If in doubt, give it a clout!

How often are those little 7 words uttered on a Sunday morning? Far too many if you ask me and the lasting effect they will have on a young player is immense.  The art of an aimless long ball is something that is very close to my heart. Seeing anyone, be it a 5 year old playing in a church hall or a pro playing on a Saturday afternoon in front of 60 000 fans smash a long ball just kills me.

Take any one game and look at the Centre Backs. Guaranteed that within 60 seconds of focussing on a CB you will see a long, aimless ball. This is certainly the case when it comes to the British game and the English CBs that we have proudly developed. There are maybe two exceptions to this rule being John Terry and Rio Ferdinand. I swear that Michael Dawson just stands on one leg and volleys everything that comes his way right back where it came from. How he has made it to the national team and into Champions League football I will never know. How Joleon Lescott is worth £24 million baffles me with every game that I see. Asamoah Gyan showed how technically inept Lescott is in the recent international friendly between England and Ghana.

Football is a simple game that has been ruined time and time again by over analysis from couch potatoes on MOTD and by pundits on the Radio. Score more goals than your opponent and you win. You keep the ball and your opponent can not score, simples as the meerkat would say! The same concept can be related to youth development. If you want to be good at football, what do you need? A foot and what else? A ball. A simple question that we ask a child is if you want to be good with a Guitar, what do you need? A guitar. Would you give that guitar away if you want to be good? No. Well why do you give the ball away? Fear of losing or conceding a goal is mainly the case, a fear that is brought on by parents as I can’t remember any of the scores from my school days. Most of the kids can’t remember the score from 2 hours ago, but I bet their dad reminds them in the car on the way home!!!

This long ball tactic and the clearing of the ball is something of an epidemic, and I may be blind, but I don’t see how a player like Gary Cahill can be touted at prices of upto £25 million when a ball playing Vincent Kompany cost Man City £6 million. First of all I would want my defender to be able to defend, that’s a given. Secondly, and just as importantly, I would want him to be able to play football. After all, that’s what he is, a footballer.

If a team is to keep the ball, the player in possession needs at least 3 options every time. These options are usually at the side, in front and behind. If I give a ball to the defender, I want him to have three options and for him to use one of those options and not just ‘hoof’ it. The first football videos I watched as a child was of the old Wimbledon and when there were no such rule as the pass back. Since the rule was brought in, not much has changed. In the English game, the ball is played to the back where they will play a long ball pretty much aimlessly to a front man and then play off scraps & the second ball. What a way to play. I for one applaud the fact that when Arsenal were 1-0 at Liverpool they tried to play the ball instead of ‘hitting row z’ like the so called experts were calling for. Stan Collymore said, and I quote, ‘When you are 1-0 up, if you are Arsenal or playing at U11, you hit row z to be safe’ Well done Sir Stan, you back up what those dads say on a Sunday morning.

Playing the ball out from the back is not hard, it is not hard at all. During a recent u17s trial event for a GB team, I asked players to try and play it out from the back and was gobsmacked at the quality. The players were attached to clubs such as Chelsea, Watford and Everton and could not keep a goal kick for longer than 3 passes. FBs like to get the ball in the channel near the corner flag, CBs don’t look interested, CMs run away. I had to physically drag 17 year old players who were hoping for a professional contract into position. Two CBs on the corners of the box, FBs up on the half way line, one CM dropping between the CBs to receive if the pass wasn’t on for the CBs. A CB moving across the edge of the box dragging a striker with him to create space for the FB to receive.

Football is a simple game that is complicated by dads on a Sunday morning and Stan Collymores on the radio