Passing football drills, page 3

Information decays. The picture a player took a second ago is already wrong, which is why good players scan twice and play what is free now.

Receiving square is the safe option and that is exactly the problem. You cannot lose the ball backwards, and you cannot play forwards either.

Everybody coaches the one-two and nobody coaches what follows. You arrive at speed, off balance, with the goal at an angle you did not choose.

Young defenders lose the ball playing out because of one habit: receiving square-on. This practice fixes the body shape before the pass arrives.

Some passes are worth playing even though most of them fail. A chip over a high line is one, because the payoff is a clear run at goal.

One more player than markers means somebody is always arriving rather than waiting. That single imbalance is what turns a passing triangle into a movement exercise.

Eight players, three exchanges per pair, then the work moves along. No queues and no standing, which is what most group warm-ups fail at.

Variation 2 of the triangle passing drill: pass, sprint around the outside of the receiver, take the first time set into your run and switch play.

Variation 2 of the four corner passing square: wall pass off the next corner, take the set back, then drive the diagonal to the corner opposite.

The shape stays fixed and the people in it never do, so nobody can pass from memory. Looking up to find the player rather than the position is the entire exercise.

The same pattern three times over with the roles shifted, so nobody becomes the specialist finisher and everyone performs every job.

Five players and three markers means two are always in transit. The one-two happens at every corner, and getting there in time to be part of it is the exercise.

One ball on a circuit teaches an order. Two balls half a lap apart teach players to know their next pass before the current one arrives, which is the actual skill.

Eleven metres up, a two metre one-two, then carry it back. The return leg is dribbled rather than passed, which is what makes this different from every other Y drill.

Every exchange in this shape is a give and go, which means a player gets more repetitions of the return pass in ten minutes than a match will ask of him in a season.

Five metres of width means a two touch player has to control and pass along the same line the ball arrived on. There is nowhere sideways to escape to.

Three players, three poles, seven metres a side. It separates controlling the ball from moving it, which is the distinction a rushed first touch always hides.

Long side, quick one-two, long side. The rhythm never varies, which is exactly what lets you insist every single return is played first time.