Pressing triggers are fine, and the player who fails is always the second one

The first jump is easy to coach and easy to see; everything that makes it work happens behind the man doing it.

A pass goes back to the goalkeeper, the striker sprints, the crowd rises. Everyone can see the trigger being obeyed. What decides whether the next fifteen seconds are a turnover or a chase is not that sprint at all, it is whether the midfielder eight yards behind him arrived at the right angle a beat later, and that is a much harder thing to coach and an almost impossible thing to notice.

The first presser is really doing one job, which is to remove options rather than win the ball. He runs a curved line that takes away the pass to one side and forces play into a particular channel. If he succeeds, the ball goes exactly where the plan said it would go, into an area where somebody else should already be waiting. If that somebody is a stride late or standing square, the trap is a corridor with an open door at the end of it, and the forward's sprint has taken a player out of the game rather than an opponent.

I would argue that most pressing failures are described wrongly for this reason. The analysis says the trigger was mistimed or the striker went too early. Sometimes true. More often the striker did exactly what he was told and the second and third players did not commit, because committing feels dangerous and because they know that if the press breaks, they will be the ones running backwards for forty yards.

That fear is rational and it is the real problem to solve. A midfielder who has been burned twice will hedge, and a hedge in a pressing structure is worse than either option. Half-pressing lets the opponent play forward and leaves your own line high with nobody applying pressure, which is the exact scenario that produces the counter-attacking goal everybody blames on the defenders.

So the coaching should be aimed at the second man, not the first. Give him a rule that does not require him to judge whether the press is working, because he cannot judge it in the time available. Tell him he goes when the man in front of him goes, always, and accept the goals that come from the times it was wrong.

Half of a press is worse than none. Commit or sit deep.