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when was the last time you saw 3 headers in one game let alone 3 headed goals and how come we can do corners again - it must be about 8 years ago when we used to do propper corners

there like buses.

More importantly, 3 goals from SET PIECES!

I cannot even remember the last goal we scored from a set piece.

avoidconfusion wrote:More importantly, 3 goals from SET PIECES!

I cannot even remember the last goal we scored from a set piece.

Birmingham away about 2 weeks ago.

There was real intelligence & purpose behind the set pieces yesterday. Not just the ones we scored but all of them. Everyone seemed to have a job & there seemed to be a real effort to create chaos in the danger area & get the ball in there. Balotelli's head injury came from him turning away from goal, obviously to create a space for players behind him to run into & score, as happened. The ball was delivered simply into that area, no big swerves, frills & bullshit, just a nice simple ball in that asks a question of the oppo defence. Everyone says, Notts County should have coped better; yes they should, just as we should when it happens to us & every other team should when it happens to them.

Teams often make those mistakes that County made. If the ball arrives & the players are there to take advantage, you have a chance of scoring. If it hits the 1st man or sails over everyone's heads, you don't.

I'm fucking delighted about this. Well done Bob & all concerned. Keep it up & we'll get more crucial goals, points & possibly trophies.

While I'm happy with the set pieces yesterday, County's defending was pathetic.

Ted Hughes wrote:There was real intelligence & purpose behind the set pieces yesterday. Not just the ones we scored but all of them. Everyone seemed to have a job & there seemed to be a real effort to create chaos in the danger area & get the ball in there. Balotelli's head injury came from him turning away from goal, obviously to create a space for players behind him to run into & score, as happened. The ball was delivered simply into that area, no big swerves, frills & bullshit, just a nice simple ball in that asks a question of the oppo defence. Everyone says, Notts County should have coped better; yes they should, just as we should when it happens to us & every other team should when it happens to them.

Teams often make those mistakes that County made. If the ball arrives & the players are there to take advantage, you have a chance of scoring. If it hits the 1st man or sails over everyone's heads, you don't.

I'm fucking delighted about this. Well done Bob & all concerned. Keep it up & we'll get more crucial goals, points & possibly trophies.

Agree on this, good points. When you see players bunched in a line, like Lescott, Vieira and Balotelli were at times yesterday it creates confusion in the defence and ask more questions of them. In the act of the three splitting off in general directions, it often creates a free run for one of them especially if the ball is delivered correctly into the right area by the taker which Kolarov did.

Back in the days when I used to play at a semi-decent level, a coach we had always stationed an extra man in the bunch who's job it was to either get in the way or step on the toes of one of the defenders, to free another guy up. Its an age old trick but one that very rarely gets spotted in the mix up once the balls in the air, as if you are good at it, the officials dont notice.

They looked a bit shorter than our lot to be fair.

Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:While I'm happy with the set pieces yesterday, County's defending was pathetic.

It was, however, I'd expect lower league teams to be able to handle set pieces with more comfort than normal play. There's a limit to what you can do to cause confusion from a set piece and having Messi, Tevez, Kaka and Torres in their wouldn't necessarily make it any better than some journey men from lower league. Moving the ball around outside the box, with the speed/skill of a Tevez/Silva is much more what distinguishes the top teams.

I'm therefore pleased that we scored so many and had at least 3 other good chances (Richards' shoulder, Dzeko's at the keeper and Dzeko's at the corner flag). If we can keep that up, we may actually become a threat from being a bit direct, which could be very important come the end of the season. If we can understand how to attack them, we might even work out how to defend them!

I think that the goals we scored yesterday with headers will probably be our lot for the rest of the season.Maybe we will get a few more but in all likelihood over the season I should imagine out of all the goals we score only a certain percentage will be with headers.No matter how good the delivery is the way these things pan out is that a goalie will either save them or some other factor will come into play. And I think there is a cieling on how many headers will go in.Unless the only thing we do is lob it at head height into the box all the time and forget about our passing game its not gonna happen.

