Rangers Report - Out for a corner

[ian1964 10,367]

Out for a corner is a new series of posts that shares the statistical results of corners taken by Rangers.

 

The following data comes from tracking each of Rangers corners. There will undoubtably be a margin of error when it pertains to measuring how much time Rangers have the ball in the final third after the corner is taken.

 

When Rangers scored two goals from short corners last week, it felt like a moment of affirmation for those among the supporters who have embraced the team’s ‘new-age’ approach to the set piece. Of course, there are still the masses that want Rangers to lob in a steady supply of crosses into the box, hoping for the next Mark Hateley to ascend through the mass of humanity to head in a thunderous goal.

 

http://therangersreport.com/2016/01/23/out-for-a-corner-a-statistical-examination-of-rangers-approach-to-corner-kicks/

[Tannochsidebear 2,304]

I think if this report had come out two months ago it would have been a very different set of results. We have mixed it up a lot more in recent weeks and we look more threatening as a result.

 

I don't need a stato overload to tell me that, I just watch the games.

[forlanssister 3,050]

Of a similar ilk.....

 

 

The death of crossing: why teams all now want to get the ball to ‘Zone 14’ instead

 

Rory Smith

Last updated at 12:01AM, January 23 2016

 

Rory Smith analyses a huge shift in Premier League tactics, which threatens a skill that once defined our game

 

Sir Alex Ferguson was unequivocal. Certain things, the Scot always felt, were non-negotiable. “We like wingers at Manchester United, and we always have,” he once said. It was a proud tradition, and one he did his utmost to maintain. Over the course of his reign, from Kanchelskis to Ronaldo by way of Giggs and Beckham, he produced teams illuminated by dazzling wide players.

 

That has all changed now, and not only at Old Trafford. Across the English game, what one of the beneficiaries of Ferguson’s tastes, Dwight Yorke, describes as the “classic style of football” is fading from view. Width has gone out of fashion, replaced by an obsession with possession, lone strikers and inverted wingers. With it has gone a defining feature of the English game. The art of crossing, it seems, is dying.

 

According to figures provided to The Times by Opta, there has been a staggering decline in the number of crosses in the Barclays Premier League in the last decade and a half. In the 2003-04 campaign, an average match produced not far off 42 crosses. So far this season, that figure has slipped to 29 — a reduction of a third in little more than 10 years. That is coupled with an even more marked drop in just how effective crossing is. In 2003, roughly a third of crosses found their target. This season, only a fifth of balls played in from wide areas have picked out a team-mate.

 

Nowhere is that more notable than at Manchester City. Despite spending almost £100 million on Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne, only 13 per cent of Manuel Pellegrini’s side’s crosses so far this year have been successful. No team in the Premier League have been more profligate in their delivery, and yet they keep trying. Only Southampton and Crystal Palace cross more often than City.

 

“If you’re a full back, when you get into a wide area, you’re looking to see your striker and maybe one of your midfield players in the box,” says Andy Hinchcliffe, who found himself in such a situation thousands of times for City, Everton and England. “But what if that striker is Sergio Agüero and the midfielder is David Silva, and they’re surrounded? You know crossing will not be effective. So you check back in, play a pass, conserve possession.”

 

There is no question, in the minds of those who know the subject, that the profile of centre forwards has changed in recent years. As Hinchcliffe notes, there are few of the old bulldozers left, replaced by craftier, more gifted — but substantially smaller — strikers. It is an assessment supported by Les Ferdinand, as fine a header of the ball as English football has seen in the past 30 years and now director of football at Queens Park Rangers.

 

“Every forward that comes to me now is a No 10,” he says. “That is how they see themselves. They are not No 9s who want to head the ball. Most teams play with one up front and three rotating behind them; the forwards are not trying to win headers and the players behind them are not looking to cross the ball.” Indeed, instead of seeking to reach the byline — as Ryan Giggs might have done — or attempting to whip a ball in from deep, like David Beckham, players are now largely instructed to cut back inside. “In a lot of the coaching literature, the focus is on what they call Zone 14,” explains James Scowcroft, the former Ipswich Town forward now coaching at the club’s academy and studying for his Uefa A Licence.

 

“It’s the part of the pitch about as wide as the six-yard box, around 25 or 30 yards out from goal. A lot of studies have been done to show that is where most goals come from, where through-balls are most likely to be successful. Players are encouraged to get into those positions and wait for an opportunity. That is seen as much more effective than crossing.”

