The best transition decision is usually not to counter

Winning the ball back is exciting and the correct next move, quite often, is to slow everything down and bore everyone.

Transition gets discussed as though it has one direction. Win the ball, go, three passes, shot. Everybody has seen the compilation.

The compilation is selection bias. What it leaves out is the ninety per cent of turnovers where a side breaks at speed into a defence that is actually well set, loses the ball in a worse position than they won it, and finds themselves defending a counter to their counter with three players stranded upfield.

The skill that separates good teams is not counter-attacking speed. It is the half-second judgement about whether to counter at all.

The read is not complicated once you know what to look for. Where is the opposition's deepest midfielder? If he is already back, goal side of the ball, facing the right way, the counter is dead before it starts and the only thing charging forward achieves is disorganising your own shape. Are the two centre-halves square and settled? Then there is no gap to run into and the through ball you are about to attempt is going to be a fifty-fifty at best. In that situation the right answer is to take a touch, look up, play sideways, and let your own team walk up the pitch behind the ball.

That pass sideways is the most undervalued action in football. Nobody claps it. It appears in no highlight package. It is the difference between a team that controls matches and one that plays in bursts and then defends for its life.

There is a second transition that gets even less attention, which is the moment you decide to stop attacking. A move breaks down at the edge of the box and the choice is between forcing a shot from a bad angle and recycling the ball back to a full-back to build again. Forcing it feels positive. It is usually a low-value shot and it guarantees a turnover in a position where you are stretched.

Managers who make this look easy are often accused of being conservative or of slowing the game down. Sometimes the accusation is fair. More often what is being described is a side that has simply worked out which turnovers are worth attacking and which are worth absorbing, and the fact that it looks unspectacular is precisely the evidence that it is working.

Speed is available to everyone. Restraint is the harder thing to coach, and it wins more points.