I wanted to go back to this as for a team that doesn’t have a lot of attacking threat and has been reliant on keeping it tight for the first half of the season, what has gone wrong in terms of defending set pieces? We talked about it before and the loss of Poole (organiser) and Rushworth (a goalkeeper above this level) seem like a factor but it still seems slightly bewildering especially as we usually have three big centre-halves on the pitch.
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Opta stats now show we have conceded 13 goals following set pieces this season, the worst in the division (Oxford/Fleetwood 11). Following set pieces other teams have had 104 shots, which is the 6th worst (Reading, Cheltenham, Exeter, Cambridge & Charlton have done worse).
It seems like an obvious area that we can do better – one where work on the training pitch in terms of match preparation and analysing the opposition is important, and perhaps our issues with forward injuries have less of an impact?
Take the goal yesterday. Blackpool aren’t a side that have been effective from set pieces this season – they have scored a total of 5 goals from them now (20th in the division) and have scored the third most from open play, so it’s not the main area they have had success from. The video is obviously limited due to the angle initially showing the taker but clearly, something has gone badly wrong organisationally?
I notice people saying in the match thread well, Sorensen didn’t really jump for the header. But watching from alongside where the away end was, it looked more worrying – three players lining up to head it in all ahead of their (two markers) – if Casey missed, Rhodes and Connolly were ahead of our defenders to knock it in. I was right alongside and they all looked perfectly onside. Was our line wrong?
And from above – our three centre-halves are all marking thin air? There aren’t noticeable blockers as their three players have attacked the ball, and they’re among the most dangerous players in their side from set pieces – Casey and Connolly, two of the three centre-halves, and their 15-goal big lump of a striker in between them. They’re all mismatches for Smith and Sorensen, while Mitchell, Jackson and Eyoma are adrift.
Is there an explanation for how we’re trying to defend here? Why for a set piece in the right channel were those three so far across? Is that some ineffective zonal marking? It was a good ball in, but I’m not sure how we’ve ended up making things so easy for them.
If we go back to other goals we’ve conceded they seem iffy and organisationally debateable. Against Oxford, Sean Roughan appeared to be the ‘near post’ defender for the corner and they had a man attempting to stop him getting off the ground. The goal then comes from the defender in the heart of our 6-yard box being Jack Vale, zonally marking in the centre who gets absolutely blitzed by their centre half who has a massive run on him for an easy goal.
It’s way too simple (the stills look horribly blurry but first moment of the highlights here:
And if we look at goals like the winner the other week for Stevenage… they simply just attack the ball while we don’t… again their centre half is competing with Sorensen and the second ball causes chaos.
When I first looked at the data, and saw again that we’re letting in more goals than our ‘expected goals against’ I wondered if there was an element of luck and it would right itself (good finishes, ricochets etc). But then you watch the ones we concede and they involve huge mismatches or players like Vale and Sorensen challenging against big centre-halves…. it seems a more considerable issue?
Writer: Rasenimp
Thank you to Graham Burrell and Lincoln City Football Club for the photograph!
