| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . 09:25 - Feb 1 with 2078 views | bsw72 |
I’m not convinced the idea that we “can’t break down a low block” really holds up when you look beyond the scoreline. A low block is basically teams sitting deep and compact, happy to concede territory while protecting the space in front of their box. Against that kind of setup this season, we haven’t looked short of ideas or penetration. We’re actually 4th in the Championship for touches in the opposition box (751) and average around 40 touches in the box per game. You simply don’t post those numbers if you’re stuck passing sideways with no way through.
The underlying attacking data supports that view. We’re generating around 1.7 xG per match, which is a healthy return, and we’re also second-highest scorers in the league overall. Where the frustration comes from is how some of these games feel. We dominate territory, we keep the ball in the final third, but we don’t always make it count. That points far more towards finishing and moments than a structural problem. The “big chances missed” numbers back that up, games that get labelled as “low block struggles” are often just games where we didn’t take the chances we created.
So when the narrative pops up that Ipswich can’t cope with teams sitting deep, I think it’s worth challenging it. The evidence suggests we don’t struggle to play against a low block; we struggle to be ruthless once we’ve already beaten it. That’s a very different issue, and a much less worrying one than the idea that teams can simply sit in and neutralise us.
I will add that i am not a fan of the term "low block" or the use of xG as a truly scientific measure, but felt I needed to post the relevant data in the modern wording . . . |  | | |  |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:07 - Feb 1 with 455 views | Herbivore |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 11:53 - Feb 1 by bournemouthblue |
When attacking the low block, we leave ourselves particularly exposed when Davis is pushed up, that does need to be solution we can solve as well
Jebbison exploited that probably better than any other loan striker we have faced this season, we lack that kind of striker ourselves who can break with pace on the counter too [Post edited 1 Feb 12:53]
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Teams just don't push up like that against us though, not until/unless they are chasing the game and we've shown plenty of times this season that in those circumstances we're pretty good on the counter and can put games to bed. |  |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:10 - Feb 1 with 453 views | Dubtractor |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:07 - Feb 1 by Herbivore |
Teams just don't push up like that against us though, not until/unless they are chasing the game and we've shown plenty of times this season that in those circumstances we're pretty good on the counter and can put games to bed. |
Agree with this - it's a very different role playing the way Jebbison did yesterday, with loads of space to run into, and ultimately he still missed the target with the one big chance he had. |  |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:10 - Feb 1 with 453 views | Herbivore |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:06 - Feb 1 by Dubtractor |
It's not just an 'eye' test though. Preston had a higher Xg than us at half time yesterday - I'm a stats nerd and quite like looking at the various numbers than underpin football.
To be clear, I think we're doing OK overall this season, and with a striker signing tomorrow will be confident of top 2, but I think it's wrong to dismiss concerns about games like yesterday that we have seen play out far too many times. [Post edited 1 Feb 12:08]
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That's interesting, they did have a couple of good chances first half. That said, arguably our best opportunity first half didn't even register in the xG stats as Clarke dicked around and failed to get a shot away when Mehmeti had played him in. | |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:15 - Feb 1 with 437 views | Denny32 |
When you have teams with a low block..what comes with that is a very well organised set up primarily to defend tighter spaces and less space, only way to disrupt that, is to launch in fast or slow high balls,to a keifrr Moore type player to create the right amount of chaos, thus completely entanglng their set up and leading to better goal opportunities ,by headers or ball falling to players in around the box for shots .. |  | | |
| No, Hirst is top…. on 12:49 - Feb 1 with 398 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| No, Hirst is top…. on 11:56 - Feb 1 by Bloots |
….of the most big chances missed in The Championship this season.
Azon is 7th.
We are the only team with 2 players in the top 10.
With respect, you are totally wrong. |
I don't think I am. I assume you're looking at the top level summary of missed big chances across all games. Those 2 have missed just less than half of the total missed big chances. Yes, it's a lot, but others have contributed significantly (as you'd expect with how we play).
It is over half of big chances missed by players other than the strikers, as I siad.
