You mean defenders who don't put their heads in like lots of old timers did, you know, the ones who are now suffering neurodegenerative disease which has been closely linked to heading footballs? Or the ones who have died with dementia, one Chris Chilton springs to mind.
So what you are saying it’s ok for them not to head a ball and you don’t blame them , but the thread was about us not getting goals from set pieces . You can’t have it both ways . I’ve seen lots of modern young players go up shoulder first to avoid putting their heads in where it might hurt . My father got fairly early dementia he was semi pro wartime onwards yes it may have been the cause I am fully aware of what’s happened to old timers and feel very sad for them What’s the solution if your argument is the reason - no more heading ? With respect you’ve changed the whole thread to a totally different theme .
Do we have trouble scoring? We have two of the top scorers in the division. It's keeping clean sheets that seems our issue at the moment.
What he's saying is that mocking players for not wanting degenerative conditions brought on by head injuries is probably not the right tact to take, particularly when nothing even indicates that they're any less fearless. Didn't Greaves split Coyle open just the other week because of a head clash?
Only 1 team in the top 10 have scored less then us and 2 teams have conceded less ( we have the joint 3rd best defensive record in the league ) It's definitely the lack of goals that are costing us unfortunately
Just because we've conceded little over the 9 games doesn't change the fact we only have 2(?) clean sheets which means we're needing to score 2+ to win most games. We've only drawn a blank in 1 game so far (and that should have had a goal in it for us), so wouldn't say we've had much issue finding the back of the net in that sense. You can't just look at the table so simplistically. Preston have scored less and conceded more than us but have 4 more points, for example.
This season seems abnormally high scoring. We've had some massive scorelines already. We're averaging 1.55 goals a game which would be good for about 71 goals which would pen us as 4th top scorers last season. Think the rule changes surrounding time wasting is leading to a few more goals
Unfortunately we now live in an age where it's almost obligatory to be offended at **** all - Rosie needs to get on with it and stop moaning - reminds me of Brucie wittering about the fans complaining about Allam
Or maybe booing your own team in the middle of a league best 8 game unbeaten run is just seen as daft and needs calling out?
We are 5th in the Championship for points but only joint 10th in the league for goals scored. Yes, we have trouble scoring.
We have only 2 clean sheets from 9 games, we have a problem defending. Preston have scored less than us but have 4 more points. We are constantly needing to score 2+ to get a win.
If you're going to give daft goals away, you need to score more (than we are doing , especially at home) to win.
Absolutely we need to be scoring more goals too, but I think the first priority needs to be stopping conceding daft goals. If we were being pummelled with the amount of chances each week that's one thing, but we're conceding goals while giving opposition teams so little to work with which is the most frustrating. That should have been an (at least) 1-0 win over Plymouth. The draw with Cov was from a similarly poorly conceded goal.
We are 15th for xG and 16th for xGA, so rather than scoring goals and conceding I would actually say we are currently riding our luck in an inflated position regarding both at the moment, and our real problem is we don’t create enough chances and we give the opposition too many.
The issue isn’t with our style of play of possession football and building from the back. It never has been. The issue is the execution as we’re too conservative and not brave enough sometimes, usually at home. Maybe the reason for that is the players are on edge because of the home crowd, which can and will lead to the odd mistake, but they are professionals and earn a lot of money so they just have to deal with it. There’s no reason to scrap the way we play because it is working but the execution of it at home games needs improvement.
Nine games is far too early to be worrying about some of these stats, teams are still figuring out their best line-ups and set-ups, key players like Morton and Philogene didn't even play in two thirds of the games.
There's some statistics that's not very useful but Sky came up with some useful statistics before the Fulham v Chelsea match last night.
First of all, sorry about your dad. The thread is actually about Hull v Plymouth, it just took a turn into goals from set pieces. Anyway, a goal from a set piece doesn't have to be whack it in the air and somebody gets their head on it, it can be played all sorts of ways. There'll always be heading in football, I'm not suggesting it be banned, but if players don't want to take the risk then no, I don't blame them. If I had a lad who was keen on football I'd certainly encourage him to play in a position where heading the ball is a lesser requirement.
