A junior club football manager asks: "We started keeping detailed statisitics on games this season and have noticed that while we have two good midfielders, we are being beaten in midfield breaks in most matches. What can we do to improve this?"

Ex-Kildare and Offaly manager Padraig Nolan tells us the problems teams experience can often come back to the midfielders' egos, particularly at a lower level.

"Generally speaking, you can have midfielders who are going out and just trying to catch the ball all the time, and the lower you go, the more common that is," he says.

"They may feel that their job is just to catch high ball, but a smaller opposition midfielder could be breaking it where he wants to. We're not talking about accidentally breaking ball, where both try to catch it and neither man does –but purposely breaking it to a specific area.

"So much of it does come down to ego, but you need to get everyone playing for the team as much as possible.

"A lot of people don't notice the midfielders that don't catch, but they can be very effective.

"The key phrase I would use is: control midfield. That's what Tyrone did for their two All-Irelands. Watch a lot of the best midfielders closely. For the first 20 minutes, they are often just breaking the ball to where they want it to go."

Do planned kick-outs play a major role in dominating breaks?

"Well, planned kick-outs are more about catching clean ball. But you need to think about opposition kick-outs a lot – often, it's a very good idea to punch their kick-outs back 20 feet towards them."

And when the ball breaks, is it all about physical strength?

"Not necessarily. Football intuition is more important. It is down to strength and power to an extent, but some of the best players to pick up breaks, like Kildare's Declan Kerrigan, weren't massive men.

"But in my experience, dominating breaks is only a platform. I would say the most important statistic is the accuracy of your forwards. Controlling midfield is the stepping stone to that, but accurate forwards can win games off scraps of possession."

Questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment