Mightn't be a bad tactic to pull out of the bag near the end of a tight game when under pressure and clearing it out of defence.
Are corners really a good opportunity to score a goal?
- Thread starter Klopper76
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It'd be interesting to see the variation of corners as % of all goals for each team. It might not be much for Liverpool but I guess there are some teams pretty good at this, Southampton maybe with Ward Prowse corners?
I don't know how you calculated 1/50 success rate, calculating Van Dijk goals to all corners? Surely you either take all corner goals to all attempts or just narrow it down to those which were Van Dijk chances only?
We’ve had some great chances from corners in the last 10 or so games. The lads need to keep their headers down!
I vaguely remember in the Liverpool game at Anfield it seemed like Marrouane Fellaini was playing as almost a left winger in the first half, and I can see van Gaal instructing players to put the ball out as deep as possible for injury treatment as a tactical form of malicious compliance, but I don't remember anything notable on that front.
This. Pogba twice against Liverpool and McTominay soon after. Maguire against Fulham was a bad miss all things considered.
Depends I guess? I mean for the likes of bigger teams, it's good to be able to score from corners, but not essential. How many big goals have we seen United score down the years from corners/set plays? The value when it happens is huge, but like you said it's low percentage.
For the likes of Burnley, their main threat is from corners and set plays, so they probably spend more time on them. It's more important I think to be good at defending them instead of scoring them. There's nothing to give a smaller team encouragement than watching a scramble at the back from every corner/set piece.
Having said that, I think it's important to have a set piece maestro and to have that threat there, it gives something for the opposition to think about. Beckham is remembered for his deliveries, when you have someone that good (like TAA and Ward Prowse) then it can be an asset.
10 extra goals a season could win you the title. It's the small margins at the top that define success.
For the likes of Burnley, their main threat is from corners and set plays, so they probably spend more time on them. It's more important I think to be good at defending them instead of scoring them. There's nothing to give a smaller team encouragement than watching a scramble at the back from every corner/set piece.
Having said that, I think it's important to have a set piece maestro and to have that threat there, it gives something for the opposition to think about. Beckham is remembered for his deliveries, when you have someone that good (like TAA and Ward Prowse) then it can be an asset.
10 extra goals a season could win you the title. It's the small margins at the top that define success.
I was thinking the other day why is every corner the typical out-swinging, I would switch them up at least a few times to in-swinging...never do the same corner in a row! teams just lack any sort of creativity with them these days.
No, they aren't, not directly anyway. It's hard for attacking players to get enough space to get an open chance, even when they do get a good chance, there is usually a defender very close. One of Maguire's headers last week everyone was giving out to him for missing but on replay you can see the defender actually got a touch to the ball before him. Most of the time the ball is swung in with so much power it's impossible for an attacker to get a meaningful header without it going wrong. The second ball, a knock down or flick on, is probably a better opportunity. They introduce panic and disorganisation in the defence.
That's in addition to the fact that taking the perfect corner is really fecking hard. You need to send it in with enough speed that the defence can't easily adjust and clear it, which in turn makes it harder for an attacker to hit it on target. You need to hit it high enough to beat the initial defenders, but low enough so that it doesn't sail over everyone. Despite everyone hating them, you really are better off taking a short corner and hoping the defensive structure is broken and one of your attackers can get away from the defence and person marking him.
That's in addition to the fact that taking the perfect corner is really fecking hard. You need to send it in with enough speed that the defence can't easily adjust and clear it, which in turn makes it harder for an attacker to hit it on target. You need to hit it high enough to beat the initial defenders, but low enough so that it doesn't sail over everyone. Despite everyone hating them, you really are better off taking a short corner and hoping the defensive structure is broken and one of your attackers can get away from the defence and person marking him.
Well Van Dijk goes up for every single corner we have regardless of when it is in the game. He also played every single league game last season so I'd assume he went up for all 250ish that we had.
Only if some of your players are tall.
Jack Charlton's Ireland team would often play a bit like that, long balls up to Niall Quinn or Tony Cascarino in wider areas. The idea was to use the aerial advantage of tall strikers going up against smaller full backs, then have players nearby to feed off them or compete for second balls. One of the consequences of that would be throw ins for both sides as players were often challenging for the ball close to the touchline. I can't remember if they used to put pressure on opponents' throw ins or not, but what it did enable them to do was to slow the game down and take their time over their own throw ins when they won them.
Also seen the odd team try a kick off routine in the past where 2-3 players would sprint down the wing and the ball would be played up to them like wide receivers in American Football. Long-ball managers used to use the phrase 'playing the percentages' a lot and that's really what they were doing. Not much risk involved, and it's probably going to be a throw to either side, maybe a goal kick if overhit. If you're lucky it could be a corner, or you could establish possession if the oppo didn't switch on and you outnumbered them down there. It was managers like Bobby Gould and Dave Basset who used to have their teams do it.
