I'd suspect Colchester's massive gap down the middle is due to them not bothering to cross to Nouble, who as we all know always managed to find a way not to head the ball.NearlyDead wrote:Although a little difficult to make out, and it doesn't include the Swindon game, that is quite an interesting graphic.
So, to the 18th September, the 'long-ballers' are possibly Scunthorpe, Northampton, Walsall, Grimsby, Mansfield, Stevenage, and Salford, and the 'tippy-tappy' teams are likely Plymouth, Crewe, Cambridge, Port Vale, and Bradford.
But apart from Colchester (with the amazing gap down their middle) and Carlisle (lopsided to the left), the others appear to be quite similar.
Is this freely available info (link?), or is it from a subscription site?
If I was picking a difference between Swindon and County I'd say Swindon clearly target their long passes to the left winger, (and that Mike Flynn might have been aware of that and coached to negate it), whilst County's long passes are to the edge of the final third with play moving on from there.
Scunthorpe for example play far more long balls to similar areas in advanced midfield, but their passes further forward than that barely exist, whilst County have a variety of attacking approaches nearer the goal. To me that just says we're good at winning the ball in advanced midfield positions after playing it long - and then doing something with it, and Scunthorpe aren't good at the second bit.
Grimsby and Walsall seem to hit a lot of longer passes into the box from nearer the halfway line than we do, which is probably a lot less effective against CBs who are used to heading balls away too.