Rag_hater wrote:I think that the goals we scored yesterday with headers will probably be our lot for the rest of the season.Maybe we will get a few more but in all likelihood over the season I should imagine out of all the goals we score only a certain percentage will be with headers.No matter how good the delivery is the way these things pan out is that a goalie will either save them or some other factor will come into play. And I think there is a cieling on how many headers will go in.Unless the only thing we do is lob it at head height into the box all the time and forget about our passing game its not gonna happen.

And you're basing this on what exacly?

Do you think that Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea & Spurs will also go through the rest of the season without scoring any headers or do they all lob it into the box all the time & not pass it?

I can't agree Rah hater...Why just this season? If we just keep lobbing the ball into danger areas in the wild hope that some of our talented, well paid, well trained, ultra tall players who were bought for the job, manage to wander aimlessly into the same areas the ball is...we probably won't ever score another header ever again.

I don't think that Mario sustained his injury moving away to create space...I think he was getting out of the way bescause this big round thing was hurtling at him and had it connected might have hurt.....erm.

Ted Hughes wrote:

Rag_hater wrote:I think that the goals we scored yesterday with headers will probably be our lot for the rest of the season.Maybe we will get a few more but in all likelihood over the season I should imagine out of all the goals we score only a certain percentage will be with headers.No matter how good the delivery is the way these things pan out is that a goalie will either save them or some other factor will come into play. And I think there is a cieling on how many headers will go in.Unless the only thing we do is lob it at head height into the box all the time and forget about our passing game its not gonna happen.

And you're basing this on what exacly?

Do you think that Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea & Spurs will also go through the rest of the season without scoring any headers or do they all lob it into the box all the time & not pass it?

Basing it on the stats.
I didn't say we or the other lot won't get anymore headers.I said there is only a certain % of goals any team gets that are scored from headers.And that we are getting near that figure.
Are you telling me its something else

I am going to take full credit for this:) 2 weeks ago after I spoke with SWP he came out and got a great ovation against WBA and gave a glimpse of what we knew he was capable of followed by a little more of the same next match

Last week I asked Brian Kidd about corners and here we are next match scoring goals from them.

Just joking obviously as before Kidd could answer the question I wanted to ask him he was distracted by Michael Johnson who needed to talk to him about ending his training with a bad knee. Kidd didnt get back to me but will have known what I was going to ask I am sure. But on a serious point I always think we have more of a chance with corners when Micah and Lescott are in the team as they both have real intent about getting to the cross.And yes I know it helps if it beats the front man but even if it doesnt there is nothing to stop us having somebody running to try to get in front of that front man.

Rag_hater wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:

Rag_hater wrote:I think that the goals we scored yesterday with headers will probably be our lot for the rest of the season.Maybe we will get a few more but in all likelihood over the season I should imagine out of all the goals we score only a certain percentage will be with headers.No matter how good the delivery is the way these things pan out is that a goalie will either save them or some other factor will come into play. And I think there is a cieling on how many headers will go in.Unless the only thing we do is lob it at head height into the box all the time and forget about our passing game its not gonna happen.

And you're basing this on what exacly?

Do you think that Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea & Spurs will also go through the rest of the season without scoring any headers or do they all lob it into the box all the time & not pass it?

Basing it on the stats.
I didn't say we or the other lot won't get anymore headers.I said there is only a certain % of goals any team gets that are scored from headers.And that we are getting near that figure.
Are you telling me its something else

Some teams are better than others at heading the ball & some improve, so there's no such thing as a stat for how many headers any given team will score. We were on 0 for half a season, that's extrodinarlily poor. If we then sign a player like Dzeko, we are expecting him to score with his head & neither he, nor Mancini, will be happy if he doesn't. Also, if we improve at corners, we will score more headers.

The coaching staff will be gutted if we don't score a decent No of headed goals from now on.

