Good finishing - what is it?

[Deucalion]

Gary Lineker, in his book which came out in the 80s at some point, said he never worried whether a shot was saved or cleared off the line. All he worried about was getting shots on target. A shot off target won't go in in any circumstances, while a shot on target might.

Does this help?

[Col city fan]

The best natural finisher I think I've ever seen play was Robbie Fowler. Give him a sniff and BANG it was in.

I remember when we lost to Liverpool at Filbo 5-1 I think it was, with Fowler scoring 4 of theirs.

He was literally unplayable that day.

Then again, we did have Lee Marshall in our team...

[ADK]

Well in the game of football the team who has scored the most goals is declared the winner of the match. Therefore a good finisher is somebody who scores goals.

If the ball is blocked by a defender then you have failed to score a goal. If the ball misses the goal then you have failed to score a goal. If the ball is saved by the keeper then you have failed to score a goal.

[davieG]

[fleckneymike]

If the ball is blocked by a defender then you have failed to score a goal. If the ball misses the goal then you have failed to score a goal. If the ball is saved by the keeper then you have failed to score a goal.

If all three things happen to you then congratulations you are Martyn Waghorn.

[Kitchandro]

So if you launch a screamer into the top right hand corner and the goalkeeper dives full length and just manges to tip it over, that's bad finishing?

It's not bad finishing, it's not finishing at all, it's a long range shot.

Finishing is what strikers are supposed to do in the box when they're one on one with the keeper.

[Matt]

The best natural finisher I think I've ever seen play was Robbie Fowler. Give him a sniff and BANG it was in.

[Col city fan]

You read my mind Matt!

[Webbo]

Webbo painted my house.That was poor finishing?

Joke before he loses work and will throw in a free advert.

Webbo painters and decorators no job too small.

[cambridgefox]

Bigger ad?

[LukeyZade]

Its in the decription finish. Close thread

[bmt]

100% scoring

[ozleicester]

Really... do we want to bother with pedantry and semantics?

Its pretty obvious what Trav was asking and the battle of what the dictionary definition of finish is mostly irrelevant.

To me a quality finisher is more about how the player hits the ball than the outcome. A guy who bounces it in off his shin surely cant consider it a great finish, whereas the guy who hits a volley from the edge of the box and causes the keeper to make a blinder of a save, has a right to say.. that was a quality finish.

[Captain...]

I understand Trav's point, we are talking about bad finishing costing us games, but against Palace we had 2 cleared off the line, were they bad finishes? Against Birmingham Butland had a blinder and pulled off some cracking saves, as did Bogdan, that is not poor finishing, Waghorn's header against Forest was the best possible finish he could make and it was a great save, his chance before that was not a bad finish it was bad decision making, he should have taken it first time but after getting in that position he did the right thing beat the keeper, but it got cleared off the line...

...but the problems we have at the moment are not scoring despite creating plenty of chances, and conceding through silly avoidable mistakes, if we remedy one of those 2 we will win this league.

[Collymore]

I agree robbie fowler is probably the best finisher of recent times. What made him special was that his ridiculous power in his shots didn't seem to effect the accuracy.We all agree Dyer is a poor finisher right? Well he hits it as hard as he can like Fowler, but crosses his fingers.

Good finishing for the rest of us is all about finding the area of the goal that's going to give the goalkeeper the least chance of saving it. Good finishers such as Fryatt would often pass the ball in to these areas of the goal. A great example was Sergio Aguero's goal v spurs yesterday.

Dyer would have blasted that at the goal and would have probably scored 3/10

Aguero and Fryatt pass and scored 7/10

Fowler hard but unbelievable accuracy 9/10

I don't agree that it can be a good finish with out scoring. There are some angles that are almost impossible or very unlikely to score from. A good finisher would realise this and find the best team mate positioned to score, All in split seconds.

[Col city fan]

I agree robbie fowler is probably the best finisher of recent times. What made him special was that his ridiculous power in his shots didn't seem to effect the accuracy.We all agree Dyer is a poor finisher right? Well he hits it as hard as he can like Fowler, but crosses his fingers.

Good finishing for the rest of us is all about finding the area of the goal that's going to give the goalkeeper the least chance of saving it. Good finishers such as Fryatt would often pass the ball in to these areas of the goal. A great example was Sergio Aguero's goal v spurs yesterday.

Dyer would have blasted that at the goal and would have probably scored 3/10

Aguero and Fryatt pass and scored 7/10

Fowler hard but unbelievable accuracy 9/10

I don't agree that it can be a good finish with out scoring. There are some angles that are almost impossible or very unlikely to score from. A good finisher would realise this and find the best team mate positioned to score, All in split seconds.

Great post..

[Col city fan]

I think this one is pretty simple.

A really good finisher doesn't allow the keeper to make a save.

The shot/header will be, more often than not, sufficiently away from the keeper that they can't save it.

[Leicester_Numan]

People really going off on tangents here. A finish is when it goes in the net, simple as that. Anything else is a shot, header, try, attempt, whatever you want to call it, but it's not a finish. A finish leads to another kick off not a goal kick or corner.

[Burmesefox]

So if you launch a screamer into the top right hand corner and the goalkeeper dives full length and just manges to tip it over, that's bad finishing?

Not at all. Finishing, by definition is scoring. You don't finish until you score.

[Corky]

It can't be a good finish without scoring- the finish is ending the move with a goal.

You can have a very good effort that is brilliantly saved- but that's an effort, not a finish.

[Captain...]

It can't be a good finish without scoring- the finish is ending the move with a goal.

You can have a very good effort that is brilliantly saved- but that's an effort, not a finish.

So therefore there is no such thing as good and poor finishing, only finishing or not finishing.

[JonnyBoy]

the term 'finish' gives it away really, its when you finish your your shot which = a goal

[Kitchandro]

So therefore there is no such thing as good and poor finishing, only finishing or not finishing.

I think you're thinking about it too much, it's a football term.

Commentators say 'can he finish? no!' all the while but the co-commentator might say 'He did all the hard part but it's a poor finish' or 'his finishing let him down'. Neither are wrong. The term 'finish' is a football saying, we don't need to get into the technicaliies of the English language.

Besides, surely if somebody regularly doesn't finish something, you'd say they were bad at finishing it?

[Trav Le Bleu]

So therefore there is no such thing as good and poor finishing, only finishing or not finishing.

Thank you! At last someone who knew what I was saying earlier.

Oh, and the veggie bloke from down under too.

[Royston.]

seen alot of bad polls on this site but this one takes the biscuit and crambs it up the cats árse.