what i want to know is why did the first 9ish of our corners pan out exactly the same, eg, hit first defender. It was literally like watching a replay, which made me think it might actually be a tactic.
Sorry RDBD - I don't have the data in front of me but they have done exactly the analysis you suggest. Interestingly while some teams are better than others (and you are right about Spurs) the distribution is consistent with being random so it doesn't necessarily imply that anyone has any skill in either scoring or defending corners.
"Interestingly while some teams are better than others (and you are right about Spurs) the distribution is consistent with being random so it doesn't necessarily imply that anyone has any skill in either scoring or defending corners." If there is no obvious distribution, then you would work to ensure you at least have the average stats each season for corner goals scored/conceded.
That is exactly the question the book asks! Some of this analysis has only recently been available and a lot of it is completely at odds with people's preconceived ideas about tactics. Essentially a manager who managed according to the statistics would look clueless to the fans. It is actually a well-known bias in observations in all fields. Essentially people remember the goals not the failures. Logically crosses are just very difficult passes and crosses from corners are very difficult crosses because of the crowding in the area. So its not surprising that most of them lead to nothing. It's about one goal every nine matches from corners. How do you think the fans at WHL would react if we took all our corners short and scored a goal that way every eight matches.
But everyone does the same which is why the distribution ends up random. I think its because the skill in defending a corner is so much lower than the skill needed to score from one which means few goals are scored and you get a random distribution of which teams score them. Man Utd had a of good record of scoring from corners last season but that was the only real outlier in the data Essentially half the teams will be below average and there is precious little you can do about it.
"It's about one goal every nine matches from corners." And you have N corners per game (which probably makes the stats worse) . Of course comparing it with crosses from the byline in open play would also be significant. But yes, the cultural bias about certain aspects of the game are strong to overcome. Think of events like the Puskas Hungary side that mauled England etc.
"Essentially half the teams will be below average and there is precious little you can do about it." If the average scored is 5 and you only score 2, you have a bit more work to do. Similar if the average conceded is 5 and you concede 8.
yeah, but wasting it in exactly the same way makes me think its a deliberate ploy. What are the chances of ****ing up a delivery the same 9 times in a row? I mean, Holtby is a premier league footballer kicking a stationary ball
The scatter is much larger than the skill. You need to spend time working on things where the opposite is true
Walker's free-kicks have been fairly decent since he took over, though. Time for someone else to take corners, I think.
I would think near post delivery can cause confusion as often you see players lose their marker in the centre and attack the near post as you can get a good angle, but I've stopped even thinking about our corners as we're so poor in general at set pieces. If its a deliberate ploy then hopefully someone will show us why, by actually scoring! although our chances are slim according to the stats and we should just play it short
I would need to see the histograms myself, and the info on the raw data sources, first. And also, driving onwards to some goal when little effort is required, is something that businesses often do (competitor parity etc) .
I have no stats on this but i'd like our corner taker to simply toe punt it hard from corners to see if we have more luck. Some will go straight out for goal kicks and some might put our opposition straight through on goal (perhaps push Lloris 40yds out) but i think we'd have more chance of scoring ourselves than our current tactic of actually trying to do something meaningful. Corners are easy to defend because they are all the same. The defenders would have no idea where a toe punt was going or what it was gonna do in the air, thus giving our attackers more of a chance (eg, might get some luck and go in off a backside) Lennon does not get to take a corner still. I bet his toe punts are puny
One other method would be to have the corner taker play it short, who then scoops the ball up, back to the corner taker, he then launches the ball in the air and I mean high in the air with the aim to have the ball dropping in the centre of the goal, As the ball is starting the drop the keeper is feeling the pressure knowing he has to catch the ball. He flaps , we score. Ref calls a foul for the keeper being fouled (but he dived)! .........back to the drawing board!
I like this idea. We could just hang around the keeper, and then just as he's about to jump and claim all our players run away from him leaving him on his own and just rely on him being a dropper. Or, as Graham Taylor reckons 50% of goals come from hoofball we could play all our corners deep back to Lloris who can then hump it into the box. I reckon Lloris might be on for 1 or 2 a season from the chaos.
Agreed and I've been approximating the data as I don't have the book with me so ther may be scope for different interpretations. However training time is a scarce resource and the data at least suggests that trying to improve your corner conversion rate would be a very poor use of it.
What are the rules on GK obstruction ?? If a few players swarm around and just stand their ground without moving, what then ?? Opposition players like to barge you out of the way to prevent this, so that gives penalty opportunities.
Statistically, it has been shown that if you score more goals than your opponents, you will win more matches!...
