Why Was That Goal Scored?

Geovanni for Hull City vs Wolves

2009-09-02T23:41:00.002+01:00

Time now to have a look at a pretty strange goal from Hull v Wolves. I've picked this one mostly in the hope that Alan Hansen will somehow stumble across all this, whereupon the quality of "defending" on show will hopefully give him a coronary. It's a funny one - at first glance, no idea what's happened except that there's three defenders and the ball all in the back of the net, so I thought it might be an idea to work out how they all got there. Then I looked at it while paying attention and it looked like a clear-cut case of someone wandering in unmarked from an unexpected angle, but then I watched it again and no, it's weirder than that.

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It's the first action shown there, no need to skip anywhere unless you object to Gary Lineker's links. We'll pick it up after Wolves have had a couple of goes at clearing the danger and failed both times (so don't worry, United fans, at least you're not the only team with early problems here). I've marked Geovanni. At the moment, he's unmarked, and at the moment it looks like he's hanging around, hoping for a knock-down or a poor clearance to fall to him.

The ball gets moved back and recycled, and you'll see Milijas notice Geovanni and signal that somebody should take care of him...and they do.

That's Matthew Jarvis in this shot who's moved off the wing to cover. That's good!

Unfortunately, Jarvis is primarily an attacking threat, and we can see here that Geovanni's lost him somewhat by going round the back. However, he is still goalside of his man and can at least make things difficult for him...

...except now, fate intervenes. As Jarvis follows Geovanni's run, he collides with the fullback, Elokobi (who is completely unaware of what's going on behind him and has been caught ball-watching). I'd love to know if it really was an accident or if Geovanni somehow managed to run Jarvis into his team-mate.

At any rate, Jarvis is now too far behind Geovanni to do anything, and while Elokobi is much taller than either of them, he's been put off balance and can't stop Geovanni getting in front of him as well. The cross is now on its way, and Wayne Hennessey in goal makes a complete pig's ear of it. I think he may have been expecting the ball driven low to the near post - either way, he flaps pitifully at it, misses completely, and the ball drops neatly onto Geovanni's head.

I don't think that what happened next requires much explaining. Everyone point and laugh at the defenders now.

And that is how that goal was scored.

Next up, I try to think of something to do for next week, and Steven Gerrard demonstrates the power of the quick short corner.

Andrei Arshavin for Arsenal vs Manchester United

2009-09-01T21:13:00.007+01:00

With the other two goals in this match being a penalty and an own goal, it’s perhaps not surprising that I’ve chosen the first one to have a closer look. Before that, there’s a couple of things that I’d like to mention quickly:

1). Kudos to Sky – before Rooney took the penalty, they showed an interesting diagram, telling us where his recent penalties had been placed, and all of them to the goalkeeper’s right. Almunia obviously knew this and dived right, but Rooney also knew and went the other way. That’s good work - it told you something you didn’t know, and helped you understand why things happened the way they did.

2). About the own goal: don’t blame Diaby. Goalkeeper’s ball all the way, and because he didn’t come for it, Diaby was forced into a difficult header and made a mistake.

Right, time to go into detail on the opening goal. I think that United might just have a very serious problem here, one that’s already cost them two goals, three points, and if they don’t do something about it, will go on to cost them far more over the course of the season.

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Skip ahead to 3:57, and we'll pick it up a long way before the goal, with van Persie being challenged in the area and losing out. Evra picks up the loose ball and strolls up the wing a way. He's under no pressure, yet he decides to play a speculative 30-yard ball, aiming for Rooney's head. Arsenal are a short team, but not that short, they win the header, and get possession back.

Look at the area of the field - Rooney's well in his own half, moving away from goal, competing against a midfielder. I can understand taking a risk on that ball if you think you can put your striker through and clear, but Evra's clearly not doing that. Maybe the adrenaline's pumping a bit and he's overly concerned about clearing the lines, but what he needs to do is just think a bit, put his foot on the ball, and at least give his fellow defenders time to catch their breath before he kicks it long.