 

Hinchcliffe’s instinct is the same. “Crossing is gambling with possession,” he says. “A lot of coaches, inspired by Barcelona, don’t want to give the ball away. There is a risk-free approach; you don’t want to lose the ball and find yourself exposed, with your full backs high up the pitch, to a counterattack. So you play inverted wingers, whose first touch brings them inside, and everything is focused through the middle.”

 

This is a shift from the way that generation of players were taught to play. “As a kid, I was told to get five crosses in per half, ten a game,” says Kevin Kilbane, formerly of Everton. “That was your job as a winger. That was the primary thing you were judged on. I’m not sure that’s the case now. Players are encouraged to be what they used to call inside, not outside, forwards.”

 

There is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy about all this. Statistics do show that games with more crosses from open play tend to have fewer goals; one study suggested only one out of every 91 crosses leads to a goal.

 

Teams have interpreted that to mean it is not a reliable method of scoring; they play with only one striker in systems that seem designed to prove how ineffective crossing has become. Far better, they feel, to keep the ball, to wait for the perfect opportunity to score, to consign that classic style to history.

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/article4672267.ece

[Bearman 9]

When I was a young lad following the Rangers, I was always informed by my fellow bears on the terracing that 'crossing' was an evil and never to be accepted by any manner of means. Davy Wilson and Willie Henderson never ever listened and just kept doing it. It filled me with joy when the cross resulted in a goal for us...I'd stick my fingers up to the opposition at the other end in jubilation.

Later I found out what the guys on the terracing really meant. They were right behind Wilson and Henderson though, and so was I.

[Frankie 8,102]

I really enjoy the Rangers Report stats and while obviously such stuff doesn't tell the full story, it's fascinating how football changes over the years.

 

For me, the most pleasing aspect of this season is that not only has our team/manager been able to adapt, we're still playing the kind of football that's enjoyable and exciting to watch.

 

It's going to be really interesting to see how this works if/when we're promoted.

[Bruno55 0]

When I was a young lad following the Rangers, I was always informed by my fellow bears on the terracing that 'crossing' was an evil and never to be accepted by any manner of means. Davy Wilson and Willie Henderson never ever listened and just kept doing it. It filled me with joy when the cross resulted in a goal for us...I'd stick my fingers up to the opposition at the other end in jubilation.

Later I found out what the guys on the terracing really meant. They were right behind Wilson and Henderson though, and so was I.

 

I wonder how many goals big DJ scored from a Tommy McLean cross?...

[calscot 0]

I think one of our problems with the "zone 14" stuff in our style is that we don't have players with strong shots. I think Oduwa hardly scored because his shots were about as power puff as you can get - even when he managed to get it on target, but others don't seem to have a daizy cutter in them either and we tend to score from just outside the box when a shot is very well placed - but there are plenty of shots saved which look good, but seem to lack pace. Maybe we need Albertz back as a shooting coach...

[Bruno55 0]

I think one of our problems with the "zone 14" stuff in our style is that we don't have players with strong shots. I think Oduwa hardly scored because his shots were about as power puff as you can get - even when he managed to get it on target, but others don't seem to have a daizy cutter in them either and we tend to score from just outside the box when a shot is very well placed - but there are plenty of shots saved which look good, but seem to lack pace. Maybe we need Albertz back as a shooting coach...

 

Poor Nathan still getting it even tho he's been gone two weeks lol...

[jhunter 0]

Surely you need to be able to mix it up though

 

playing the same way all the time just leads to predictability/boredom.

 

The site of a winger skinning a full back and getting the defending team turned is one of football's joys

 

Laudrup, cooper, walters

 

Some of our most abiding memories are of watcfhing them entertain wide and crossing.

[craig 5,195]

Surely you need to be able to mix it up though

 

playing the same way all the time just leads to predictability/boredom.

 

The site of a winger skinning a full back and getting the defending team turned is one of football's joys

Laudrup, cooper, walters

 

Some of our most abiding memories are of watcfhing them entertain wide and crossing.

 

You can still do that without crossing the ball.... Just watch McKay when he is on form.

 

Skins the full back, beats him for pace, has the CB's scrambling.... but rarely actually crosses the ball. Looks for the cutback far more often.

 

Predictability/boredom I'm not sure of..... Barca seem to play pretty much the same way and I don't get bored watching them and they rarely suffer poor results due to predicatibility