A Serious Point

[jmono84]

Scoring goals from corners is tough I get that, it’s more how bad we look attacking and defending them. Granted since Fofana has come in he’s got his head on a few and he’s the biggest threat we’ve had in years. I’ve always thought why don’t we go short more often, got plenty of players that can play in tight areas and looking at those stats we should create more over course or a season.

Edited 6 January 2021 by jmono84

[sacreblueits442]

26 minutes ago, Nicolo Barella said:

Listen, you have a point that we aren't scoring enough corners. But I don't think it's anywhere near as extreme as you make out. Scoring from corners in the modern game is much, much harder. Expectations should be lowered. Not as low as what we have now, but not far off in the distance. If we get more than 10 in a season that's very impressive.

...I wonder what the ratio is in respect of corners scored and headed goals scored from "deadball" situations!!!

We do not appear to be too proficient in scoring from free kicks in respect of headed goals and like the topic in hand we do not appear to place any great value in improving our goals return.

  You look at all the greats and they are always looking for that extra percent. Tiger changed his swing completely after winning numerous Masters Titles and Tony Parker changed his shooting action in Basketball in order to stay ahead of the game.

  Just because other teams do not focus on this issue, there is no reason we do not focus our energy on tearing up those stats.

[Foxy harry]

When was our last set piece goal? Not including direct free kicks.

[Alan Frost]

I'd have to summarise my input on this as unrealistically optimistic and extra heading practice unlikely to produce a rush of goals but even so I don't think we should just throw away Madders improved corner taking. Unless it was a temporary fluke he should be commended for practicing and praised for the effort ,not discouraged. A few goals from corners would certainly encourage him and be very welcome to us all.

 

Despite the fact the statistics  were not very encouraging I think they perhaps were less discouraging than I fIrst thought. Looking  at the stats and video les-ta-jon helpfully provided  and stats others provided. Our record ---200 corners all failed and then a goal (an own goal) since then 188 corners ,zero goals. Maybe we'll get 4 or 5 goals from corners in the last half of the season without doing anything just due to the statistics becoming more typical ,along with Madisons improved technique. That would certainly be unlikely but more likely if we tried to do something positive about it, such as coaching the big guys Fofana and Soyuncu in attacking headers. At the moment they seem to be doing defending headers when going up for corners and  set pieces hence the 50p effect.

 

Another poster playing as a 6ft 3 centre back appeared to confirm my opinion there should be a difference between a defending header and an attacking header. For defending a 50 p head is usually OK. "head away", the neck is stiff,often you 're standing still except for jumping up, you take the ball near the hairline , jump straight up  and the ball loops forward and up. A typical Jack Charlton header. I used to call it a tent post header, The ball just hit him and bounced off his head. (Not my hairline by the way , that would mean the ball went backwards .OG.)

 

My vision of an attacking header is if you can you are running forwards, you take the ball on the flatter lower part of the forehead , and hopefully you have the coordination to ,using the neck muscles, nod at the ball to direct it more horizontally or down,using neck movement, increase the power, and because you are taking the ball on the lower flatter part of the forehead the ball is more easily directed . "Nodding it in" exactly what's wanted. More important when trying to score, an Alan Shearer type header. In his day taking the defender as well as your body followed was optional, may have been even preferred by AS, but VAR 's ruled that out. This IMO is a much more difficult type of header needing much more coordination. This type of header horizontal in direction or even downwards  slightly is useful also to a defender if he's not under pressure as he can actually direct it to the midfielders. The pound note forehead as opposed to the 50p one.

 

Long enough already , I'll post a bit more on why the statistics were encouraging.(in places) and next season my " Getting a Goal a Match From Headers" series available also from all good booksellers :-)

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, Foxy harry said:

When was our last set piece goal? Not including direct free kicks.

1978

[ftfagos]

Given those stats I think we should just treat a corner as another possession turnover. Someone in another thread suggested we simply play it back to  Schmeichel & start again.