Ultimately the point is that we're creating plenty of good, clear chances, but are converting too few. The strikers have contributed many, but not the majority, so others also need to be taking those 'good chances'. We should be averaging over half of the big chances being converted, and we're not close to that. | | | |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:56 - Feb 1 with 385 views | bournemouthblue |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:07 - Feb 1 by Herbivore |
Teams just don't push up like that against us though, not until/unless they are chasing the game and we've shown plenty of times this season that in those circumstances we're pretty good on the counter and can put games to bed. |
I'd agree there to some extent, obviously the team who did were Coventry and Hirst exploited them there
A player like that is probably better for away performances in the same way you'd favour McAteer over Egeli in those situations |  |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 13:00 - Feb 1 with 384 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 12:06 - Feb 1 by Dubtractor |
It's not just an 'eye' test though. Preston had a higher Xg than us at half time yesterday - I'm a stats nerd and quite like looking at the various numbers than underpin football.
To be clear, I think we're doing OK overall this season, and with a striker signing tomorrow will be confident of top 2, but I think it's wrong to dismiss concerns about games like yesterday that we have seen play out far too many times. [Post edited 1 Feb 12:08]
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Yes, but xG is only one, quite broad stat. I use xG too, to assess 'what could have been', but without digging deeper into stats such as xGOT and 'big chances', you're not getting enough of the full picture.
The data is also available to look at individual shot stats as they happened during the game. This is time consuming, but helps assess what could have gone better. If you like stats, you probably already know that.
Your point about the first half yesterday is also spot on - and go beyond xG and you'll see they had one big chance to none from us.
I'm certainly not trying dismiss concerns about yesterday - in fact the opposite. The stats suggest that our biggest flaw all season is not converting enough big chances, and that was certainly the case yesterday. On the 2nd half big chances we should have come away with at least 3 goals. | | | |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 13:10 - Feb 1 with 376 views | BouncebackIpswich |
I don't think it's a fallacy, Ipswich do struggle against the low block. It's got better as the season has gone on but it's still the primary way to stop Town from being effective.
With the why the team is set up and the personnel in the team I don't think MCK and the team could be doing much more though than they do, whenever there is space it gets exploited and lots of direct balls forward yesterday.
Different options needed, like a change in formation and heaven forbid a big lad up front who can hold up the ball on the edge of the box under intense pressure, or actually be dangerous from crosses thrown into the box. Part of the problem is McKenna is so wedded to playing one way and has never shown any inclination to change it up, that teams know what's coming and can combat it accordingly. |  | | |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 14:23 - Feb 1 with 337 views | cbower |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 10:38 - Feb 1 by bournemouthblue |
Not being less ruthless from the chances we do create, does suggest it limits us though, we clearly lack the players effective in these situations
Keiffer Moore to some extent was our answer to the low blocks teams in that promotion season, there's no doubt having a heading monster gives you a different option because if they're not winning the first contact, the second is probably causing problems as well. He was also pretty useful on the ground and a good finisher. [Post edited 1 Feb 10:38]
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Yep, that's a good point. Hirst, despite his 6ft 4", is largely ineffective in aerial battles. The headers he does win are when he has lost his man and is virtually unchallenged. Azon does put himself about but is still being dominated in the air for the most part. Akpom, well, he's disappointing and if he ends up costing us £7 million, Ajax have done very well. |  |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 16:29 - Feb 1 with 297 views | Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 09:30 - Feb 1 by Herbivore |
Hirst and Clarke both missed a couple of good opportunities each yesterday, we had one off the line from a corner, should have had another penalty (arguably two), and Kipre missed a sitter at the death. We (not for the first time) underperformed our xG yesterday and missed big chances. We didn't struggle to break them down, we struggled to take our chances. |
It was both yesterday, Preston missed a lot of chances also. We didn’t have a true onslaught until injury time. We did struggle to pick the lock yesterday IMO.
There are times we need to cease intensity/tempo and change it up a bit during the game. |  |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 16:58 - Feb 1 with 264 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 16:29 - Feb 1 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
It was both yesterday, Preston missed a lot of chances also. We didn’t have a true onslaught until injury time. We did struggle to pick the lock yesterday IMO.
