Corners

Cos its a really difficult skill to take a good corner! Love to watch Trippier do them. Very rare to for any forward to be unmarked and unhindered (held) these days, so the old school lumps into the box are easily defended. To play an accurate fast cross is a really rare and difficult skill.

 

It's probably not that easy to get it into the sweet spot you describe, unless you get it bang on you are likely to encounter between 4 and 8 bodies before the main targets.

Last night's corner, actually came from a laughable initial corner from Clayton, followed by an even more laughable clearance.

On the subject of corners, I'm still against the zonal marking/11 men in the box process we go through. We still concede goals, and if not, we end up defending the "same" corner/period of play 3 times due to having no outlay

 

Agree and have posted similar previously

 

I would have thought for a professional footballer hitting the ball into a 2 yard diameter in a certain area within the box should be a given, if we got someone capable of doing that on a regular basis surely that would give us an advantage as we could then attack that specific area.

 

I assumed this thread would surround the dramatic improvement in quality of corners since Clayton has come in.

Isn't that goals in back-to-back home games direct from corners?

Corners were a waste of time in the first half of the season, now they're becoming more of a threat.

 

Smallwood took our corners until Clayton came in, he was absolutely woeful at them and it remains a mystery why he took them. I’ve alluded to this a couple of times on here previously

Clayton seems a fantastic set piece taker

 

Didn't the Stevenage lad put it on the money most times? This squad seems to lack a set piece specialist, and if Smallwood was the best we had, then jeez, how bad must the others be?

 

Let's be fair though, my granny could have saved Cooks header on Tuesday. I'm not sure that can be listed in the "set piece triumphs" column.

 

OP makes a good point. Our corners have been gash - while Smallwood was on them.

i cant stand short corners - whoever invented them needs shooting. Youve got an opportunity to hit the ball into a danger area without being closed down so take it. Who cares if one man comes off near post area to close down the short receiver! Box still full of bodies either way.

Watching Wrexham in the Cup makes you realise what an asset long throws can be from Delap/Challinor/Tozer etc too. if you’ve got a bloke who can launch s rocket like that, do it. Again, you are getting the ball into a danger area and will score goals by law of averages!

Bola struggled to do a short throw for us!

 

Didn’t someone say that Kelly appears to have a significant long throw?

 

I disagree, it definitely was a set piece triumph. We scored

Up until Clayton arrived, we have have been largely naff at both taking set pieces and defending set pieces

Now we just need to work on the defending, which I believe we will have achieved within a couple more games. Kelly, Critchlow, Stubbs all very good additions, and even Platt is learning off his colleagues and improving as the season goes on (IMO of course)

 

I'm lost. What exactly is Platt learning that's helping us not concede from set plays and why has Clayton helped to resolve this?

I'm especially confused given that we conceded from two set plays in the same game less than a week ago.

 

Yes! He took one throw on Tuesday night and seemed to launch it miles with hardly any effort. I have no doubt he would be able to reach the middle of the penalty area. Now if he could just get on the end of it as well...

 

I think Kelly's your man

 

Can we do what they do in the NFL and bring him on just for throw ins. then take him off again ?

 

can we have one for corners and free kicks too?

 

And teams are so professional nowadays that it would be picked up, and preventions put in place. You need an element of surprise

 

he would have to really loop it