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football with "pace" - do we ?

Maltese Falcon said:
Today's Liverpool game, for me, showed the awesome power of having pace in your team. This is probably the biggest gap I see in our squad. While Dele, Eriksen and even Harry have a burst of speed in them, they are not pacy players. The closest we can get to a speedster is Son and even then his running with the ball leaves much to be desired - as shown in his 1v1 against Holgate yesterday where he actually was ahead but let the defender get back and tackle.

Indeed I would actually say that the primary reason that we have such an abysmal record away to the big 4 is our lack of pace.

Yet seeing as this thread dates back to 2015, we seem to have done SFA about it for 6 transfer windows??!! :confused:
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We do lack raw, blistering pace, but let's not kid ourselves those goals today didn't come from pace, they came from poor defences.
Both those teams defended like spurs 4 seasons ago.
 
glasgowspur said:
We do lack raw, blistering pace, but let's not kid ourselves those goals today didn't come from pace, they came from poor defences.
Both those teams defended like spurs 4 seasons ago.
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I was referring to the game as a whole...

To me adding pace is essential to move up a level; though I struggle to identify which player from our current fab four would make way...

Jordinho said:
It's useful when you have an empty pitch in front of you because the other side can't or don't defend, but not so much against two banks of five.
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Fair enough but as you note I was referring to lack of pace in playing the other top 4 - who do not play two banks of five. In the case of the latter, you will need a speedster with exquisite dribbling skills; which is why I would personally love a move for the likes of Zaha - but that's another thread....
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Raw pace is an excellent tool in the set, but is IMO often greatly over rated.

Those last 6 windows, how badly have we been performing?

Consecutive title challenges, and back in the hunt again for a 3rd year straight.

I would certainly like some added pace in the side, even if only as a bench option to try and change a game in our favour, but I do think people go OTT on how essential it is.
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Tend to agree, pace is good but its not more important then the ability to move the ball quicker, It is always the way that the ball can move quicker then any player.
 
Maltese Falcon said:
I was referring to the game as a whole...

To me adding pace is essential to move up a level; though I struggle to identify which player from our current fab four would make way...



Fair enough but as you note I was referring to lack of pace in playing the other top 4 - who do not play two banks of five. In the case of the latter, you will need a speedster with exquisite dribbling skills; which is why I would personally love a move for the likes of Zaha - but that's another thread....
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You did quote today' game in opening line.
I do agree though that pace would be our next and last piece of the puzzle.
 
We don't seem to have any trouble scoring at all when we're given space (the time when pace is effective).

In fact, I'm fairly sure we've torn apart every team that's given us space.
 
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milo said:
Which other of the bigger clubs would Zaha be a regular starter for and who would you drop for him?
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I did say that exactly in an earlier post. Having said that, the Zaha thread reminds me of a similar discussion when Ashley Young was still a Watford player... didn't do half bad

glasgowspur said:
You did quote today' game in opening line.
I do agree though that pace would be our next and last piece of the puzzle.
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We seem to be in agreement. Yes - U meant today's game "as a whole"

Having said that, I doubt Liverpool would have been able to score their goals, and especially the first two, if they did not have such blistering pace in transition situations...
 
Maltese Falcon said:
I did say that exactly in an earlier post. Having said that, the Zaha thread reminds me of a similar discussion when Ashley Young was still a Watford player... didn't do half bad
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Apologies for not hanging on your every word :rolleyes:

The player who would be most at risk if we signed Zaha would be Son but I do not think that would improve us.
 
Maltese Falcon said:
I did say that exactly in an earlier post. Having said that, the Zaha thread reminds me of a similar discussion when Ashley Young was still a Watford player... didn't do half bad

Put a sane or mane in our team and I think we wouldn't be far away.
We need pace as an option though, not as a plan A imo.


We seem to be in agreement. Yes - U meant today's game "as a whole"

Having said that, I doubt Liverpool would have been able to score their goals, and especially the first two, if they did not have such blistering pace in transition situations...
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Style influences importance of pace. We have two parts to our game

- Possession team that uses movement and quick passing to pull opponents apart.
- Pressing team (without ball) that looks to win back ball and counter quickly (pace matters here)

We have players that quickly pass/move the ball, not so many with just direct pace (Son is the one), our FBs in the Walker/Rose combo provided pace previously. Aurier/Rose could do similar.

A pacey player on the right is what we have been looking for, and haven't found.
 
I think we forego the use of pace for more intricate passing and switching of positions. It can work wonders, but against teams that are disciplined it can lack the punch required to get results.

Having pace out wide, especially in the 433 that Liverpool and City prefer can cause massive headaches. You can see it in a lot of their attacks this season where they have all 3 forward men pinning back a back 4. With the quick turnovers in play in midfield, there is always a threatening outball. Our high press, could be a way of negating our lack of pace. If we steal back possession deep in their half their is less emphasis on finding a runner and more on creating a shooting opportunity for someone.

I think pace is great for some opponents and bad for others. If we had the option, then we could do similar to possession sides like City.
 
I think it's pretty clear that having someone like son, who can get past his man with pace and trickery, is essential to unlocking tight defenses. He can disturb the defensive wall enough to create space for us to attack in. Having more players like him (at least one other in addition to son in matches against teams that park the bus), ala salah or mane, would give us more options in attack, and would probably help us unlock tightly packed defenses more easily, in my opinion.
 
Daisuk said:
I think it's pretty clear that having someone like son, who can get past his man with pace and trickery, is essential to unlocking tight defenses. He can disturb the defensive wall enough to create space for us to attack in. Having more players like him (at least one other in addition to son in matches against teams that park the bus), ala salah or mane, would give us more options in attack, and would probably help us unlock tightly packed defenses more easily, in my opinion.
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I think that guile is more useful than pace when it comes to unlocking tightly packed defences.
 
milo said:
I think that guile is more useful than pace when it comes to unlocking tightly packed defences.
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It just happens that the players for those teams with unlimited wage bill have both guile and pace. Whilst they have pace, that's not what they're using to unlock bus parkers.

If we had an unlimited wage bill I'm sure we could have players with both, but at our end of the price market pace is the sensible attribute to forgo, considering it's useful in about 5 matches per season.
 
scaramanga said:
It just happens that the players for those teams with unlimited wage bill have both guile and pace. Whilst they have pace, that's not what they're using to unlock bus parkers.

If we had an unlimited wage bill I'm sure we could have players with both, but at our end of the price market pace is the sensible attribute to forgo, considering it's useful in about 5 matches per season.
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Alli was our answer to this last season and his poor form before Christmas was part of the problem we had against teams that sit back.
 
Pace will be more useful for when we're up against stronger sides - which is the one area we can make a big improvememt in points wise. We showed against Madrid and Dortmund and to a lesser extent Liverpool that quick breakaways can be devasting in such encounters (whilst also giving the opponents something to worry about if they plan to dominate high up the pitch) and lets face it all things being equal we're always likely to be up against 5 strong(er) sides in the league so perfecting our counter attacking game will be key to us out-performing our financial constraints.
 
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