, as with many of Stockdale's
-- this might be the most important point, one of the main reason behind our success this season has been our ability to vary our game, and adapt to circumstances. Credit goes to the coaching staff on this but, even more so, the players who need to work out what is the most appropriate approach in the given circumstances. As much as I like tiki-taka, football's moved on, and that varied approach aligned with an extremely well organised defence (cf Atletico Madrid, Leicester, Tottenham) appears to be gaining ground

 

[Marshy]

Having a pop at Stockdale's distribution is baffling, comfortably the best keeper in the division for picking out a blue and white shirt 70 yards away with pin point accuracy

 

[studio150]

While the long ball from Stockdale is a useful tool when it is dispatched quickly to catch the other team up the field, it is less useful when the formations are back in place. I also think that some of the problems from yesterday particularly in the second half was that we got caught up in the desire to win by playing too quickly meaning that we seldom had the ball under control which meant the need to go longer,

 

[KZNSeagull]

There was some poor hoofing yesterday, but also some very good hoofing. When you have Knockers who can control a 60 yard ball immediately and then charge at the defence, it can be a valid tactic.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Having a pop at Stockdale's distribution is baffling, comfortably the best keeper in the division for picking out a blue and white shirt 70 yards away with pin point accuracy

I agree it wasn't long ago when he was being praised for his kicking out of hand

 

[NooBHA]

Derby were closing the options down and pressing - happens with better teams who do their homework I'm afraid so no options left a lot of the time...

I totally agree. Derby closed down very well but what confounded matters in that regard was that Kayal who normally drops deep when the keeper has the ball wasn't doing that, hence Stockdale didn't have the extra man to play it out through. I think Kayal was too eager to push forward yesterday. He didn't play badly but he just played out of position a lot. He is normally the best at creating the angles for passing out of defence and because he was pushing forward a lot, we lost that option on some occasions.

I think and hope that will all be put right for next week and we will see a different Albion performance. Maybe getting the very average performance out of the way yesterday might work in our favour against Boro

 

[severnside gull]

If you wanted to see hoof ball you just needed to watch the Burnley game. We were poetry in comparison.

 

[Diego Napier]

Having a pop at Stockdale's distribution is baffling, comfortably the best keeper in the division for picking out a blue and white shirt 70 yards away with pin point accuracy

Oh dear, I'm sorry you interpreted my post in that way, I should have been more specific although it is very clear that he's acting under instruction and not simply hoofing out of choice. I'm baffled as to why he's been given that instruction.

I'm not commenting on his ability to pick out a player on the touchline with a flat kick-out, generally he does that very well; it's the prevalence of the long hoof up the middle that so frequently leads to the opposition regaining possession.

I'm pleased that we moved away from Poyet's continually passing across the back four tactics and introduced more variation however, gradually over the season, the scales have tipped completely in favour of the seemingly aimless high long ball.

 

[Dick Head]

Oh dear, I'm sorry you interpreted my post in that way, I should have been more specific although it is very clear that he's acting under instruction and not simply hoofing out of choice. I'm baffled as to why he's been given that instruction.

I'm not commenting on his ability to pick out a player on the touchline with a flat kick-out, generally he does that very well; it's the prevalence of the long hoof up the middle that so frequently leads to the opposition regaining possession.

I'm pleased that we moved away from Poyet's continually passing across the back four tactics and introduced more variation however, gradually over the season, the scales have tipped completely in favour of the seemingly aimless high long ball.

>seemingly aimless high long ball
>seemingly aimless
>aimless

 

[smeg]

Derby were closing the options down and pressing - happens with better teams who do their homework I'm afraid so no options left a lot of the time...

Yeah this is how I saw it, smacked of desperation but once the long ball game starts you know it's not going to be your day.