Edit: That kick off thing is like the Sarri/Napoli example mentioned on here - https://totalfootballanalysis.com/s...actical-analysis-coaching-analysis-statistics The last one mentioned shows Marseille going a step further and actually booting it out on purpose so as to hem the other team in as you suggested.
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99% of the time the attacking team gets the ball after the corner is cleared, it's actually very tough for a dangerous counter to happen from a corner unless the team is already down and putting a lot of men forward.
Corners lead to goals, penalties, other crosses coming in, other corners, shots from outside of the box... teams keep possession in an attacking position a lot more often than not even if the corner is cleared. It's definitely a dangerous situation which is why all teams decide to cross the ball when they have so many analysts looking at this sort of thing. The only team I rememeber watching that barely crossed it during corners was Pep's Barca but that was a very specific situation.
Inter have won a load of points from corner kicks in the league this season for example, if you have someone that takes them decently and 4-5 aerial threats than you're guaranteed quite a few goals during a season.
Most of that sounds unlikely to me, but I can always be convinced. Would you have the stats to back your claims up?
No but I'm sure the clubs do and they keep doing it all over the world so corners must not be that bad
Nah, that's not an argument to me. Football is a fairly conservative game and clearly lots of managers (below the absolute top) are very poor with stats. If it must be true because it's done, no-one would ever have bothered with a throw-in coach - but it turned out there's a lot to be gained in that area.
I tried to look this up myself btw, but I get a forest of betting sites with basic corners stats, so can't find what I'm looking for.
Good stats.
For people who are arguing corners are not efficient and all that, just a simple question. So as per these stats Liverpool score 1 goal for every 20-22 corners. If that's inefficient, how efficient is scoring from through passes, crosses, short passes?
Surely the ratio is around same?
Surely team loses possession more than 20 times with short passes or crosses in the final third when they try to score?
Managers at the top clubs have a whole team of analysts for this sort of thing, I know that even in lower league clubs the analysis of set pieces is extremely detailed and I assume that at the biggest clubs in the world it's even better. There is way more detail in preparation for corners than there is for throw-ins too.
If I had to guess on average out of 100 corners, 2 or 3 lead directly to goals, 1 will result in a penalty and 70+ result in the attacking team keeping possession anyway. And if they lose possession they're doing it far away from their goal where it shouldn't be dangerous (goal kick or offensive foul). The defending team getting a chance to score from an opposition's corner is extremely rare in normal circumstances. The idea that it's better to play the corner short and keep possession normally instead of crossing it is just nonsensical unless you're Barcelona during the Guardiola era.
Besides, there are loads of teams who are fantastic at corners. Porto or Inter for example are incredible at it, not because they have much better strategies but simply because they have the players for it.
Thanks
I suppose it depends how you frame it. I too was saying it's not a good chance to score in my other post on the thread, but I was comparing it to a shot. For example here is an xG model that allows the user to play around with it. It's not the best xG model, it's rather basic, and it gives a rough idea. The chances of scoring from a corner are similar as a shot from quite some way out.
I also did some number crunching a couple of months back, putting an even more basic model together that determined around 3.4% of all shots from outside the area ended up in a goal on average from England, Spain and Italy in the last 10 years (top flight only). So again, the chance of scoring from a corner is about the same as a long range shot.
I've arguably skipped ahead there and perhaps it would be better to compare it to a an open play cross or through ball instead as you say.
While getting a corner might give you as much chance of scoring as having a dig from long-range, most corners don't result in any kind of attempt on goal for the attacking team. The times you do end up with a chance it's much bigger than those long-range pot shots. Of course, in open play an attempted through ball or cross doesn't always connect either so maybe comparing it to different passing scenarios would be more like for like as a comparison.
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Most certainly are against us, we are a joke at defending them
The question should be, how come those deep corners are so effective against United?
And the answer would be DDG.
Statistically you are more likely to score from a short corner than a whipped in cross corner.
The standard whipped in corner has to be perfect in order to gain a goal, a short corner offers a much better chance.
The standard whipped in corner has to be perfect in order to gain a goal, a short corner offers a much better chance.
Nice jinx here...
Yeah but the statistics don’t allow for a slab head.
gonna have to say 'yes'
Had to be! Been waiting for maguire to start knocking in a few for my FPLteam
That might be right, and I might be overestimating the counter-attack danger coming out of corners. I also agree that, if your team does have a couple of players that are great at crosses, then by all means, pumping the ball into the box is a fully justified tactic. But for everybody else, such a low scoring percentage does sound like something teams could improve on. Take that Leicester corner I posted on the first page: it's a simple variant that still leads to penetration into the box within seconds (so it's not recycling possession, which I agree is only useful if you have a peak-Barcelona kind of team), but in the form of a much better chance than a cross all the way from the corner looking for a header.
I bet Sergio Ramos thinks so.
I like Madrid's short corner routine that Kroos does all the time too which is very similar to the Leicester one. Here's a video
Madrid have scored a bunch of goals like that and teams still allow it to happen after many years of doing the same thing. That's how their penalty vs PSG happened in 2018 too that turned that tie around.
