Maybe this will put some perspective to it please log in to view this image And you expect from Adel and Granero to score from every single one
As I've questioned previously, do we actually practice attacking set pieces? If so, then we need to keep on practicing! Simples!
I acknowledge what your saying. What I'm referring to is not clearing the first man at corners, hitting the wall, or ballooning over. You might be right, perhaps I'm seeing what I want to see and it is over emphasised, but I still feel we waste too many good attacking dead ball situations. I'm not expecting to score from each one, it's the lack of creativity or incisiveness that rightly or wrongly I seem to observe.
I agree our corners are dreadful especially short ones, but direct free kicks are really hard to score. Look at the players in the OP. All great free kick takers and they have measly 4% ratio. That means in 100 free kicks they'll score 4 goals. I don't remember Adel or Granero had 100 free kicks
Ok - we'll agree on the corners. Extra practice ASAP. Perhaps even a couple of trick ones too like laying it off to a teammate to try a Scholes-like drive from the edge of the box. Free kicks - I just want to see the keeper work a bit more often. A different story if Grannie had nailed the free kick, I accept that. I bet tonight 17,999 at LR wanted Taarbs (yes even the city fans! ) Grannie's out of form and Taarbs was on fire, I felt the same albeit watching from a web link!
The problem is I cant remember Granero even forcing a decent save out of a keeper. Since the back end of last season Tarbs had been managing to hit the target regularly.
I'd like to see m'bia try one or two. He can connect as we saw against west brom. Hit it low and hard, very ****ing hard. Adel should have taken that one tonight.
This. Granero was terrible tonight and yet he seems to be able to pull rank over our best player by a country mile when a free kick on goal is on. Can't work it out. The boos were incredibly loud when he ushered Taarabt away from the free kick..........and then he promptly put it high into the loft!!
When did it become the norm to go for the spectacular from 25 yards (metres) every friggin' time a free kick's awarded? Bad habit we've got into these days. You're quite right Pirate, we should be more forgiving when it doesn't come off - but why attempt the virtually impossible in the first place? All it does is lose precious possession. You're more likely to score by rifling in a low hard ball into the melee to the side of the wall. Creates panic and errors among the defenders - and much more chance of a ricochet going in. We used to score from a fair few free kicks back in the day. Venables was a master of deception, always coming up with new ways of creating chances by using the clustering to confuse defences. Only problem with that was the goals that came as a result weren't particularly classy and didn't suit prima donnas. They just more often won us points! Hate modern free kicks. Long penalties with obstacles. Far to reliant on luck.
Id settle for someone hitting the target. Still hes miles better than Taarabt at set pieces who is awful, especially corners. The one thing pissed me off is we got a corner and went short and every single City corner in the swirling wind caused havoc. All we had to do was whip it in, then we get another and we use Fabio for an outswinger.
