Whats with the long balls??

Why cant we hold possession of the ball and knock it around the back 4?? Instead, we have to bomb the ball long and lose possession of the ball completely...thats a waist as far as im concerned. Carragher is the biggest culprit of this...and its really starting to p*ss me off....Its boring and frustrating to watch..
whats everyone else's view??

The silly thing is there was times when we had possession over the half way line and backtracked to Reina and he had no option but to boot it upfield.The end result of course was we lost possession.

At first i thought it was because of Crouch's prescence but they do it all the time. Annoying.

Not all long balls went to the mancs. There were times the long balls were necessary.

Do you see a team like Manchester or Arsenal play long balls on a consistent basis? Not what we needed to break them down, totally demeans the choice of having Torres in the side.

Why cant we hold possession of the ball and knock it around the back 4?? Instead, we have to bomb the ball long and lose possession of the ball completely...thats a waist as far as im concerned. Carragher is the biggest culprit of this...and its really starting to p*ss me off....Its boring and frustrating to watch..
whats everyone else's view??

I don't really mind Carragher pumping those long ball upwards but it must be done with accuracy, not do so and hope the best comes out of it, as it is now it appears to be the case. Its should not be treated as a normal clearance from him but more of a pass which serves its purpose. In the meantime, intensive training on long and accurate pass is a must for Carragher to increase its effectiveness. Otherwise, its a sheer waste of effort.

Mainly because Kewell, Benayoun, Mash and Kuyt are rubbish at keeping posession in the centre of the park when under pressure. Any time the did receive the ball to feet in midfield, this was grossly evident.

I think there is sometimes a tendency in certain games to knock the ball upfield too many times hoping it comes down and causes problems for the opposition. Maybe its nerves that make players over do it. Sometimes it works and we construct a positive move out of it but if it becomes a regular thing during a match it can be very frustrating. I think yesterday we could of knocked it around a bit at the back, kept possession, control the tempo of the game and then when necessary, attack with pace.We have the players to play keep ball but I think we just went forward with pace all the time with not alot of variation. Maybe we are missing Alonso?

Do you see a team like Manchester or Arsenal play long balls on a consistent basis? Not what we needed to break them down, totally demeans the choice of having Torres in the side.

If I'm not mistaken, Arsenal used to play those long ground balls and with accuracy most of the time and it was to great effect and was instrumental in them winning the league. But we tried doing that but ended up half cooked. Not sure whether is it that we do not have the quality of players to do it, or our positioning/ball control is poor or worst still we have not practiced enough.

Arsenal still do it alot when they have Adebayor up front alone. Also when they play physical sides like Bolton.

Agreed. So we need to eat the humble pie and learn from them how to do it and do it to great effect.

simple, agger and alonso are missing, they are the link up players in our team. agger brings it out of midfield, alonso sprays the passes all over the park. alot of people are understandably angry but we have played a large part of our season without two of our best players. 

I don't know!! I was born like that! 

Reverting to long balls up the pitch is something that really does my head in. It is really frustrating and can be wasteful most of the time. It cuts out what football is meant to be. But I wouldn't say we are guilty of it to the point of it being a part of our game. We have been playing some nice football of late. LondonRed hit the nail on the head saying about in certain games we have a tendency to revert to a long ball. And it can cause problems if we are defending from a corner etc. But if it becomes regular then I think we are on a loser, because more times than not, we'll lose possesion.

If we are being closed down on the ball, high up the pitch and we find that some of our passing is sloppy/careless, then you will undoubtedly start seeing the long ball. But as I said, I don't think this has been a regular occurrence lately. I think in games like yesterday where we were being pressured high up the pitch for a good part of the first half and one or two players were wanting too much time on the ball, you will miss a player like Alonso who has vision, can link up well and see a good pass. But all the top teams will be the same if they are pressured on the ball and prevented from playing their game. The mancs done it to us. But we done it to them too. In fact for most of the game, we stiffled them more than they stiffled us. That's why it was an unpleasant game to watch.

Yes indeed, Alonso is the man for this problem. He drops off the oppositions midfield four and gives the the back four an outlet other than the long ball. I disagree about Agger though, he sure can shoot, but he misplaces as many passes as Hyypia. I've said it before, but I'll repeat for this topic, Alonso is such a class act he boosts the game of everyone around him, and that means we play better football, as there's more options and if someone does play a long ball, it's probably going to be Alonso or Gerrard, and those are the balls likely to split the defence.

Mainly because Kewell, Benayoun, Mash and Kuyt are rubbish at keeping posession in the centre of the park when under pressure. Any time the did receive the ball to feet in midfield, this was grossly evident.

On another topic, I disagree strongly with your opinion on Benayoun. He's one of the finest technical players you'll watch, and he sure can keep the ball in tight spots, it seems to stick to his feet like glue sometimes... The other three are somewhat at fault. Kewell I felt was off the pace, and didn't look up for it, Masch had a horrible game (one of few...) and Kuyt was as usual, all effort, little product.