Seeing out the last few minutes

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HodgysBrokenThumb

HodgysBrokenThumb

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For many years it has been frustrating that other teams seem to be able to keep the ball by the corner flag when 1 goal up, and see out the last couple of minutes. At Sunderland on Wednesday Berge and McBurnie managed to bore the pants off the home fans by repeatedly winning corners for a couple of minutes. Ugly, but am I right that for a long time we have not had players who have managed to do this? They are such different players, but combined effectively. Berge - visible and ugly; McBurnie - clever and calm. What was going on?
 

We're crap at it, just like we're usually crap at sitting back and keeping it tight when one goal in front

Even if we eventually see the game out, all it does is bore everyone, piss them off, and entertain nobody

Feel good factor and confidence is a big thing in football, and why we keep ours at a minimum level by making no attempt to play well when winning is stupid
 
JJBlade said:
We're crap at it, just like we're usually crap at sitting back and keeping it tight when one goal in front

Even if we eventually see the game out, all it does is bore everyone, piss them off, and entertain nobody

Feel good factor and confidence is a big thing in football, and why we keep ours at a minimum level by making no attempt to play well when winning is stupid
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I go along with most of that. But if you are one goal up, 2 added minutes left and win a corner, do you really want to put the ball into the box and risk a breakaway goal? I don’t mind being bored for 2 minutes if we’re winning. My main observation is that often when we have tried keeping the ball in the corner in recent years, we have failed miserably.
 
I hate it... it isn't football. It frustrated me when Berge did it. With all the crazy laws in football I am surprised there isn't a law against this.

To me it shows patheticness, an unability to attack and kill off the game. We pay to watch goals, not to watch grown men huddling in the corner.
 
No problem at all with us doing it in Tuesday's circumstances, and agree that we killed the game off well. 7 minutes of injury time and they barely had a touch of the ball.

However I seem to remember being at a game under either Clough or Adkins where we tried to do it for half an hour, at home, and that was beyond the pale.
 
SuperSonicBlade89 said:
I hate it... it isn't football. It frustrated me when Berge did it. With all the crazy laws in football I am surprised there isn't a law against this.

To me it shows patheticness, an unability to attack and kill off the game. We pay to watch goals, not to watch grown men huddling in the corner.
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I can't stand it either. Maybe have a law that the ball has to travel 10 yards from a corner.
 
I think in the future we will play 30 minutes each by using a stopwatch. The watch will be stopped when the ball is out of play, when the keeper is holding the ball before releasing it and when teams try to waste time in the corner.
 
Woolford of Wall Street said:
I'm still haunted by Preston at home in 2021.

Had the ball in their corner at 94 minutes, at 95 minutes they'd fucking equalised.
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That's what I feared on Wednesday night. We should have been 2 up at half time but instead they had one proper chance and scored. The final 15 or so minutes plus added time were extremely nerve wracking and there was always the possibility that they would snatch a late equalizer. I dislike this holding the ball in the corner as much as I dislike goalkeepers faffing about to kill time. Sadly we don't have the ability or calmness to play possession football in the middle of the pitch (for any length of time) so I think we'll be stuck with this crude playing for time in the corner.
 
No issue with it in the last few minutes of a game if it means keeping the ball down the other end.

We're at our absolute worst though when we're a goal up and there's 10 minutes to go or they announce another 7 minutes of stoppage time and we just go into panic mode.

It feels generally that when we score, particularly if its early on that instead of continuing to go for it, a damage limitation switch gets flicked. Games like Huddersfield at home for example when we should have been out of sight at half time yet we were clinging on by the end against an awful side.
 
JJBlade said:
We're crap at it, just like we're usually crap at sitting back and keeping it tight when one goal in front

Even if we eventually see the game out, all it does is bore everyone, piss them off, and entertain nobody

Feel good factor and confidence is a big thing in football, and why we keep ours at a minimum level by making no attempt to play well when winning is stupid
Click to expand...

Traditionally I agree. It was amazing how many times we conceded in injury time when Jukanovic was manager.

However this team has parked the bus, sitting back in the last 15 minutes (not just last 5 minutes) of most games, when we're winning
and in almost every game, the defence has been under pressure but our goalie has never been needed to make a save.
We break up play, always have big numbers back booting it clear, waste a bit of time and the closing stages of every match have always been surprisingly comfortable.

It's negative stuff and normally I'd say you're asking for trouble being so negative.
However Hecky would probably say, our end of game negativity has won us loads of games, hence he continues with it.

Ironically one of the recent games we were really positive and focussed on attack was at home to Middlesboro.
We should have been 2-0 up after 15 minutes, our attacking mindset made us very open to the counter attack, as the match became like a basketball match.
Our defence is notoriously slow and vulnerable when we get caught on the break. Our positivity backfired that night as Boro were too quick for us.

