I think there is a way to slow a game down and control it, but it isn't by slowing down yourselves.
Gary Neville (sorry!) actually made a great point about this in a game I was watching last year. He said that 'calm down' is a dangerous message in football, and when you want to take the sting out of the game you actually need to increase your movement, increase your intensity.
We started to stand around with our foot on the ball from about 80 minutes. All very well, but the clever way to do that is to move the ball quickly to players in space. Slowing down spreads across the team and concentration tends to drop with the intensity.
We are still learning.