Liverpool FC Forum

by **andy_g** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:03 am

to be honest i've seen us play a lot less short corners recently. maybe its to do with gerrard's new found confidence about clearing the first defender. seriously though, we are not a good set piece team - either scoring them or defending them. there are the obvious exceptions such as agger's goal against chelsea this time last year and hyypia's against arsenal this time - but they really are exceptions. i rarely get excited when we have a corner or a free kick.

by **Number 9** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:07 am

andy_g wrote:to be honest i've seen us play a lot less short corners recently. maybe its to do with gerrard's new found confidence about clearing the first defender. seriously though, we are not a good set piece team - either scoring them or defending them. there are the obvious exceptions such as agger's goal against chelsea this time last year and hyypia's against arsenal this time - but they really are exceptions. i rarely get excited when we have a corner or a free kick.

Gerrard always had a problem clearing the first man,as you've said though not as much lately.
It drives me mad when we dont put the ball in the box!

by **woof woof !** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:39 am

Never understood why Gerrard is taking the corners in the first place, our top goal scorer after Torres, I'd rather see him standing in the D ready to lash in anything that drops to him. Surely Alonso, Lucas and Pennant are capable of delivering a decent corner kick ? .

by **bigmick** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:52 am

woof woof ! wrote:Never understood why Gerrard is taking the corners in the first place, our top goal scorer after Torres, I'd rather see him standing in the D ready to lash in anything that drops to him. Surely Alonso, Lucas and Pennant are capable of delivering a decent corner kick ? .

Too true Woof and Gerrard happens to be an excellent header of the ball as well. Total waste in my view having him take them.

On the question of "conversion rates" from corners, ours is pretty low but so is everybody elses. Corners rev the fans up but are not too difficult to defend against if done properly and in actual fact, not that many goals come as a direct result of them. Free kicks from the corners of the box are an entirely different matter, and it might be more of an idea to check the stats on those. My suspicion FWIW is that we probably hold our own on the scoring stakes, but this season at least have conceded from them a bit too often for comfort.

by **Thinkpad** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:43 pm

woof woof ! wrote:Never understood why Gerrard is taking the corners in the first place, our top goal scorer after Torres, I'd rather see him standing in the D ready to lash in anything that drops to him. Surely Alonso, Lucas and Pennant are capable of delivering a decent corner kick ? .

My thoughts exactly too.. Why is SG taking the corners?
I believe we should pay more attention to corners so it can be an advantage rather than a proposition similar to a throw in. Even now, the long ball throw-in has lessen considerably. Not too sure why, such throw in does offer an alternative attack play but now it seems the idea is not to attack too soon.

by **Thinkpad** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:49 pm

Number 9 wrote:In my opinion we play the short corner too much rather than just whooping the ball into the box!Too many times we play it short we get closed down quickly and the ball ends up going back up the pitch,its a set piece wasted.

I dont know what or conversion rate is!
But i know one thing for sure we have conceeded a lot more from corners than we convert,especially this season and its something that needs addressed and worked at!

You brought a good question, if we concede a goal in a lot more corners than we can get. Then something need to be corrected ASAP. If other teams can score from a corner, why can't we? At least attempt to be threatening when we take the corner. Now other teams will just shrug it off as another "throw in" as we sucks at corner (opponents will let their strikers stay up to counter attack asap)... to our disadvantage.

by **Thinkpad** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:56 pm

bigmick wrote:
woof woof ! wrote:Never understood why Gerrard is taking the corners in the first place, our top goal scorer after Torres, I'd rather see him standing in the D ready to lash in anything that drops to him. Surely Alonso, Lucas and Pennant are capable of delivering a decent corner kick ? .

Too true Woof and Gerrard happens to be an excellent header of the ball as well. Total waste in my view having him take them.