Anyway, he hasn't done that, and Arsenal have possession back. Clichy gets the ball under control, looks up, and slides it forward to Denilson, who picks it up in midfield and makes a dangerous run. He draws his man and then slides it wide for Sagna on the overlap. You can just see the top of Arshavin's head as he heads for daylight in the penalty area, completely unmarked.

Sagna takes it forward and looks up, with time to measure a cross. What he sees is, frankly, a complete and total shambles. You've got three men all within touching distance, and you could believe that they've not moved since van Persie was tackled, all doing absolutely nothing useful. There's van Persie and Eboue in the middle, who are at least attracting some sort of attention, and then Arshavin at the back post, who couldn't have been more alone if he were Colonel Gaddaffi at a Lockerbie memorial service. Meanwhile, Fletcher has realised the danger and is desperately scrambling back.

Sagna aims for the mess in the middle, but the ball misses everyone and comes right through towards Arshavin...

The ball appears now to be dropping perfectly onto Arshavin's right peg, he's got the whole goal to aim at, surely the thing to do here is pick a spot and volley it first-time? He elects to control it, doesn't do the best job in the world, and gives Fletcher the time to do something.

If you've read my piece on Adebayor's goal for City against Wolves, you'll remember how I talked about Ward deciding not to dive in with a shit-or-bust challenge on Tevez shortly before the goal. Well, this is what happens when you do dive in like that...

Was it a penalty? Well, that's not relevant to the point I'm trying to make, so we won't go into that or we'll be here all night. At any rate, Fletcher's won the ball, he gets up, clogs it clear, job's a good 'un, now let's start debating whether it was a pen or not? Except it's a terrible scuffed clearance, and it goes straight to Song.

I'll just take this opportunity to apologise for the blurry screenshot and remind everyone that this is not a professional operation.

Right, so Song feeds Diaby and he takes it down the wing to cross. Meanwhile, Arshavin is doing a Robbie Blake and has completely escaped all attention by standing up and strolling casually backwards about 10 yards.

It's a poor cross...but the header comes straight back to Diaby. Have a look at the top of the screen, as well. United still don't have anything approaching a defensive shape back. 4 defenders apparently covering 2 attackers isn't good maths. What are they doing? They just look like they're out for an evening stroll down to the pub.

Diaby turns and plays it back into midfield, it's knocked around a bit more, the strollers reach the pub, and Arshavin just keeps wandering out, looking for the ball. Eventually he gets it, turns round casually, and finds that he's just been gifted about 10 yards of space.

It's Vidic (cleverly mis-labeled as Evra, sorry) who draws the short straw now. He's in the Ward position - if he charges blindly at Arshavin, the Arsenal man will just slip a ball in behind him and into acres of space, so he holds position and lets Arshavin make the mistake. He even sees Arshavin getting a sniff of goal, so he's moved across to his left to cut off the obvious shot, the Bergkamp-style curler into the far top corner...

...except Arshavin's put it near post instead, and I'm afraid to say that I think Ben Foster's got his angles badly, badly wrong. There's a dangerous winger who's coming up one of the channels at him, and the stripes on the pitch tell us that Foster is almost in the middle of his goal. We can get an idea from the main camera just how much of the goal this leaves Arshavin to aim at, and does he ever let rip. You'll see how Foster gets both hands to the shot, but can't keep it out - this is at least partly because he's had to scramble across so far, because a goalkeeper's wrists get weaker the further he has to dive in any direction. Another couple of yards to his right and it's a stinging but easy save. If you go back and have a look at the Blake goal again, where does Foster get beaten? Near post again. There is no way you can spin that to make it good - that's a fundamental flaw for any goalkeeper.