Probably more important at international level, pretty sure I read a stat while back that 60% of goals are scored from set pieces, England obviously bumped that percentage up at last world cup.
Yeah, great example! And I agree it's very similar: the corner taker is left with lots of space, so once the ball comes back to him, he has all the time in the world to pick out someone in the box for a pass into their feet for a great shooting chance.
So I think my point would be to have a couple of different routines like that, and then execute one depending on the opponent's set up. That could be really simple, just a few basic principles depending on what the opposition is doing. For example: if they stay far from the corner taker, a routine like the one in our examples; but if they start moving defenders towards the corner taker and the person he'd be passing with, then do some kind of cross, as there's now more space inside the box. I'm not a great tactician, so there is probably more to figure out there; but I hope the idea is clear (and reasonable
).Are there any statistics for this? I mean, you could also quite easily single out a opponent defender who's bad on the ball, isolate him and throw the ball to him. He can either clear him, giving you a high chance of controlled possession, or press him and win the ball in a good position.
Intended posssession losses have become quite a thing in the last 5 years or so.
I think on the defensive side, you need to look at how an offensive line blocks for their running back.
For their goal we made a static line in front of De Gea which means he cannot physically get to the ball when it’s at its apex inside the box, which is when the goalkeeper is at his advantage due to arm length.
In American Football the offensive line punches a hole for the running back to get through the line by creating a physical space and I feel that's what our defenders need to do otherwise DeGea will keep getting bullied to the ball. Yes NFL is different as you control where the football is, but the principle can still apply and we simply need to block for DeGea
We cannot just keep a static line in from of DeGea and expect him to be able to get through that and the attackers - we need to physically make space for him to get out of the 6-yard box and be able to catch the ball.
Edit this says it all: the ball has gone past 3 United defenders and is on a downward trajectory which mean it’s past the apex that is at a goalkeepers advantage AND he still has to get through 3 of our defenders and 1/2 SHU attackers, one of which is physically on DeGea with none of our lads blocking the Sheffield player:
For their goal we made a static line in front of De Gea which means he cannot physically get to the ball when it’s at its apex inside the box, which is when the goalkeeper is at his advantage due to arm length.
In American Football the offensive line punches a hole for the running back to get through the line by creating a physical space and I feel that's what our defenders need to do otherwise DeGea will keep getting bullied to the ball. Yes NFL is different as you control where the football is, but the principle can still apply and we simply need to block for DeGea
We cannot just keep a static line in from of DeGea and expect him to be able to get through that and the attackers - we need to physically make space for him to get out of the 6-yard box and be able to catch the ball.
Edit this says it all: the ball has gone past 3 United defenders and is on a downward trajectory which mean it’s past the apex that is at a goalkeepers advantage AND he still has to get through 3 of our defenders and 1/2 SHU attackers, one of which is physically on DeGea with none of our lads blocking the Sheffield player:
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If your opponents have David de Gea in goal then yes, they are.
Is that somewhere in Germany? It looks like it from the ad boards. I have sound turned off in case the commentator mentions it.
It looks cool, but I'm not sure what it achieves (in case you meant to discuss this at all
). I would think it'd make more sense to have them storming in from the other side of the box, so they can see the ball coming (they have to look back now to know where it is) and can attack it more naturally (they now have to stop and turn around to jump for the header). More generally though, I'm not sure it helps them get into good positions - although I suppose confusing the opponent is a good start to any situation.And it's fun for the audience!
Against us, absolutely. But in general no.
I would like to see, if they are available, stats that compare how teams in the top and bottom half of the table do with corner kicks. My sense is that the higher up the table a club is, the lower their percentage of goals scored off a corner kick is. Just a sense, maybe completely erroneous.
I would like to see, if they are available, stats that compare how teams in the top and bottom half of the table do with corner kicks. My sense is that the higher up the table a club is, the lower their percentage of goals scored off a corner kick is. Just a sense, maybe completely erroneous.
Maguire could be on double figures if he scored the amount of easy opportunities he got from corners. 
In real life, not really.
They were so deadly on the older FMs though, before they fixed it in later versions.
Remember having the likes of John Terry scoring over 20 league goals from setpieces
They were so deadly on the older FMs though, before they fixed it in later versions.
Remember having the likes of John Terry scoring over 20 league goals from setpieces
Individually they're not
However, teams usually get a few of those per game, and the advantage of it is offers the opportunity to bring 5-6 players in the box, which makes them harder to defend than most open play situations against a deep block
Iirc it was demonstrated that the most dangerous way to use them is to kick it short and then cross, since it forces the defence to move.
However, teams usually get a few of those per game, and the advantage of it is offers the opportunity to bring 5-6 players in the box, which makes them harder to defend than most open play situations against a deep block
Iirc it was demonstrated that the most dangerous way to use them is to kick it short and then cross, since it forces the defence to move.