Passing football drills, page 3

Defenders track the ball and the man they can see. The third man is the one they cannot, which is why the pattern beats a set block.

One ball, ten players, and a thirty seven metre strip. Long transfer, short combination, long transfer, until everybody has touched it before the session starts.

Height is what kills a switch. A defensive block needs about two seconds to shift across, and a hanging diagonal hands it every one of them.

Two wall passes in one Y: set back and spin at the first pole, lay off and spin at the second, and the return played into the runner's path round the pole.

A two-ball diamond passing drill for 8 players: set back, switch wide, a new angle and a quick 1-2, with both circuits mirrored and played one touch.

A third man triangle for four players: take the long ball outside your cone, set it to the runner, and he plays it first time long to the third cone.

With only four players, standing still after a pass makes you instantly unavailable. That is the point, and it is why this works better than a bigger grid.

The only move here that needs two players. It works by ambiguity: for a moment the defender genuinely does not know who has the ball.

Pass and move is the most repeated instruction in football and the vaguest. Following your pass gives the movement a destination.

One wall pass gains ten yards. The skill this drill trains is linking three or four of them to travel forty and arrive at the byline.

Variation 3 of the four corner passing square: every pass goes into a middle man who sets it first time out to the next corner, then reverses it.

A Y passing drill that alternates short and long: a one-two, a driven long ball up one arm, a switch to the other and a second one-two, mirrored every rep.

A Y passing drill with a double pass at the arm: a one-two between the arm and the pivot, then a first-time switch across the top to the far arm.

Five players rotate round a triangle, one touch: lay it off to the runner arriving through the middle, spin out, get it back and play on.

Weight is the only quality of a pass that depends on somebody else. Into the path, the right weight is set by how fast the runner is going.

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.

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.

The set into the middle is barely a metre, and he has to play it out first time to a different corner. That single rule is the whole exercise.