43% possession at home

No wonder some of our players are looking knackered when we spend most of the evening chasing the bloody ball.

Why is it that whenever we have the ball we are hassled and hounded by the opposition midfield and defence until we inevitably lose it ( those bloody passing triangles tonight where we got absolutely NOWHERE and just ended up giving the ball away really annoyed me) yet we just seem to allow the opposition as much time and freedom in the midfield as they like?

Only when they get to the edge of the area in an untroubled fashion do we evn think about putting in a tackle.

The sight of Steve Thompson of all people waltzing into our penalty area unchallenged at the end was ludicrous.

To allow the opposition to have 57% of the possession when we are at home is ridiculous.

We seem incapable of holding onto the ball for any length of time when we have it and when the opposition have it we do not work hard enough to close them down and bloody TACKLE them !

I'm off to take my blood pressure tablets!

Where do these stats come from?

Where do these stats come from?

Probably from the shit ref and lino's who helped make sure we lost the ball by fair means or foul

BBC website.

I was a bit surprised that we actually had 43%!

Second half particularly seemed as if the ball just kept coming back at us from all angles.

We couldn't seem to retain the ball at all.

At halftime we had 57% of posession.

Reason i asked is that Sky had us down for 55%, but i agree totaly with what you said, lost the ball to easily, poor passing, Burnley looked like they had an extra player to us all game.

It's never been a characteristic of Dave Jones' teams whilst he's been here to put any pressure on the opposition.

His mantra seems to be "Keep your shape, don't dive in, let them have the ball in the middle of the park, look to pick up any loose balls and break quickly when they make a mistake".

We've seen players like Houlihan of Norwich, Taarabt at QPR and Eagles tonight revel in the time they have been given on the ball enabling them to dictate play at their own pace, knowing that they are not going to be hassled or harrassed by our midfield.

The cheer that goes up on the oh-so-rare occasion where we actually force the opposition to play the ball backwards to their own defenders or goalie is quite depressing!

Interesting observation & one that i agree with. Also when we are in possession in the final 3rd we try to be too "technical" with the ball, very often loosing out on good scoreing opportunities because we try to be too clever.

We kept on hoofing the ball in the air, which we lost on numerous occasions. When Burnley had the ball, they kept the ball, kept the ball on the ground, something which we should have done.

most teams we play 4-5-1 and we are doing the old 4-4-2 we can not get the ball enough that showed 2nd half last nite but nothing got changed to suit them so it was always comming there goal most could see it bar are management team

Checked BBC site at half time, we had 55% at that point. This means we had 31% in second half which is awful.