So again you can understand why Hecky is pretty negative because it's tended to work.
Think that been our problem recently, when you're negative but win, fans will forgive you, when you're negative and lose, it's looks crap.
Our players have been in a negative "lets win 1-0" mindset for too long recently, so it was great to see the 1st 30 minutes away at Sunderland.
It was reminiscent to the Forest play-off away leg, where we were clearly up for it and focussed to attack, think it caught Sunderland by surprise, they looked poor.
 
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HodgysBrokenThumb said:
For many years it has been frustrating that other teams seem to be able to keep the ball by the corner flag when 1 goal up, and see out the last couple of minutes. At Sunderland on Wednesday Berge and McBurnie managed to bore the pants off the home fans by repeatedly winning corners for a couple of minutes. Ugly, but am I right that for a long time we have not had players who have managed to do this? They are such different players, but combined effectively. Berge - visible and ugly; McBurnie - clever and calm. What was going on?
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I get it and we need the points, but I don't like it. We did it well, but that's not what I go for. Manage the game and go more defensive is fine.

HodgysBrokenThumb said:
Berge - visible and ugly; McBurnie - clever and calm. What was going on?
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McB will have that quote in his scrapbook!
 
JJBlade said:
We're crap at it, just like we're usually crap at sitting back and keeping it tight when one goal in front

Even if we eventually see the game out, all it does is bore everyone, piss them off, and entertain nobody

Feel good factor and confidence is a big thing in football, and why we keep ours at a minimum level by making no attempt to play well when winning is stupid
Click to expand...
Rapport with the fans is also massive, especially at a club like ours.

The traits you mention are a big part of why it's at an all time low (relative to position).
 
With the substitutions made, it would be highly unlikely that we would score again, so hanging on to a lead at all costs has become more of a necessity. I dont have a problem with it. At least it is more skilful game management than feigning head injuries or cramp or being treated to stop the game when you are just a few millimetres on the pitch, that annoys me more.
 

It’s not very often we can get hold of the ball when we are holding on to a lead.
 
Boxer Blade said:
Of all the things to complain about at the moment, we go to Sunderland and lead with a few minutes left and try to stop them having the ball, it works , we win, enjoy the moment especially after the Luton game, but no let's find something to have a go at, I fuckin despair.
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I don't think anyone is complaining BB , but you have to admit we are very poor at killing or slowing the game down to get the points. Blackburn the other week 1 nil up and killed the game off at 75 minutes. We are 1 nil up with 20 to go and it's purgatory.
 
Rochdaleblade said:
I can't stand it either. Maybe have a law that the ball has to travel 10 yards from a corner.
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Have to be careful with unintended consequences. I would like to see a time limit on how long goalie can hold the ball applied rigorously at all times. The corner routines in added time are more limited, but frustrating (partly because we have been rubbish at them). Beware of banning short corners - for almost all the game, inventive short corner routines can be excellent to watch.
 
Boxer Blade said:
Of all the things to complain about at the moment, we go to Sunderland and lead with a few minutes left and try to stop them having the ball, it works , we win, enjoy the moment especially after the Luton game, but no let's find something to have a go at, I fuckin despair.
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Don’t be silly

I would much rather cross the ball , lose possession and then the opposition score on the counter within 30 seconds of us taking the corner …

Then we can get back to suicidal and self harming thoughts

After all

It’s not like it’s ever happens before is it ?
 
Silent Blade said:
I think in the future we will play 30 minutes each by using a stopwatch. The watch will be stopped when the ball is out of play, when the keeper is holding the ball before releasing it and when teams try to waste time in the corner.
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Which will destroy the sport, or at best fundamentally change it.
 
I've personally not got a problem with it. It's game management. We'll do it again and teams will do it to us.
 
I remember Chris Porter running toward the corner flag with the ball in something like the 82nd minute to maintain a 1 goal lead over Crawley at the Lane. Kop went ballistic iirc
 
NAP said:
I remember Chris Porter running toward the corner flag with the ball in something like the 82nd minute to maintain a 1 goal lead over Crawley at the Lane. Kop went ballistic iirc
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This may well be the game I was thinking of earlier when I said we'd done it for half an hour. Certainly felt like half an hour 🤣
 
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It is not possible to keep the ball in the corner for any meaningful length of time. Better to play it around the back, which we are expert at!
 
HodgysBrokenThumb said:
I go along with most of that. But if you are one goal up, 2 added minutes left and win a corner, do you really want to put the ball into the box and risk a breakaway goal? I don’t mind being bored for 2 minutes if we’re winning. My main observation is that often when we have tried keeping the ball in the corner in recent years, we have failed miserably.
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No
But that isn't what happens with us
If we're winning in the first half our sitting back starts in the first half
 
Trafford said:
Fleck used to be good at getting corner after corner in this way.
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I had forgotten that. Perhaps when he was in his prime we were not holding on to 1 goal leads as often? Or in League 1 and Championship our away games were not shown live on TV as often?
 
To be fair it was the League One days that most of us have tried to wipe from our memory, barring the last few months of the season…..
 

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