Standard of League One Football

[SamUltraRam]

After 3 games I've been pleasantly surprised by the style of play from our opponents so far. - very similar to the Championship

Decent footballing sides and not the expected sh1thousery that I'd heard about - and no constant long balls, long throws or time wasting.

However, this week we play against a Steve Cotterill side & a Scott Brown side - so my opinion may have changed by Saturday night

Edited August 15, 2022 by SamUltraRam

[Srg]

I think it's just a trickle down affect. The more passing football, tika taka, gegenpress etc etc is at the top, the more it flows down through the pyramid. We've seen it in the Championship, from the days where Swansea were just about the only proper passing team to now the overwhelming majority being passing teams. Same is happening further down, just with a few more exceptions each league down. I go to watch Belper Town a lot, and whilst they're still playing like Bolton and Stoke 15 years ago, there's a hell of a lot of teams playing it out from the back at that level too. 

So yeah, I think we will certainly come up against some s******** teams, but the idea the league is full of them is a bit archaic and repeated by fans who haven't really watched the league.

[Gaspode]

44 minutes ago, SamUltraRam said:

After 3 games I've been pleasantly surprised by the style of play from our opponents so far. - very similar to the Championship

Decent footballing sides and not the expected sh1thousery that I'd heard about - and no constant long balls, long throws or time wasting.

However, this week we play against a Steve Cotterill side & a Scott Brown side - so my opinion may have changed by Saturday night

I'd agree regarding Cotterill, but Scott Brown has been in management for about 10 minutes - not sure it's fair to criticise the style of play from his team just yet....

[Ambitious]

It's pretty much what I expected of three teams who will all want to be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. I don't think the standard is all that high, in all honesty, but the methodology behind each team has been to play football. Charlton were probably the worst we've come up against so far, including Mansfield, but they're the only team to take points off us. Funny old game. 

I think Shrewsbury will be a very different test in terms of how they approach the game - they have the worst pass completion rate in the division which usually points to playing longer, more hopeful passes. I expect we will see a lot of passes to be looped over our full backs in this game. 

[rammieib]

Definitely more individual errors from players - poor touches, kicking the ball out (aka Lee Buchanan style) and so on. However, at least teams are trying to pass rather than go long.

[Topram]

1 hour ago, SamUltraRam said:

After 3 games I've been pleasantly surprised by the style of play from our opponents so far. - very similar to the Championship

Decent footballing sides and not the expected sh1thousery that I'd heard about - and no constant long balls, long throws or time wasting.

However, this week we play against a Steve Cotterill side & a Scott Brown side - so my opinion may have changed by Saturday night

Think we’ve had a tough start really, some good sides who I expect all to be top half at least 

[Ghost of Clough]

3 minutes ago, SamUltraRam said:

After 3 games I've been pleasantly surprised by the style of play from our opponents so far. - very similar to the Championship

Decent footballing sides and not the expected sh1thousery that I'd heard about - and no constant long balls, long throws or time wasting.

However, this week we play against a Steve Cotterill side & a Scott Brown side - so my opinion may have changed by Saturday night

We've been lucky so far as we've faced 3 of the better footballing sides in the division. Those three sides currently occupy top 7 spots in terms of short passes per game, despite us having more of the ball against them.
Our next two opponents favour a more direct approach. Shrewsbury make the 2nd fewest short passes per game, whilst Fleetwood play the most long balls.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

7 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We've been lucky so far as we've faced 3 of the better footballing sides in the division. Those three sides currently occupy top 7 spots in terms of short passes per game, despite us having more of the ball against them.
Our next two opponents favour a more direct approach. Shrewsbury make the 2nd fewest short passes per game, whilst Fleetwood play the most long balls.

Yes, we have to play our own possession based game and not be drawn into their long ball game. They will play long balls up front or down the channels, use their long throw tactic whenever possible and battle like hell for the second ball. Basically the more we keep possession and keep tidy on the ball the better. Stray passes and lack of control will inevitably come back to bite us.

[JoetheRam]

I think there's a clear drop off in standard.

The amount of time and space afforded to players on the ball is the most noticeable to me, but the number of unforced errors (particularly by defenders) and the speed of the games also stand out.

Sunday League teams play passing football these days, so not sure it's all that surprising that the same happens in the third tier.