Now, on a wider point - the other thing you'll notice if you look at the Blake goal is the general sense of disarray in United's defending. Again, they've had multiple attempts at clearing the ball and/or having a spell of possession to ease the tension and the pressure, and they've not succeeded, nor have they been able to get their shape back under that pressure, they've just fallen apart. That just won't do, especially not in Europe, where teams thrive on sustained periods of possession. United will have to find a way to sort this out, and quickly, because they won't win a damn thing defending like that.

And that is why that goal was scored.

Still to come this week - I prove I'm not obsessed with the quote Big Four unquote by looking at Geovanni's goal from Wolves-Hull, and Gerrard and Liverpool demonstrate once again the dangers of the quick short corner.

Interesting Grauniad article about the diamond

2009-08-25T23:57:00.000+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/aug/25/the-question-diamond-tactics-jonathan-wilson

Good stuff from Jonathan Wilson. This is a good series in general and deserves a wider audience.

Emmanuel Adebayor for Manchester City v Wolves

2009-08-24T10:30:00.001+01:00

Adebayor's big-money move from Arsenal was such big news that some people may have forgotten how lazy and frequently caught offside he'd become by the end of his stint with the Arse. However, if nothing else, City fans will be hoping that he's going to be out to prove that he's worth the money. You can't argue with two goals in two matches to start things off, so let's take a look at what proved to be the only goal of the match.

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Skip ahead to 1:15, and do please try not to vomit. We'll pick it up as Wayne Bridge moves the ball out wide to Robinho on the right. What you can't see, but which will become obvious soon, is that Bridge has made youth coaches up and down the country very happy by passing the ball and then moving to follow his pass. There's a reason they made you do that drill, you know, it's so that you could instinctually do what Bridge does here.

Part of Wolves's gameplan was to neutralize the obvious danger posed by Robinho by playing two strong defensive players (Halford and Stearman) on the right and having them double up on him. However, the obvious downside is that it leaves a big fat hole behind them. Wolves would probably argue that they'd rather anyone else have possession and space back there rather than Robinho have it further up the pitch. Robinho tries a few fancy moves and then, denied space, lays it off for Bridge.

Bridge doesn't waste time and whips in a dangerous cross, first-time towards the penalty spot, aiming for Gareth Barry, who's making a dangerous run from deep. At this point, the danger man is clearly Barry, although someone (and I apologise wholeheartedly to both Wolves fans and to whoever he is, but I can't work out who it is) has picked him up and is moving to cover. Adebayor is being marked tightly by Mancienne and Tevez is wide enough that Ward has gone tight to provide extra cover in the middle, on the assumption that he's not an immediate threat, and if the ball does go to Tevez he can read it and push out to pressure him. This is a very strong defensive situation and you'd expect Wolves to deal with it.

Unfortunately, they then fall victim to misfortune. Nameless guy (again: sorry, if anyone knows who he is please leave a comment) continues tracking Barry and makes a brilliant, superhuman effort to deny him. Unfortunately, he's completely unable to direct his header, which heads for Tevez. He reacts first and moves towards it.

What started out as a strong situation has now gone completely to pot. First, the ball's reached Tevez sooner than expected, and the header in the middle has frozen Ward. He's now unable to reach Tevez in time to pressure him as soon as he recieves the ball. He's got two options, and they both suck. The first one is to dive in with a shit-or-bust challenge. However, Tevez is a good enough player that it's extremely likely that he'll either dance round it or get fouled and win a penalty. Ward sensibly plays the percentages and gives Tevez a chance to fuck it up. Unfortunately (again), Adebayor has seen the space that's now appeared in behind Ward and drifts into it. Even now, the situation would still be rescuable, except that Mancienne was drawn inside towards Barry's run (and had nameless guy not made his brilliant effort, it would have been the right decision), and while he isn't unmarked, Adebayor now has enough space to go to work.

Tevez slides it perfectly past Ward. That is an extremely hard ball to play - he's got to knock it far enough that Ward can't deal with it, but not so hard or far wide that Adebayor can't get round it to shoot. Mancienne is desperately trying to make up his lost ground, but he's too far away by the very narrowest of margins.

