Inverted Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 https://11freunde.de/artikel/wo-ist-der-druck/3481658 Above is an interesting article (in German), the gist of which suggests that the lack of fans - as both a motivational and intimidating factor - has led to Bundesliga games being markedly less press-heavy, and football being less intense overall. Statistically, pressing actions per game have fallen dramatically for almost every team - even mid-table teams which are less affected by fixture congestion. The same tends to go for goals scored immediately after recoveries, suggesting that counter-attacking is less influential as well. Do you find this convincing? Reading it, I was struck by the increased success (particularly, defensive success) that extremely possession-heavy approaches in other leagues have had in recent months - such as Tuchel’s Chelsea or obviously Guardiola at City. Perhaps this season is the season of lower-tempo, more patient, more structured football, or maybe that is where the game is headed anyway? In any case, at the moment it seems more viable than ever to simply keep the ball, and circulate it patiently as a means of suffocating the opposition. The natural counter-measures of pressing, nicking the ball, and counter-attacking seem less and less effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 Heavy presses work in the Championship but that’s cos we have 5 subs, Barnsley pressed us out of the game by running their players into the ground and subbing their front 3 at half time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 The lack of crowds has dampened my own passion and motivation, and I felt I saw the same in the players. . That may be confirmation bias but it's not that surprising to me that Liverpool have been a fair bit worse from the point of the restart last season to now compared with how things were before. Klopp plays a high tempo game with a lot of fire in the belly. Without crowds there that may be harder to summon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devil Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 18 minutes ago, Harry said: The lack of crowds has dampened my own passion and motivation, and I felt I saw the same in the players. . That may be confirmation bias but it's not that surprising to me that Liverpool have been a fair bit worse from the point of the restart last season to now compared with how things were before. Klopp plays a high tempo game with a lot of fire in the belly. Without crowds there that may be harder to summon. That's a fair comment. I certainly see the likes of Pogba and Martial dropping their game as there isn't a crowd getting on their backs if they aren't performing to the level that's acceptable. If a teams two goals down and they score in the 82 minute the crowd will usually carry them to have a good crack at getting the second goal and that heaps pressure on the defending team. I don't know if the players would admit it themselves but not having those fans their to push and put pressure on must effect their motivation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 To be honest I haven't noticed the difference in the EPL games I've watched and certainly not in the (more of) Scottish games. Since Steven Gerrard came to Rangers he has introduced a different style to how we were playing imo and that involved more passing and it has been more effective for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inverted Posted March 18, 2021 Author Share Posted March 18, 2021 4 hours ago, Pugwash said: To be honest I haven't noticed the difference in the EPL games I've watched and certainly not in the (more of) Scottish games. Since Steven Gerrard came to Rangers he has introduced a different style to how we were playing imo and that involved more passing and it has been more effective for us. Tbf half the stadiums up here are mostly empty anyway, so maybe Scotland is less impacted compared to say, Germany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 8 minutes ago, Inverted said: Tbf half the stadiums up here are mostly empty anyway, so maybe Scotland is less impacted compared to say, Germany. I wouldn't disagree with that but I only talk, in the main, about Rangers & Celtic games which are in the main the most shown on tv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber Dan+ Posted March 18, 2021 Subscriber Share Posted March 18, 2021 I truly despise no crowds and think it's enough of a factor to put an asterisk on this entire season personally, it's an interesting dynamic for just this season but it better be the very last time that happens, I don't want any normalising of that. Thankfully I sense a strong desire of people with the same view. I do think though the scheduling has played a big factor. I'll use Leicester as the example. Our usual season is of course August to May, 38 league games, probably about 7/8 cup games. This season we have 38 league games, probably 5/6 domestic cup games, 8 European games, and a month less time to play this in. I think they've said a few times at Leicester that they have barely trained between games due to the intensity of the schedule. This is all also on the back of a pre-season that lasted around 6 weeks. We've had years of coaches complaining about the schedules but this one was the extreme. It was always going to change things a little. The problem is whilst next season will be more normal, the season after is going to be different again because of Qatar. I said back at the time there was a case to move European domestic seasons to something like January to September/October, utilise the gap we had to get in line for the Qatar World Cup (which I still think is an absolute disgrace and should be moved, but it clearly won't be now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber Dan+ Posted March 18, 2021 Subscriber Share Posted March 18, 2021 15 minutes ago, Cazza said: I think this goes to show how much of a massive penalty it is to play behind closed doors, I do feel any sports person thrives with the crowd behind them or the atmosphere around them. The Premier League has seen more points taken by away points than home this season. That has never happened before. It's no coincidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spike Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 there definitely has to be a psychological affect not having the pressure of thousands of eyes staring down at them, some players probably have less performance anxiety, while others maybe see it as a way of slacking off due to less obvious immediate scrutiny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Gonzo Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 We've had plenty of possession this season, but I wouldn't say that possession's been particularly friendly to us. But we might be more the exception than the rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Batard Posted March 18, 2021 Administrator Share Posted March 18, 2021 Lockdown football is less frenetic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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