I don't think I have said anywhere that a headed goal is a bad goal.I think I have said that I think it is a goal that lower league and level teams try and pin their hopes on.That it is the type of goal this kind of team along with every other team can aim for.And what I have said is that I think we are average at this kind of play whereas some have been saying we are a lot worse than most.And if we don't score another header this year I won't see it as a flaw in our play.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:I am going to take full credit for this:) 2 weeks ago after I spoke with SWP he came out and got a great ovation against WBA and gave a glimpse of what we knew he was capable of followed by a little more of the same next match

Last week I asked Brian Kidd about corners and here we are next match scoring goals from them.

Just joking obviously as before Kidd could answer the question I wanted to ask him he was distracted by Michael Johnson who needed to talk to him about ending his training with a bad knee. Kidd didnt get back to me but will have known what I was going to ask I am sure. But on a serious point I always think we have more of a chance with corners when Micah and Lescott are in the team as they both have real intent about getting to the cross.And yes I know it helps if it beats the front man but even if it doesnt there is nothing to stop us having somebody running to try to get in front of that front man.

I thought it might be your influence Doug. Seemed as if the whole coaching staff were very pleased to see those goals go in.

Micah is back to his best in the air & is a real threat now, provided he can actually get a header on target. Lescott made a huge difference to Hughes' team at set pieces, even when he didn't score himself, he occupies defenders & moves them out of the way. I like the look of the latest plan, where a small group have all attacked one area & the ball is put into that area. It's simple but it's worked for Everton over the years & then when the oppo get used to it, you can score by putting the ball elsewhere as the oppo are all atracted to the threat of that group & leave others unmarked.

Rag_hater wrote:I don't think I have said anywhere that a headed goal is a bad goal.I think I have said that I think it is a goal that lower league and level teams try and pin their hopes on.That it is the type of goal this kind of team along with every other team can aim for.And what I have said is that I think we are average at this kind of play whereas some have been saying we are a lot worse than most.And if we don't score another header this year I won't see it as a flaw in our play.

We were vastly better yesterday, not just from set pieces but there were a couple of superb crosses too. If we maintain that quality, we will start to score more headed goals. We have a lot of big strong lads in the team & a couple of great headers of the ball & have been largly wasting good situations by a lack of purpose in our crosses & diagonals, as well as set pieces. We've tended to hit the ball in blindly without thinking rather than trying to pick out a dangerous area. Yesterday we were a lot closer to the standard of a top 4 side in our crossing/set pieces & that, allied to our passing game, would make us a very very good side if we can keep it up.

Rag_hater wrote:I don't think I have said anywhere that a headed goal is a bad goal.I think I have said that I think it is a goal that lower league and level teams try and pin their hopes on.That it is the type of goal this kind of team along with every other team can aim for.And what I have said is that I think we are average at this kind of play whereas some have been saying we are a lot worse than most.And if we don't score another header this year I won't see it as a flaw in our play.

I will. I think you need a variety of weapons at your disposal to win matches regularly against different kinds of opposition. Set pieces are not what I "pin my hopes on" but they are there to be taken advantage of.

This year it seems we have been particularly bad at scoring from corners,but over the next few matches going by the stats if we get about another 6 or 7 goals it will be in line with what is normal however people will probably say because we have adopted a different approach,when nothing of the sort has happened.This is how it is for the top 4 teams in the prem.
This year so far them have scored 14 headers.
Arse have scored 7
Spurs 7.
Us yet to score in the prem methinks from a header.However if one looks back at last year when we were as apparently as bad as we wre this year:
Emanuel got 3 with his head,
Carlos got 2
Vincent got 2
SWP got 1
Patrick got 1 and Micah got 1.
So out of the 73 goal we got last year in the prem about 10 were headers.About average and not bad for a team thats apparently so bad at set pieces.
So if this year see us scoring a few less personally I won't see us being lacking just one of those years when things like this can happen.