[Alan Frost]

1 minute ago, whoareyaaa said:

1978

If these figures are right 1978 :-/ and 1 goal to us , a bloody own goal from 430 corners !!!!!! We should certainly be practising headers all week or at the least we should be posting about it. Add to that we're not good at defending corners, which I had n't particularly noticed ,but others have and we're missing out. Remember being good at penalties and open play we don't have to give these up. After all when a corner is taking place its not as if you can do anything else except defend it or if its our way try to score. You are not missing open play build up or penalties while the corner takes place,not unless they give you another ball. An improvement in corners would almost certainly result in more goals from crosses and set pieces too.

[worthosoriginals]

Leicester city not perfect shocker. 

[Alan Frost]

Right those statistics.We can reasonably expect another 80-100 corners in the remaining half season you tell me. The discouraging stats were:-

3% of goals were from corners. Apparently for us its near zero. Potential for 3% more goals

40% don't clear the first man. Well Madders seems to now be better than that and he certainly would be if we mixed in a few more short corners in. The video article posted by Les-TA-Jon suggested this is a better way of taking corners anyway , and all the guys who thought corners a waste of time would be happy as we're now in an open play situation. We don't need a corner expert for this as a short pass from the corner to Madders receiving the short corner is probably a good option. But its got to be a mixture of orthodox and short for obvious reasons.

16% result in a scoring attempt. That would be welcomed. I doubt we're anywhere near that. No perfection required just the average.

7% were on target attempts. Well again that would be very welcome . If Cags and little Wes as they trotted up were thinking  Alan Shearer type header not a tent peg one and had been coached in the AS  type (more difficult), Not only would there defending headers improve sometimes ,we'd probably put the 7% up a bit.

1% result in goals. Well after 430 attempts that would be welcome. 4 goals but hopefully with a mixture of short corners occasionally, and better headers maybe we could get up to 3%. A 300 % increase for the half season left but only 3 goals worth maybe 3 1=0 wins, 9 points. Even if its only 5 points thats a definite edge in a close run finish. And its all free. Just get Shearer into a training session, might be a relaxing bit of fun for the players, swear him to silence and if he won't swear we'd have to kill him. He'd love it (not the being killed) .

 

The bad news is my series "A Goal a Match from Headers" may have to be withdrawn. As the FA and Premier League have yet to rule on whether a 15 inch underground sewer pipe directly from each corner to the penalty spot with a pop up spring would be legal. They've already said a flap to close the tunnels at our end at half time will not be permitted. But I'm serious about the goals. We don't have to be perfect just an improvement would do .

[sacreblueits442]

57 minutes ago, Alan Frost said:

If these figures are right 1978 :-/ and 1 goal to us , a bloody own goal from 430 corners !!!!!! We should certainly be practising headers all week or at the least we should be posting about it. Add to that we're not good at defending corners, which I had n't particularly noticed ,but others have and we're missing out. Remember being good at penalties and open play we don't have to give these up. After all when a corner is taking place its not as if you can do anything else except defend it or if its our way try to score. You are not missing open play build up or penalties while the corner takes place,not unless they give you another ball. An improvement in corners would almost certainly result in more goals from crosses and set pieces too.

...the weird thing about this is teams are getting unchallenged headers from corners against us and failing to score!!!

The amount of time the commentator says "should have scored" is unreal. The same problem which we struggle with is also the same problem which they can not also resolve.

  I would like us to be outliers, bucking a trend not following a system that omits to improve an aspect of the game where we can gain an advantage. In the O'neill era, we had a "them and us attitude", which gave us a way of being fearless within ourselves and ignoring those that sought to bring us down.

  In a lot of ways, I still feel that we are still in that pigeon hole and grudgingly receiving acknowledgement, in what we have achieved.

[PhillippaT]

2 hours ago, whoareyaaa said:

1978

Really? You've forgotten Huth's header against Spurs? :O   

[shailen]

It is an issue and I think it's something we need to work on even defensively. Our headers all over the pitch aren't aimed well and even the defensive ones are cleared to an area rather than finding another player when there is loads of time and little pressure. In fact have we even scored a header this season? Trying to recall a game in which we did, but seriously can't remember one. 

