sandman If we play our football in the opposition's half, we're far less likely to give the ball away in an area we'll get punished in.
Two points.
First, perhaps the reason we sometimes find it difficult to move the ball forward is that we aren't very good at playing the new style yet. If playing this way was easy, and teams could switch after just five weeks of pre-season training, everyone would do it. Because we aren't that great at it yet suggests we need to practice and persevere, not give up. Part of that is learning when you should pass and when you should clear the ball anywhere.
Nobody, not even Stam, wants to see the ball being tapped sideways, sideways and sideways again, just in front of our own box. It's pointless and achieves nothing. What we need to learn to do is to work as a team to get the ball forward, and the only way we'll learn that is by sticking to what we do, and giving it time.
Secondly, If getting the ball forward quicker means we lose possession much easier, it's not a great gain. It also does nothing to address the fundamental problem we have at the moment, in that there's almost no understanding up front. We get into a very large number of dangerous positions in every game - and a large part of that is down to the fact that we don't just throw in a percentage ball, but keep possession instead - but balls into the box constantly fail to find their targets, not helped by forward players seldom taking up a good position.
