This is a continuation of a point I made on the 'View from the opposition thread' about a particular corner I saw at the weekend and it made me think about who should have been attacking the space I referred to. It made me realise how poor we are for decent headers of the ball...again! I looked at this list of players and thought, which one of them would you call brilliant in the air, or good, or average...they're all ****e! with the exception of Pauli. So here we have another skillset missing from a team likely to get a lot of free-kicks and corners. A transfer window masterstroke, as our aerial threat hasn't changed, mainly from defenders who aren't that good with their attacking accuracy either, bar Vertonghen. Our aerial options are pretty limited again for another season, so expect more poor set pieces and spare the takers, unless they drop every cross on a sixpence which isn't realistic, we won't be scoring too many in that way.
It's all falling apart notso. You would have thought that AVB, who seems to love plans and schemes, would develop clever strategys for set pieces. In fact why do not ALL managers do this? This is one area that you can practice in advance of a game overall you see very little inovation in this area from all PL teams. So much so that the Coventry free kicks from the seventies still stands out in the memory.
Thing is Spurf the way he wants the team to play invites free-kicks and corners, its supposed to be part of the plan ffs, unless such a chance falls to JV, Pauli, or Bobby, (I agree the latter has been off with his direction, but he's been underneath it at least!) its a waste of time, and playing Defoe instead of Bobby makes this worse. Can't think of too many goals from 2nd ball situations either.
I think Villas Boas might argue that since the first day of the season, we have had a game every midweek, so the opportunities of spending valuable time on the training ground has been restricted. Not saying I agree with this, but I do know he is deqsparate to have a free week so he can work with the players for a good length of time on the training ground.
He's got enough players to pick one team for the league and one for the cups. He should've done so and used the extra training time constructively.
Under Jol we lacked height Under Harry we didn't even practice set pieces Under AVB we lack height It's amazing how different problems keep resurfacing with different managers.
Makes it easy for teams defending against us. Don't hoof the ball up field and give the ball away, just kick it out for a Spurs corner, nothing will come of it and Spurs will just give us the ball back.
We should teach our set piece takers to aim for the crossbar, and hope our attackers react first to the rebound.
I don't think that our current line-up lacks height. It shouldn't really lack attacking ability on set-pieces, either. The delivery has generally been woeful and I think that's reflected in the effort that's put in now. The players look like they've got half an eye on defending the break at every one of them.
Set piece delivery was woeful under Jol, Ramos and Harry as well. It's utterly bizarre that players with a reputation with good dead ball delivery at their previous club(s) suddenly forget how to take them as soon as they sign for us, and there is no logical way - barring Harry not having them as part of training - to explain it.
Bale took great free kicks at Southampton...not for us Bentley took great corners at Blackburn...not for us VDV took great free kicks at various clubs...but not for us Eriksen took great free kicks for Ajax...but not for us You can probably add Modric and Kranjcar to the list as well...
Height is not the problem. Van Persie scored the winner against Woolwich from a corner-how tall is he? Cardiff's equalizer against Man Utd on Sunday, set piece header from Kim! Just two examples from the last couple of weeks. Hudd's freekicks were great and occasionally we scored from them. Why have we not got anyone who can whip the ball in--all that talent , someone must be able to?
Height isn't a problem if the lad in question is good in the air, Chicarito a fine example, difference with him he attacks crosses, shows desire to get on the end of it, and is alert to it in the first place, thats where we fall down imo. I think we're getting bogged down with just delivery, yes there's been many poor examples, can't clear the first man etc, but you'll see that in all games from all teams, its the good ones that go begging for us, but get put away if its another team thats annoying. Its a point in addition to poor delivery that I'm making, that we're a couple of players short who are strong in the air. I've named our 3, some may want to add Daws and Kaboul but I would ask why, they're not exactly Cahill or Ivanovic, and sticking with Chelsea if you add Terry, Torres and Lampard, Mr. Hazard doesn't have to worry too much who to aim at, just put a decent one into a rather large target with that lot at your disposal, one of them is as reliable as the other. Imo again, that is not the case for our takers who have to be far more accurate picking out individuals. Set pieces are an important part of the modern game and multiple managers have never got to grips with them for us over number of seasons now, it baffles me its keeps being seemingly ignored or just poorly addressed.
Individual players have to take some responsibility, as players who are good in the air and attack corners don't need to be told to act in such a manner, such as John Terry who enjoys attacking the ball at corners. Our players seem to need their hand held most of the time, led to play a certain way as players at other clubs seem to take the initiative, be that set pieces or free kick practice. Dawson, Kaboul, Verts, Paulinho, Sandro, Dembele. These are physically strong players, all they have to do is work on timing of their runs. Caulker has scored two great headers from set peices in the league this season for cardiff, he also scored twice for us. He never scored for Swansea but I remember him being a menace at corners and all he does is slowly time his run and he jumps after the defender (who has mis timed his jump) and as the defender is falling, he is rising and heads towards goal. Maybe the team do need to practice set pieces, corners as part of training but some of our players need to step up and show more initiative, as with free kicks. Anderton and Sheringham had that clever corner, and I doubt the manager told them to work on the corner, I suspect they just decided to try something different. But if you look at our squad none of our attacking players link up that well, there aren't two players you would branch together and thats one of our problems.