 

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, Srg said:

I think it's just a trickle down affect. The more passing football, tika taka, gegenpress etc etc is at the top, the more it flows down through the pyramid. We've seen it in the Championship, from the days where Swansea were just about the only proper passing team to now the overwhelming majority being passing teams. Same is happening further down, just with a few more exceptions each league down. I go to watch Belper Town a lot, and whilst they're still playing like Bolton and Stoke 15 years ago, there's a hell of a lot of teams playing it out from the back at that level too. 

So yeah, I think we will certainly come up against some s******** teams, but the idea the league is full of them is a bit archaic and repeated by fans who haven't really watched the league.

Football evolves. When it first started the standard formation was basically 1-9, and everyone marched down the pitch passing from side to side, sort of like rugby. It must have been absolutely revolutionary when the Klopp of the day invented the idea of a midfield. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

It's hardly "edge of a cliff" stuff between championship and league 1 - yes it's a lower standard as the championship is a lower standard than the prem but it's still a professional league full of good footballers, just, not as good as the few hundred better ones in the divisions above.

 

[Ram-Alf]

All teams play a passing game, It's whether you like long passes or short passes, Get over the halfway line and you'll see in the Prem the long diagonal pass from one side to the other, Midfields are now getting over crowded so keep ball and hope the opposition try to close you down and you can then exploit the spaces left behind.

It really isn't rocket science, ATM in time I'd sooner watch LRs play than Ten Hags play, As it appears our League 1 players understand what our manager wants better than those Prem players struggle from their manager ? 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Unlucky Alf

[Tyler Durden]

Same accusation can be leveled at our team too - just refer to the free header the Barnsley player had after the free kick when Aitchson then made the miss of the season allegedly. 

No one picking up the guy up no one within a mile of him.

So not sure why the observation is deemed to be singular to our opponent and not us. We're hardly a free flowing passing machine are we at the moment. 

 

[Woodley Ram]

I don't blame teams such as Fleetwood for going direct, they need to be effective and will never have the resource of an Ipswich, Sheff Weds, Derby etc. That way they even it up a bit. 

Having players that can pass and move costs money, you can see how effective (I agree not pretty) Barnsley were a couple of years back.

Of all of the teams in L1 its the direct teams that worry me, lots of long balls into the box with big forwards spells danger as well as putting us off our passing game. 

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

59 minutes ago, Woodley Ram said:

I don't blame teams such as Fleetwood for going direct, they need to be effective and will never have the resource of an Ipswich, Sheff Weds, Derby etc. That way they even it up a bit. 

Having players that can pass and move costs money, you can see how effective (I agree not pretty) Barnsley were a couple of years back.

Of all of the teams in L1 its the direct teams that worry me, lots of long balls into the box with big forwards spells danger as well as putting us off our passing game. 

I think its so important that when under pressure we dont just boot it away. We really need to keep posession as much as possible. Thats the difference between good and average players though.

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

Std of refs is a bigger concern

[Crewton]

49 minutes ago, Ram a lamb a ding dong said:

Std of refs is a bigger concern

I haven't, so far, felt they have been much different to the Championship. They do, however, seem to allow allot more physicality in general and at corner kicks etc specifically. That's something we'll have to adjust to and use to our advantage when we can.

[Duracell]

3 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

Football evolves. When it first started the standard formation was basically 1-9, and everyone marched down the pitch passing from side to side, sort of like rugby. It must have been absolutely revolutionary when the Klopp of the day invented the idea of a midfield. 

That was partially due to the offside rule as well, where the forward had to be behind (not in line with) the third player, not the second. Because the rule favoured the defending team so heavily, it made sense to just pile attackers forward. 

[Sparkle]

Oxford were a strange team on the day with them basically trying to drop the ball over the centre half’s on the angle and trying to get on the end of it whilst Barnsley just flooded midfield and with great success I would suggest as we more or less had 2 .5 players in there and one of them was Hourihane who has great ability with the ball but not without it. I think we will be swamped in midfield a lot more this season which means getting down the flaks and converting our chances a lot more important.

it will be interesting to see what up and coming players are currently playing in league one apart from Cashin!  

[Bris Vegas]

The speed at which teams try to play is much slower. I’ve barely seen a chance created in the three games (for either side) by a passing move.

Most of the chances have come from either set-pieces, a counter where the opposition have left oceans of space in wide areas (think Charlton’s goal against us and our second against Barnsley) and a turnover high up the field (like our winner against Oxford).

I think the way we play we won’t be seeing a lot of high-scoring games.