Holding Mids

"Holding" Means Not Charging Forward

A little tongue-in-cheek with the title, but the point is that if a player is a holding midfielder, he ought to hold things first, and get forward second.

Some video to show that of which we speak:

In this clip we see Arpey off the quick free kick play a ball forward.  In doing this, Arpey forces the entire Hartwick defense to drop and compress around the ball.  Good.  However, both Arpey and Rex can be seen to run upfield into the defenders they have just forced to give up space.  They effectively mark themselves out of the play.  Arpey may have thought he could win the ball back, but never gets close to winning the turnover- better perhaps to sit in the hole and control the space.

At the end of the clip, the space which they could have better offered support from is now the space they should be defending (preventing the forward pass from the Hatwick midfield to the Hartwick striker) shielding the center backs from this sort of pass.  The striker hits it into touch, so no harm done, but the possession is far too short from Colgate's perspective.

Here's the play in still pics...

Arpey's pass arriving; the space we can really play in (Red Box)

Having vacated the space, on the turnover, they play there...

In this clip, we see Colgate win the ball in the middle via Jack.  He knocks it back to the center back, who then plays it sideways.  What we see is that Rex chases the ball each step of the way, working hard, but perhaps not efficiently.  In chasing toward the sideline and Pat, he either marks himself by remaining close to the Hartwick defender, or drags that player toward Pat.  Either way, if Rex dropped into the back line and stayed a little more central, the defender either can pressure Pat or mark Rex, but not both.

Arpey, for his part, stays too high, ensuring that neither of the holding mids will get involved in this move, and making it only logical for the Hartwick defense that the play is going to the sideline, where they may safely gather and outnumber the Colgate attack.



Here're the stills:

The pass back to Wade, so far so good...

Rex brings the Hartwick player to Pat / or, marks himself.

In this next clip, it looks almost identical to the first video.  A quick free kick, Arpey plays a good ball forward, pushing the Hartwick defense back, and we lose the ball with both the holding mids having run up into the defenders they just forced deep with the forward pass.  Too impatient to get forward!

It's a seven-second possession, over four complete passes.



Last one, with Colgate defending to start, then, winning the ball and trying a pass to Arpey.  The pass isn't great, but that's not the point.  After it is played to Nick, Rex again runs into and with his defender, rather than dropping into the hole behind Arpey to support and cover in case of a turnover.  Again, after the turnover (Rex's appeals fall on deaf ears...) we are lucky they don't attack with the runner behind Rex into the space between the holding mids and center backs.