Well I have to disagree with all three of you then, he was running at speed in the wrong direction to where the ball came across him and he it would have been an unbelievable piece of defending if he'd managed to correct himself to clear it. Of course if he had we'd hear nothing about it, but hey, let's carry on looking for any excuse to hammer him hey?
When you say you disagree, what do you mean, all I did was ask the question who was Martin marking for the first goal. Not unreasonable I think. I don't know, but maybe if he was marking his man (the one who scored) tighter rather than the space the result might have been different. Just a thought! I do agree with you though, he was running in the wrong direction. Anyway I'm trying my best not to make this into solely about Martin. I may regret saying this, but I tend to agree with Rob that in general Martin does no worse a job in defending set pieces than any other player and better than some. I think at times we look disorganised when defending set pieces and I think it's the CB's responsibility and Martin's as captain to ensure we are organised.
That's why I said Virtually, I knew there had been some mentions, just felt it warranted further discussion. Definitely a hard one, I agree, it just felt to me that he had over committed himself. Got too close to the near post and invited the cut back. Maybe I'm being overly critical. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. I've said before I actually quite like Russ at CB, I had my doubts at the start of last season but, for me, he has done very little wrong and has been part of a successful, entertaining side that he leads very well.
Goal difference was our main problem under CH, largely because of our difficulty in scoring goals. It isn't easy to score goals in the PL and set-pieces become more important because of that. We've conceded 5 out of 12 goals through set pieces. Might it be useful to compare our goal difference in our previous 3 PL seasons? Also, does anybody know how many of our currrent 11 goals came from set-pieces? I have to say I was a bit concerned about missed assignments in the two set piece goals conceded against Palace, but I think that has been addressed by the management team since. It is a concern and something to be worked on, but goals will be scored from set pieces because of the concentration of opposition players in the box when they occur. We didn't concede any against Liverpool, for example, when the threat was greater than usual. As fo the first West Ham goal, Sakho cleverly held back at the last moment to create a little extra space and Payet was skillful enough to adjust to that with his cross. There's no way Martin could have anticipated that in the split second in which it happened. This is the PL and there are very skillful players capable of that sort of thing. A goal difference of -1 (thanks to a wrongly disallowed goal) suggests that we are holding our own or better, IMO.
Good post Rick A goal diff of -1 is verging on the realms of nosebleed territory for NCFC 7 games into a season!
Yes, you're absolutely right RER and other than our defeat at Southampton, we have acquitted ourselves very well I think.
Having rewatched the highlights I realise I was being too critical. It was definitely a good ball and good movement by Sakho.
I've just seen this statistic: '48% of the goals scored in the last World Cup came from set-pieces'. Seems we're not alone then.
Looks like AN and his staff have taken heed - Norwich City’s players have spent the past week striving to eradicate the set piece errors that have blighted their bright Premier League start. http://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/norwic...ertime_to_cut_out_set_piece_charity_1_4257748
I feel that this is becoming a bit over critical now. The two marking lapses against Palace in the opening match aside, the others since then have been reasonably defended, IMO, and as AN says, it's not a recurring problem: "I think if you look at all those set piece goals, which people have made a big deal of, they are all different individually in terms of where they come from, the delivery, whether it’s a short ball into the box or a longer one or someone losing their man. It hasn’t been the same error in that sense, albeit it has come from a set piece. We need to make sure we stop that as best we can." West Ham's second goal was a scramble with the ball falling kindly to Kouyate. We've scored at least 3 goals from set-pieces ourselves in the last 6 games, so it's hardly a big differential. The 48% of goals scored in the World Cup emphasizes how important set-pieces are at the top level. AN is right to focus on concentration at dead ball situations and work with the players on that and their marking, but it's part of the difficulty when playing at the highest level.
Thinking about it overall, I'm not sure we're much worse than most teams in defending set pieces, but we ARE good at defending in general I feel. You certainly seem some pretty poor defending at times on MotD.
Can I say that although we have conceded many goals from set pieces, we have also scored from them, it is not a total one-way street although I think we are in the negative overall on the plays of course.