 

Also I'm surprised with Johnny Evans especially as I remember he was quite potent at set pieces at West Brom and had a good record im sure. 

[Citeh]

1 hour ago, shailen said:

It is an issue and I think it's something we need to work on even defensively. Our headers all over the pitch aren't aimed well and even the defensive ones are cleared to an area rather than finding another player when there is loads of time and little pressure. In fact have we even scored a header this season? Trying to recall a game in which we did, but seriously can't remember one. 

 

Also I'm surprised with Johnny Evans especially as I remember he was quite potent at set pieces at West Brom and had a good record im sure. 

Vardy at arsenal 

[Col city fan]

Well that’s 5 mins of my life I’ll never get back...

😩

[shailen]

58 minutes ago, Citeh said:

Vardy at arsenal 

Good shout, although that was just a simple tap in with the head once Under had taken the goalkeeper out from memory. 

[adejo92]

On 05/01/2021 at 16:44, OadbyBlue said:

I feel (hope) fofana will get one soon, Maddison’s delivery against Newcastle was much improved and also having Under as an option who can whip in a set piece aswell.

Fofana's attacking heading ability is amongst the worst in the team. 

 

He just closes his eyes and hopes whenever a ball comes in.

[sacreblueits442]

5 hours ago, shailen said:

It is an issue and I think it's something we need to work on even defensively. Our headers all over the pitch aren't aimed well and even the defensive ones are cleared to an area rather than finding another player when there is loads of time and little pressure. In fact have we even scored a header this season? Trying to recall a game in which we did, but seriously can't remember one. 

 

Also I'm surprised with Johnny Evans especially as I remember he was quite potent at set pieces at West Brom and had a good record im sure. 

..didn't Castagne score on his debut with a header!!!

[blaaklint]

According to understat. we've taken 23 shots from 90 corners, which is an above average rate. this has produced an xG of 0.93, showing that we've maybe been unlucky not to score 1. our opponents have had 41 shots from 84 corners, which is a huge rate of 49%. theyve also overperformed their xG in that time (5.86 xG vs 7 goals), making us look slightly worse than we actually are (we are awful tho). the comparative value of their xG per shot is also over 3 times ours.

 

tl;dr: our opponents take lots of high value shots resulting from corners; we take a fairly respectable amount of awful value shots resulting from corners

[Alan Frost]

On 06/01/2021 at 09:03, Les-TA-Jon said:

Corners as goal scoring opportunities are completely overvalued by football fans.

 

To view them as good goal scoring opportunities that we're simply not taking just doesn't stand up to the data. 

 

 

The key stats:

• Only 3% of corners indirectly lead to a goal
• 40% don't clear the first man
• Only 16% result in an attempt on goal
• Only 7% result in an on target attempt on goal
• Only 1% directly lead to a goal

We've had 89 corners so far this season in the PL and scored (I think) 0 goals. So using the above stats we'd expect:

• 2.67 goals indirectly from corners
• 35.6 to have failed to clear the first man
• 14.24 resulting in attempts on goal
• 6.23 on target attempts
• 0.89 goals scored 

So it seems we're 'on par'

 

I'm not making a comment either way if we're good or bad at set pieces offensively or defensively - I'd have to look at the data and compare it with the rest of the league to benchmark us. But I think it goes to show that we're not particularly worse than any other teams offensively speaking.  

 

Corner kicks are actually bad opportunities to create chances and score goals - so we aren't missing out on gilt-edged chances every week. 

Very useful post I think. We'd expect 2.67 goals indirectly, 0.89 directly equals about 3.56 goals . AT the moment we're getting zero. 3.56 goals could be worth 7 points , probably at least 4 points . For a couple of sessions coaching Fofana, Soyuncu, and Evans plus i would suggest Harvey Barnes, Jamie Vardy, plus any other tall guys thats probably the cheapest .quickest source of extra goals you'd find. But they must be coached in attacking headers not defending headers. Corners are the only time we can get our tallest guys in to the box. Also Madison, Castagne, Justin, Under ; the guys feeding the corners in during training would at the same time be practising taking corners . Fofana and Soyuncu would also add directed headers to their skills which means more defensive headers would reach the midfield. All in all I'd be surprised if the effort did n'r result in 6-7 points per season. Looking at Man City's next few games we need the extra points in the half season left.