On the question of "conversion rates" from corners, ours is pretty low but so is everybody elses. Corners rev the fans up but are not too difficult to defend against if done properly and in actual fact, not that many goals come as a direct result of them. Free kicks from the corners of the box are an entirely different matter, and it might be more of an idea to check the stats on those. My suspicion FWIW is that we probably hold our own on the scoring stakes, but this season at least have conceded from them a bit too often for comfort.

Hmm .. you are right to a certain extend. Not many goals come from corners. But our conversion I think is one of the lowest. Maybe we should also include shot on target from corners. I think we are basically at the bottom with these two criteria. Not too sure you understand where I come from, I find our corner not threatening enough to be taken seriously. It will be to our disadvantage.

Why I say this.. If we take a corner against Chelsea more ofthen than not, there will be nothing at the end of it. But if they left Drogba and maybe Kalou up front then we are really risking it. So the corner offers no advantage to us which is sad.. It should be but it is not. Not too sure I manage to explain this enough.

by **Number 9** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:04 pm

Thinkpad wrote:
Number 9 wrote:In my opinion we play the short corner too much rather than just whooping the ball into the box!Too many times we play it short we get closed down quickly and the ball ends up going back up the pitch,its a set piece wasted.

I dont know what or conversion rate is!
But i know one thing for sure we have conceeded a lot more from corners than we convert,especially this season and its something that needs addressed and worked at!

You brought a good question, if we concede a goal in a lot more corners than we can get. Then something need to be corrected ASAP. If other teams can score from a corner, why can't we? At least attempt to be threatening when we take the corner. Now other teams will just shrug it off as another "throw in" as we sucks at corner (opponents will let their strikers stay up to counter attack asap)... to our disadvantage.

I dont really know what it is maybe its lack of confidence in Reina coming through players for the ball!
One things for sure though,every time we conceed a corner lately im squeezing my ar.se cheeks together 10 times harder than i did in previous seasons!I can barely watch.

by **SundanceKid** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:16 am

A bit irrelevant, but I made a post about all the goals scored on Chelsea this season. I think it was just about 23/35 were made from a ball that was in one way or another sent through the air. Crosses, Corners, free kick deliveries, or just high through passes. Chelsea has a hard time defending those.

by **Owzat** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 7:40 am

bigmick wrote:
woof woof ! wrote:Never understood why Gerrard is taking the corners in the first place, our top goal scorer after Torres, I'd rather see him standing in the D ready to lash in anything that drops to him. Surely Alonso, Lucas and Pennant are capable of delivering a decent corner kick ? .

Too true Woof and Gerrard happens to be an excellent header of the ball as well. Total waste in my view having him take them.

On the question of "conversion rates" from corners, ours is pretty low but so is everybody elses. Corners rev the fans up but are not too difficult to defend against if done properly and in actual fact, not that many goals come as a direct result of them. Free kicks from the corners of the box are an entirely different matter, and it might be more of an idea to check the stats on those. My suspicion FWIW is that we probably hold our own on the scoring stakes, but this season at least have conceded from them a bit too often for comfort.

It's one reason I don't like Beckham in the England team, he takes far too many/all of the set-pieces and it becomes predictable, he's not as good as he (and some) thinks and his conversion rate isn't great.

I think one reason we don't convert many is a lack of good headers of the ball, Carra goes up a lot but rarely scores, Hyypia is our best header I reckon and others are ok. The problem is with so many bodies back for corners and free-kicks that unless it is a direct shot on target there are so many bodies inbetween ball and goal that heading is more likely to score than shooting. So a short corner worked to make a shot is going to be tough, otherwise you still have to put it in the box. And if we can't deliver accurately from the corner, why should we be any more accurate from a short corner?

It is definitely an area we could work on, attacking and defending corners. Even another five or ten goals a season would increase our point scoring potential and maybe do away with some of our draws. Even well organised defences are vulnerable to good corners, putting players close to the goal and able to lose their marker. It can also cause panic in the defence, as we know from defending them!

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What is our corner conversion rate... - Score from a corner

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