ok, liverpool make 9 changes vs fulham. If they had done that vs norwich, would we have got something out of the game? discuss also peter crouch has scored again, ok into his own net. get him into the england squad?
actually, i think had liverpool made one change against us, that being luis suarez, i think we'd have at least got a draw! they really aren't very good. even with suarez they aren't great, its just he was on exceptional form against us. his hattrick was unbelievably good - 9 times out of ten those goals don't go in.
Supers, if "9 times out of ten those goals don't go in", then each one of them was a stroke of luck, and for all three to go in was a HUGE piece of luck. So rather than being on "exceptional form", Suarez simply had one of those lucky days? I think he deserves a bit more credit than that!
you knew what i meant!! in general terms, all three chances were exceptionally difficult - he wouldn't have hit the target (and scored) three times out of three very often. he just happened to be on fire on the day - unstoppable.
Actually there's an interesting point here. Many "wonder goals" in fact owe more to luck than to the striker's skill. I would say that one of the best goals scored all season so far was Grant Holt's against Everton. Sheer skill from the moment he received the ball, and luck played no part: perfectly controlled, perfectly conceived, perfectly placed. In contrast, Suarez' long-distance chip over Ruddy was skillful and well executed only in the sense that he saw the opportunity and struck it well, but, from the moment the ball left his foot, the outcome was in the hands of the gods. If Suarez was put in the same position on the pitch and given twenty goes at firing the ball into that precise part of the goal, how many times would he manage to do it? I'd doubt he do it once in twenty tries. Much the same could be said of Justin Fashanu's wonder Goal of the Season against Liverpool. Brilliant control on the hip, turn and swivel shot, but little or nothing of the rest was of his doing. If this sort of wonder goal is to be attributed to the striker's skill, he has to be able to reproduce it time and again. Steven Gerrard has repeatedly scored with well-placed shots from distance; I'd say he does or did have a special skill in that respect -- but changing the design of the ball may have negated it somewhat recently.
The way I see it these goals are a bit like a golfer's hole in one.His skill enables him to get the ball onto the green but from 250 yards there is no way he can judge it to the accuracy required.Once in a while the ball serindipitously rolls in.
Indeed, many wonder goals are the equivalent of a hole in one. The "wonder" of them is in their unlikeliness, not the skill of the striker. In golf a huge amount of research and analysis goes into technique, club design, ball design/behaviour. Football is way behind in that respect: the technique of many players when striking a ball is awful -- witness the often poor quality of corners/free kicks, not to mention crosses and penalties. This could surely be improved by better analysis and practice?