Remember the prizes start , and the eurocash , from final positions 5th,4th,3rd, 2nd and best of all 1st.

Edited 7 January 2021 by Alan Frost

[UpTheLeagueFox]

We've scored 115 goals in 65 PL games under Rodgers with a GD of +44

Not doing too badly really.

[RumbleFox]

Close thread. 😂 

[Koke]

1 hour ago, RumbleFox said:

Close thread. 😂 

I wonder what the stat of shot corners leading to a goal  is. 

[Alan Frost]

1 hour ago, RumbleFox said:

Close thread. 😂 

Thanks I read it . As I read the table for 2016/7 season ( this is n't ancient history) West Brom actually scored a goal from a corner almost every two games. Taking a generally agreed average 10 corners /game say 5 per team. The middle column adds up to 136 goals from corners an average of 7 goals per team, not all direct headers of course.. Currently we appear to be getting around zero. A goal is usually worth more than a point , 2 points in a 0-0 draw,nothing in a 1-0 win except for GD. Could it be do you think that the teams getting more goals from corners in this table were actually practising corners being smart enough to realise that for a short time in training they were getting a very useful edge on other teams?.

 

I also read the other bookmakers articles on goals from corners which if anything were even more positive about corners. The words are negative unless you read carefully, the actual figures are very positive. 

 

Surprisingly we were far from bottom in the table. maybe we've got worse since 2016/7 but whatever it would pay us to get better. Its a lot cheaper than buying an Alan Shearer or equivalent. He'd probably be worth Messi money these days. ( half a Messi is worth currently about a Mahrez, at two Carrolls to a Mahrez) . Also it would improve our defensive record against corners and clearing headers directed to a player. Moving up the table costs you nothing during a match. Which ever side is taking the corner you can't indulge in open play ( unless its a short corner) or penalties while the corner plays out and on average we're going to get 5 a match. Why not use them ? You can't avoid them. Remember those little circles playing keepy uppy with headers in training. Even Barcelona at their peak thought they were not beneath their dignity. Most of the headers in those circles were directed headers, not Jack Charlton type, 50p, tent pole headers and encouraged the attacking type header.

Edited 7 January 2021 by Alan Frost

[Les-TA-Jon]

1 hour ago, Alan Frost said:

We'd expect 2.67 goals indirectly, 0.89 directly equals about 3.56 goals . At the moment we're getting zero. 3.56 goals could be worth 7 points , probably at least 4 points

I think the stats go to show that we are slightly over par.

 

But I don't think we can arbitrarily attach a points value to a number of goals scored.   

Edited 7 January 2021 by Les-TA-Jon

[zealot]

While we are talking about corners it does make me wonder whether having a crowd in makes a difference to corner success too.

 

We know that Home and Away results have definitely been impacted by lack of fans at games during Covid-19 pandemic. Home advantage definitely seems to have less weight at present that it would normally do. I think that could be partially down to moments like corners for the home team.

 

I definitely feel that corners help with momentum during a game when fans are in the stadium. Certainly that has always seemed to be the case at Filbo and the KP. There'd always be a roar especially from home fans when chasing a game that would help push the team on...

Perhaps we've been a team that has relied heavily on corners in the past and we just aren't and don't need them so much anymore.... 

 

I have so many memories of Walshy, Matty Elliot, Iwan or Ian Marshall scoring with their heads from a corner or even someone like David Lowe scrabbling in a goal in the melee after a corner to scrape a draw in the dying minutes of a game.

 

Maybe we just don't need that anymore when you've got people like Madders or Cengiz stroking them into top bins from all angles...