We do we cross the ball?

vs QPR we attempted 47 crosses into the box of which 8 found a fellow NUFC player, 0 of which led to a goal.
vs City we attempted 41 crosses into the box of which 8 found a fellow NUFC player, 0 of which led to a goal.
vs Fulham we attempted 39 crosses into the box of which 7 found a fellow NUFC player, 0 of which led to a goal.

I could go on but I think people will get the point.

It is obvious Pardew is asking the players to cross the ball directly into the area from deep positions. I ask the question, why?

We rarely win the ball when it's lumped in there, even from set-pieces! Looking at the whole season we've scored just 1 league goal from a crossed ball which isn't really worth bragging about because Demba Ba stuck it in with his hand!!

We need to work the ball more rather than lumping it aimlessly into the box, looking at our goal vs QPR, it was very pleasing, a great team goal. Santon cut in from the right and played it to Marveaux who was in a little space. He got his head up and allowed players to come to him, creating space for Ameobi to waltz in behind a poor defensive line and produce a top notch finish.

Sounds easy and that's because it is. Looping, long, hopeful, aimless crosses into the box when neither of our front 2 are renowned for their heading ability, is stupid and just a waste of possession. This, in turn, allows the opposing team to manufacture an attack of their own. Defending the ball isn't something that is done by defenders in the final 3rd of a football pitch. It's a team effort, it's exactly as the cliche goes. If your opponent hasn't got the ball they can't score!

Some teams take this to the extreme, like Swansea on occasions. Working the ball around whilst holding possession is something Pardew has talked about for a while now but his tactics seem far from that.

Now, we do seem to be gradually improving. 11% of NUFC's passes vs QPR were long balls, much lower than our current league average of 17% and look what happened. We dominated the possession and won. I know QPR aren't the best side in the league but it's proof that if we aren't constantly trying to win the 2nd ball we do have players capable of playing football. If we just stopped crossing the ball so much and worked the ball a little more we'd create many more chances to score goals.

Thoughts?

 

I think we put in plenty of decent crosses personally. I commented on another thread though, I think we have two of the worst strikers I've seen in black and white of anticipating and making something of those crosses. I think their lack of anticipation leads people to believe we don't get any good balls in. While we aren't perfect and are hampered by having two right footers on the left (neither who is great at crossing), I've seen plenty of decent balls in by Simpson, Ben Arfa, Tiote, Cabaye, Jonas, Santon this season. I'm yet to see either Ba or Cisse making much of them. The much maligned Simpson in particular has whipped a fair few decent balls this season.

Ba is quite good at anticipating crosses/clipped balls back in after clearances but put a defender there and he just doesn't make the correct movements, Cisse is better but his timing is all over the place this season.

 

To complete that first comment I agree we should work the ball more, but I do think we need to work with our strikers to improve their movements rather than just discarding the crossed ball altogether. We need to get a nice balance and while the team need to get more selective/savvy of when to cross, they need to improve their anticipation too.

 

Agree with the strikers bit but 23 successful crosses from 127 and a season cross success rate of 24% and no goal from a set-piece since Oct-2011 would suggest that it's certainly a combination of the two. **** delivery and **** aerial ability/movement!

 

Spot on

 

and course, ruling out crossing the ball altogether is not my desire

 

I also think our lack of balance hurts us and was pleased to see Pardew again suggesting we might see Santon shifted depending on who we buy.

I think Santon cutting in offers a nice variety at times. However the benefit we'd see if we sign a left back in terms of first time balls and better defensive awareness would far outweigh the variety we get from his cutting in. Strikers need that ball in first time. As a defender it is so much easier when the opposing winger/full back has to cut back to cross. You remove all danger of having to deal with the ball while moving at speed, and get to set yourself in a positional sense.

We currently have three players playing on their wrong side as such. I'm not against it and think ideally you have one of each either side. I think your full backs should be on their natural side for overlaps and crossing. You still get the variety from your wingers being able to come inside and take away a predictability from your play. Benni/Santon and Jonas or new winger/left footed full back would be much better.

Just a little tactical thing I know I keep banging on about, but one which is vital to balancing the side and opening out our creativity.

 

Again, couldn't agree more.

But at the moment we need to play to our strengths whilst adding players isn't an option and crossing the ball seems to be a pointless excerise, as often as we do it!

 

Indeed just need to be more selective. I said on another thread I've noticed the little slide rule pass from Jonas has disappeared from his game since moving back left recently. Hopefully Pards can work with him there.

I noticed today Pards had clearly been trying to get the likes of Santon to cut back and feed it into the strikers more. Ba had an off day in terms of his hold up play unfortunately but he is usually excellent. Cisse showed some nice touches in this regard and the little one two he worked was a good example of how we can benefit from mixing it up rather just hitting crosses in there.

Pardew clearly sent Obertan on with those very instructions (to mix up feeding and crossing). I thought Obertan did well but both his feeding and crossing was fairly average. He cut in and reversed one past Ba (may have been Shola?) which would have been a nice position to get their centre back on his heels.

Overall I think some of the Pardew detractors must surely see his hard work coming to fruition today? He is trying to get them to play with more variety and fluidity but it takes time. Eventually they'll click into rhythm and everyone will say "why haven't we been doing this all season" but its not that simple unfortunately. He is hampered by a lack of consistency in selection, missing key flair players etc. I think so many things have gone wrong with our team it has been difficult to correct it all at once. Players are not robots unfortunately.

Its easier when you are Man U and you just drop another superstar in!

 

We're **** at crosses. Truly awful.

Jonas, Santon, Ferguson do the same terrible cross. it involves running past the full-back and cutting it back at knee/shin height towards the penalty spot. Hardly ever beats the first man. It's horrible to watch, and to be fair I have no idea why, after 50 thousand of these exact same deliveries, Ba/Cisse aren't making runs to the near post to try and make something out of them. Demba was unlucky vs QPR in the first half trying to anticipate it, but it was easily cut out as always.

We have had some decent crosses, but as has been mentioned, it's the deeper-kind (surprise surprise, where they have less pressure on them) of cross which requires better the movement and heading power required from the attacker, which isn't their strongest point.

Everyone has said it, some like me have said it since the championship season, and it's sad, but Jonas is not a good enough first choice winger, and never should have been. He's got heart though, and when injuries are setting in, he'll put his body through a shift and a lot of pain for the team.

 

Nothing wrong with crossing the ball - we just need to be crossing from the right areas. Crosses from deep are a waste of time - every effort should be made to cross the ball as close to the byline as possible. Defenders hate these crosses and if the cross doesn't come in 9 times out of 10 we get a corner thus keeping the pressure on.

We need attacking fullbacks that can overlap and cross (Simpson is bloody awful at this!) Bin Simmo, move Santon to the right and buy a left footed left back.

 

Shearer used to score a lot of headers from crossed higher up the pitch.
I personally think the pressure on the players means as soon as the ball is past the half way line they want to get rid and get a cross in.

 

Some of them were decent but none of them dropped for a player, unfortunately.