With the rest of the defence now reduced to a witless offside appeal (I can understand it when you've pushed out, but from the guys who are stationary and playing him on? Desperation city, population 2), Adebayor pulls the trigger.

One final question. Wayne Hennessey had an excellent match, but did he get his angles wrong here? Adebayor can see a lot of the goal inside the near post, and goalkeepers are always annoyed to let one in at the near post. Having said that, let's not take anything away from Adebayor: he's come up with an absolutely top-rate finish to find the gap, first-time, on the turn, with that much power and control. That's exactly what City paid for.

In summary, Wolves did pretty much everything right in defending that, but were undone by the bounce of the ball. However, this does hearken back to what I was saying about Arsenal against Celtic. City were in a strong attacking position, which enabled them to capitalise on their good fortune. You make your own luck, and they did.

And that's why that goal was scored.

Interesting Chelsea corner

2009-08-21T00:26:00.005+01:00

I watched the Chelsea-Hull match on opening day. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of short corners. By and large, I think they're a complete waste of time. I can't remember the last time before this season when I saw a short corner come to anything useful (except time-wasting at the end). You know, the two players stand on the corner for 30 seconds with their thumbs up their butts, then they point and moan that the defenders are encroaching, then they finally take the corner and it gets headed clear. Every single time.

Well, Chelsea have found a short corner variant that actually works. I'm pretty sure this is by accident, not design, but very interesting nonetheless. They did run several other short corners during the match, all slower and all failing miserably. You're looking at the action that begins from 2:20 with Chelsea bearing down on goal...

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Right, let's go through that and see what happened. In this first shot, the corner has just been taken. The key is that it's taken quickly and before Hull have had a chance to mark up, which is at least partly because, as we can see, the Chelsea centre-halves haven't arrived in the penalty area yet.

The ball is now with Drogba and Carvalho can see what's on. He's appealing frantically as he charges into the box. The only piece of marking going on is that one midfielder has sort of half-noticed Terry going past him and followed, but everyone else has been taken completely by surprise and is now ball-watching. Look at all that space!

However, Drogba doesn't see Carvalho. Instead, he crosses it to the back post for Essien, who's taken a bad angle. I reckon he doesn't know what's been going on behind him and just assumes that there are players there, because surely the better thing would have been to drop off early, and then he could have had a better angle on the ball as it drops.

Instead, he's left with a difficult header and it goes wide. Now, if you imagine him moving sideways instead of forwards after the corner so that he ends up attacking the ball from a similar position to the one Carvalho is in by the time of this fourth image, I reckon he's going to put it in.

In any case, this is still an excellent tactic they've hit on. It seems to me that it would be particularly effective in the Champions League, where the multiball system ensures that you'll have a ball right there almost immediately after the old one crosses the goal line and you don't have to rely on a favourable bounce.

If anyone sees this short corner being used again, let me know. I'd very much like to know if it was accident or design.

Gary Caldwell own goal for Arsenal away to Celtic

2009-08-20T23:24:00.005+01:00

It's probably not the most controversial thing in the world to mention that Arsenal have had problems over the last six years or so with goalscoring, and particularly with getting enough men in the middle. We've all seen how they launch an attack down the wing, a dangerous cross comes scything in, and it's either easily cleared or goes right through and out the other side because there's at most one red shirt trying to compete with two or three defenders, right?

The annoying thing about this is that it's the kind of thing that doesn't usually make it to highlight videos. It often doesn't result in an attempt on goal, so there's no reason why anyone should include it if they're squeezed for time, and there were a few killer examples in the Celtic match before Arsenal went 2-0 up. I could really use one, because I'd like to be able to contrast their usual play with what I'm about to talk about.

I've heard it said that both Arsenal's goals in that match were lucky. Which is true, to an extent. However, I also believe very much that you make your own luck. If you play well and get into good positions, then good things will happen sooner or later, and Arsenal's second goal is a very good example of this.

