ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Long ball

I find it very ironic that Everton often being accused of going 'route one' have now been sunk by long balls from supposedly more attractive teams playing the 'long ball'.
Eddie Gibbs, Brecon Posted 24/01/2008 at 13:12:58

back Return to the Mail Bag

Comments

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer

Barry Bragg
1 Posted 24/01/2008 at 14:24:27

Yes but Malouda plays for Chelsea so his ’long ball’ was actually a ’perfectly weghted 48m cross field pass’
Don’t you know it’s one rule for them and another for us?

John Lloyd
2 Posted 24/01/2008 at 14:33:23

Come on lads, you must realise the difference between an aimless hoof into a hopeful area (a la Hibbert, Weir, Neville too often) and a long pass which we have been undone with notebly against Arsenal this season.

James Elworthy
3 Posted 24/01/2008 at 14:40:23

A long ball is a 50 yard hoof hoping to hit a centre forwards head to flick it onto another player.
Chelsea scored from an immaculate 40 yard diagonal ball from left to right to the feet of Joe Cole.
The master at the diagonal long pass was Johny Giles who could find a sixpence on the left wing from the right touchline. David Beckham is also a master of the diagonal cross field ball.
At Everton we labour to pass the ball between 2 or 3 players to get across the field diagonally.
We were undone by a bit of class that sadly our over laboured build up play does not have, even the master Arteta slows things down to much in the build up, succesful teams like Arsenal, Chelsea and Utd score goals in a flash on a break they dont labour to get the ball up the field.

Paul OHanlon
4 Posted 24/01/2008 at 14:45:01

Weir? You been asleep John?

You are right though about the difference between hoofing the ball up the pitch (like we did last night constantly to Cahill and AJ) and dropping the ball right into the path of a team mates run from 40 yards (like Chelski and Arse did)

John Lloyd
5 Posted 24/01/2008 at 15:06:54

ha ha, I know but he was the master of the aimless ’dink’ upfield.

I can imagine him in training to Hibbo -

DW - when you’ve got the ball, forget going short to midfielders, they’ll only lose it, try this....
TH - so I should just knock it to no-one in particular, even if midfielder wants it short?
DW - aye wee man, you do that and you on a winner

Paul OHanlon
6 Posted 24/01/2008 at 16:48:10

Well he’s playing under Walter Smith again now so I’m sure his ’dinks’ will be much appreciated!

Ron Leith
7 Posted 24/01/2008 at 19:30:21

Malouda did not play a long ball. He passed the ball onto a sixpence. If you think an Unsworth hoof is the same as a pin point pass aka last night then you need to see a training video. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a cultured 30 yard pass that lands on the toe of the team mate. What is wrong is the aimless diagonal ball to a 5ft 10inch midfielder i.e. Cahill. We were guilty of this last night. I think if we had lost the game to an aimless punt I could agrre with this post but we actually lost to a piece of class.

Dave Tootill
8 Posted 25/01/2008 at 12:25:33

’Long ball’ or ’long pass’, it’s an Achilles Heel that seems to have developed recently.

It appeared to me at first sight, without really analysing it, that there was an unusually long gap between the back four and the front runner(s), presumably engineered by Chelsea. Perhaps someone can define that in more technical terms.

Eddy Gibbs
9 Posted 25/01/2008 at 14:31:37

Okay I hold my hands up, but allowing Cole to stay just outside our penalty area when we had 8 players in their half was asking for trouble, same against Arsenal, dont we know how to play offside.?