I'll go for a bit of both. Who am I trying to kid, it has to be the latter. The most caught offside player in the Premiere League last season (not quite, posted 6th March 2013). Have a guess before clicking. http://www.footyplace.com/features/top-ten-0306240036 I can't find the full season stats but as of April 10th 2013, Aston Villa and Belgium striker Christian Benteke was top of the chart. I wonder if our man regained top spot? Anyone with the answer?
When you're not gifted with pace, like Jelavic, you have to try and beat the last man constantly by playing just off his shoulder. Someone like Long for example can probably allow himself a yard due to his pace. Granted there's times when it's easier to be onside than off but I think it's a case of constantly trying to be in the right position more often than not
Look at the names on that list. He's hardly in bad company is he? Seems like nearly every City striker gets moaned about for being offside too much at some point. One of the worst for it IMO is Fryatt but surprisingly he doesn't get mentioned so much. I think it's a case of trying to get in behind and mistiming it. That's going to happen, it's one of the hardest things to get right as an attacker. I'd rather have a striker like Long and Jelavic who make these runs and score every so often after a few offsides, than someone like Graham or Sagbo who just doesn't make the runs in the first place. I think it's a bit mean criticising players for being offside too much when they're making runs at goal. If they're doing it with their back to goal when receiving the ball then it's different because there's no timing involved it's just carelessness, and when this happens it makes me wonder what the striker was thinking about while the rest of the team were playing football. Again Fryatt is a bugger for that, but since when he does receive it with his back to goal he often pulls off some wonderful turn and ends up in a great position, I don't mind too much.
I remember listening to an interview Fryatt did after a game when Barmby was in charge where he said they'd looked at his stats and if he made 20 or more runs in behind the opposition defence he always scored at least once. Obviously he's not going to get the ball even played to him on probably half of these runs, but if he's making as many as that he's bound to get caught offside occasionally.
