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A worrying trend?

Bullet said:
8 out of 22? Wow that is high, definitely worth optimising our delivery and runs. I know Eriksen is attempting 7 or 8 feet in height at the near post but attains anything from 2 to 9 feet. It isn't easy. If he can't narrow his inaccuracy band I would prefer his spread to be 7 to 16 feet if you see what I mean.
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As many will know, I have been banging on about corners for years. I even started a thread about it a couple of seasons back! I think our movement is now better from corners - we used to just bob up and down with no one making runs or attacking the ball. We just need Eriksen to up his delivery and I think we will score a lot more goals from corners.
 
Well in that case it should be Lamela.

He always beats the first man and gets a nice whip, bend and dip (sounds almost rude) on his corners
 
90291Spur said:
I read a tactical piece somewhere (I can't remember where I read it) talking about the amount of near post corners that hit the first man. It said that the best chance of scoring from a corner is from a relatively low, hard cross that JUST beats the first defender (as we have done at least twice this season). This increases the chance of such a corner being headed away - a risk attacking teams are willing to take - as when it comes off there is a good scoring chance and when it doesn't the attacking team tends to pick up the second ball.
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would have just hit Crouchie on his tits..:)
 
Christmas-Jumpers.jpg
 
Pirate55 said:
Last season was notable for the amount of late goals we scored. We convinced ourselves (at least I did) that this was as a result of our greater fitness and youthful exuberance. Kane and Eriksen in particular came up with late goals to turn draws into wins and defeats into draws, thus gaining us many points.

This season, the reverse seems to be true. We often look second best in the latter stages of games and have allowed teams to score late against us including Arsenal, West Brom, Leicester, Stoke and most recently Saudi Sportswashing Machine. we seem to run out of steam around 70 minutes and are often hanging on in games. This has robbed us of so many points. Kane and Eriksen have also failed to deliver in the latter stages of games so far as well. Any thoughts as to why this turnaround might have happened?

Also concerning is our lack of goals against our key opponents: United 0, Chelsea 0, Liverpool 0, Arsenal 1.
Only against a Emirates Marketing Project team having a defensive mare were we able to deliver.

Even against the second tier it's not much better: Leicester 1, Everton 0, Palace 1, WBA 1.

Underscores for me the desperate need to bring in a top quality CF as cover and competition for Kane.
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This was posted by me in January. Sadly, the trend has continued throughout the season and has ultimately cost us the title.

We conceded late goals against Arsnl ( home and away ) Leicester ( home and away) WBA and now Chelscum. This alone has cost us 12 points.

It would be interesting to know how many times we have turned draws in to wins in the last ten minutes this season. Not many to my recollection. And compare this to how many points we have dropped in the last ten minutes. This is where our problems have been.
 
Pirate55 said:
This was posted by me in January. Sadly, the trend has continued throughout the season and has ultimately cost us the title.

We conceded late goals against Arsnl ( home and away ) Leicester ( home and away) WBA and now Chelscum. This alone has cost us 12 points.

It would be interesting to know how many times we have turned draws in to wins in the last ten minutes this season. Not many to my recollection. And compare this to how many points we have dropped in the last ten minutes. This is where our problems have been.
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Yep we've not been good at seeing out results this season, we've not managed to deal with teams who give it a go. As long as we control the ball we look very composed, we just need to learn how to play when teams really get after us.

Interestingly if you go back to last season we won a number of games in the last 10 minutes.
 
Pirate55 said:
This was posted by me in January. Sadly, the trend has continued throughout the season and has ultimately cost us the title.

We conceded late goals against Arsnl ( home and away ) Leicester ( home and away) WBA and now Chelscum. This alone has cost us 12 points.

It would be interesting to know how many times we have turned draws in to wins in the last ten minutes this season. Not many to my recollection. And compare this to how many points we have dropped in the last ten minutes. This is where our problems have been.
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What was your standard for success/failure when you posted this?

Post date seems to be December 15th. Looking on statto.com the table at that time saw us in 5th on 26 points. 3 points behind United, 6 points behind City, 7 points behind Arsenal and 9 points behind Leicester.

On December 15th if presented with the scenario of the second half of the season seeing us in 2nd with two games remaining. Us needing 3 points from our last two games to secure a 2nd place finish, already being guaranteed a top 4 (just about top 3 too) finish and finishing ahead of City, United, Arsenal and City only to be beaten by freak of nature Leicester to the title. Would you have said "yeah, that would prove me right"?