There are times we need to cease intensity/tempo and change it up a bit during the game. |
Preston missed 1 big chance, we missed 5. Therein lies a story... | | | |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:00 - Feb 1 with 257 views | Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 16:58 - Feb 1 by SuffolkPunchFC |
Preston missed 1 big chance, we missed 5. Therein lies a story... |
You’re blinkered a little I think. We could have easily been 1-0 down before they got their goal and tested Walton more than we tested their third choice keeper.
Yes, we should have still won the game but it wasn’t one way traffic for all our possession.
Agree we misfired in front of goal when we had the odd opening though. [Post edited 1 Feb 17:04]
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:05 - Feb 1 with 242 views | Herbivore |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 16:29 - Feb 1 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
It was both yesterday, Preston missed a lot of chances also. We didn’t have a true onslaught until injury time. We did struggle to pick the lock yesterday IMO.
There are times we need to cease intensity/tempo and change it up a bit during the game. |
Preston did miss chances but ended up performing basically to their xG whereas we didn't. We created enough to win the game, their chances mainly came from us pushing up to try to score and we'd not have needed to do that quite so much had we taken our chances. I'm not sure how many chances people realistically expect us to create in games like this. Think someone posted that we created 5 or 6 big chances yesterday which is an awful lot. | |
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:07 - Feb 1 with 237 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:00 - Feb 1 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
You’re blinkered a little I think. We could have easily been 1-0 down before they got their goal and tested Walton more than we tested their third choice keeper.
Yes, we should have still won the game but it wasn’t one way traffic for all our possession.
Agree we misfired in front of goal when we had the odd opening though. [Post edited 1 Feb 17:04]
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Yes, we could have been 1 down - that was the one registered big chance.
I'd suggest you're blindfolded, rather than me being blinkered, if you can’t even read the post match stats. [Post edited 1 Feb 19:10]
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:09 - Feb 1 with 235 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:05 - Feb 1 by Herbivore |
Preston did miss chances but ended up performing basically to their xG whereas we didn't. We created enough to win the game, their chances mainly came from us pushing up to try to score and we'd not have needed to do that quite so much had we taken our chances. I'm not sure how many chances people realistically expect us to create in games like this. Think someone posted that we created 5 or 6 big chances yesterday which is an awful lot. |
6 big chances recorded, one scored (the penalty) | | | |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:12 - Feb 1 with 232 views | Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:05 - Feb 1 by Herbivore |
Preston did miss chances but ended up performing basically to their xG whereas we didn't. We created enough to win the game, their chances mainly came from us pushing up to try to score and we'd not have needed to do that quite so much had we taken our chances. I'm not sure how many chances people realistically expect us to create in games like this. Think someone posted that we created 5 or 6 big chances yesterday which is an awful lot. |
You’d certainly be wanting at least one of Clarke’s first half, Hirst’s second half or Kipre’s header to have gone in. Didn’t even test the keeper on any of them. I did think they carried a surprising and perhaps worrying threat for a team that hadn’t scored in 6 though.
BTW I’m not a blame the ref guy as you know but I think the worst handball not being awarded, was the one from the first corner. Davis kind of side footed that back in and it’s a movement towards the ball away from body, the muppet is looking straight at it as well. Also doesn’t have the excuse of having just giving a Pen or it being injury time then. [Post edited 1 Feb 17:13]
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| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 17:51 - Feb 1 with 195 views | Blue_Moses |
I remember when a low block was just playing defensively. Not sure why we have to overcomplicate football with these new terms and describing positions with numbers | | | |
| The "low block" struggle fallacy . . . on 19:23 - Feb 1 with 158 views | armchaircritic59 |
Not only could the struggle be a fallacy, the " Low Block " term is. It's been going on since I started watching football in 1963. It was simply called playing defensively then. Now someone's just come along to give it a fancy modern sounding name. Imagine, it's at least 60 years or so old, and teams still struggle against it. Doesn't say much for the coaches working with forward players, does it? | | | |
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