We pick it up as Diaby beats Hinkel. The critical point in this move is right here, and it's what's happening off the ball - there are five Arsenal players in the Celtic half and all of them move to join the attack, which pays off quickly.

Arsenal now have a five-on-three advantage, and those are always good odds. Clichy pushes up to create the overlap and Diaby plays it to him.

Now, if it's only Diaby, Clichy and van Persie involved in the attack, all that needs to happen is for the three defenders to slide across and Caldwell can get wide to make the cross difficult at the very least. They can't, because if they overcommit to their right they're going to leave a man unmarked on their left.

That's the situation just before the cross; here it is just after it leaves Clichy's foot.

This is a strong, balanced position. He can drill it low across the six-yard box with two targets to aim at, or pull it back towards the penalty spot. He drills it low...

...and Caldwell has no option but to play it because Bendtner is goalside of his man and waiting to slot it home, and we all know what happened next. Arsenal got into a very strong attacking position and it paid dividends for them.

And that's why that goal was scored.

Robbie Blake for Burnley vs Manchester United

2009-08-20T14:18:00.006+01:00

The goal everyone's talking about right now is undoubtedly Robbie Blake's thunderbolt for Burnley against Manchester United, so I think it's the perfect time to ask for the first time: why was that goal scored?

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Skip ahead to about 3:05. We join the action as Carrick puts in a good tackle on Robbie Blake.

The ball goes out wide and Burnley keep hold of it. Blake gets up and jogs back onside, behind Carrick, in the direction of the red arrow.

Another cross comes in. United have decent numbers and clear it, but Burnley again get possession back. As the ball is headed away, Blake (marked in red, nearly out of frame) is loitering on the edge of the box, still positioned just behind Carrick, but has now gone outside him rather than inside.

Apologies for the blurry screencap. This ain't a professional operation. Blake then disappears from shot as the ball goes out to the left wing, but basically holds his position while Carrick drifts out and infield ten yards like a tit in a trance.

Here's the situation as the cross is delivered. The two centre-halves have marked up and head towards the six-yard box with their men. Carrick gets stuck ball-watching and drifts idly after them. Evra is forced to go with Paterson as he makes a great run round the back, and Blake strolls into the space that Evra vacates. This is what makes me think that Carrick is ball-watching and has forgotten Blake - if he knows Blake is there, surely he drops sideways to mark him? He doesn't.

We can see this situation develop now as the ball approaches Paterson at the back post. Evra is put under pressure and is forced into a mistake with his header.

The ball drops nicely for Blake. It's only now that Carrick realises the danger and starts to scramble across...

...but he's too late, and Blake is able to have a free volley from twelve yards. The main camera angle gives us a nice look at just how much of the goal he was able to see.

I think we all know what happened next.

And that is why that goal was scored.

The Manifesto

2009-08-20T13:37:00.002+01:00

Ever got frustrated with commentators or pundits whose analysis of a cracking goal boils down to "well, the lad's got good vision, he picks his mate out, he's beaten the offside trap, and the keeper's really got no chance there". It winds me right up. I can see that! You're supposed to be telling me things that I don't know!

Why was the player who provided the through ball allowed enough time to measure the pass? Why was the striker free enough to get on the end of it?
Should the defenders have done better?
Why was that goal actually scored?

Questions that, on the television, go unanswered all too often. Therefore, I've decided to do their jobs for them. I'll take a recent goal and explain exactly why it was scored, without telling you anything that a slightly dim chimpanzee (or Julian Dicks) could have picked up the first time he saw it.

From time to time I'll also branch out into other bits and pieces that commentators have missed and I think are worth pointing out. I'll also flag up any instances of commentators or pundits being particularly un-insightful. However, I'll try never to forget my roots, and my roots are: goals! goals! goals!

Why was that goal scored? Let's find out.