Since your original post we've been the best team in the league. Not only in terms of football played (subjective), but in terms of points picked up. Was that what you were afraid of on December 15th? That we would pick up more points than any other team in the league, but just fall short at the end to win the title?

If so I have to say your expectations in December were somewhat high.
 
braineclipse said:
What was your standard for success/failure when you posted this?

Post date seems to be December 15th. Looking on statto.com the table at that time saw us in 5th on 26 points. 3 points behind United, 6 points behind City, 7 points behind Arsenal and 9 points behind Leicester.

On December 15th if presented with the scenario of the second half of the season seeing us in 2nd with two games remaining. Us needing 3 points from our last two games to secure a 2nd place finish, already being guaranteed a top 4 (just about top 3 too) finish and finishing ahead of City, United, Arsenal and City only to be beaten by freak of nature Leicester to the title. Would you have said "yeah, that would prove me right"?

Since your original post we've been the best team in the league. Not only in terms of football played (subjective), but in terms of points picked up. Was that what you were afraid of on December 15th? That we would pick up more points than any other team in the league, but just fall short at the end to win the title?

If so I have to say your expectations in December were somewhat high.
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You have completely missed my point. My concern, expressed back in December, was all about the last ten minutes of games. Not about any of the other points you raised. We have indeed exceeded expectations ( including mine) in all the other aspects you mentioned.

However we have consistently failed to prevent late goals and have rarely scored crucial winning goals in that period. It was a worrying trend I identified at the back end of last year and one that has sadly continued to be our Achilles heel, which has unfortunately ultimately cost us the title the rest of our play richly warranted.

We must fix this next season if we want success.
 
Pirate55 said:
You have completely missed my point. My concern, expressed back in December, was all about the last ten minutes of games. Not about any of the other points you raised. We have indeed exceeded expectations ( including mine) in all the other aspects you mentioned.

However we have consistently failed to prevent late goals and have rarely scored crucial winning goals in that period. It was a worrying trend I identified at the back end of last year and one that has sadly continued to be our Achilles heel, which has unfortunately ultimately cost us the title the rest of our play richly warranted.

We must fix this next season if we want success.
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There will always be something to point to. A season really isn't a huge sample size and if it's late goals conceded, hitting the post (remember that one from Liverpool) or something else that sticks out over a season it will often just be a coincidence thing.

Yeah we've let in a couple unfortunate late important goals. But at the same time we have been the most solid team this season. Doesn't seem like a worrying trend to me, more just a product of the kind of coincidences that stack up over a season.
 
braineclipse said:
There will always be something to point to. A season really isn't a huge sample size and if it's late goals conceded, hitting the post (remember that one from Liverpool) or something else that sticks out over a season it will often just be a coincidence thing.

Yeah we've let in a couple unfortunate late important goals. But at the same time we have been the most solid team this season. Doesn't seem like a worrying trend to me, more just a product of the kind of coincidences that stack up over a season.
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Sorry. I just don't agree. A season is in my opinion a large enough sample size. We have conceded too many late goals over the whole of the season for it to be mere coincidence.

Don't you agree that we have to fix this ( and score some late crucial goals ourselves) if we want to be successful next season?
 
Pirate55 said:
Sorry. I just don't agree. A season is in my opinion a large enough sample size. We have conceded too many late goals over the whole of the season for it to be mere coincidence.

Don't you agree that we have to fix this ( and score some late crucial goals ourselves) if we want to be successful next season?
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You're talking about a swing of what? A handful of incidences? 2-3 goals difference between what we've done and what you would find acceptable? 4-5 goals? I think that's very much withing the realms of variance.

I don't see this as a big problem that needs fixing. I think we will most likely improve on this just by good old regression to the mean.
 
braineclipse said:
You're talking about a swing of what? A handful of incidences? 2-3 goals difference between what we've done and what you would find acceptable? 4-5 goals? I think that's very much withing the realms of variance.

I don't see this as a big problem that needs fixing. I think we will most likely improve on this just by good old regression to the mean.
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But 4-5 goals which turn potential wins into draws means a loss of 8-10 points. That is indeed significant by anyone's standards. Relying on regression to mean only works if there is no serious underlying flaw. Are we flaked out in the last 10 minutes, do we lose concentration, do our training methods only work for 80 minutes?

We need to find the answer if we are to fix this problem.
 
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