We've conceded the most headed goals in the league

billycopper · February 9, 2013

Brennan said:
How many headers have been conceded by other teams ? If there are a lot of sides with a similar amount it's not really an issue.

The stat was from the Guardian and all it said was that we'd conceded the most headers. It's an obvious weakness, given that headers have accounted for 40% of our goals against column. If we hadn't let those 8 goals in we could have had another 8 points.

blue61 · February 9, 2013

Does this mean we've conceded the least amount of goals from shots then?

Brennan · February 9, 2013

blue61 said:
Does this mean we've conceded the least amount of goals from shots then?

Haha exactly, that's why it's so meaningless.

billycopper · February 9, 2013

blue61 said:
Does this mean we've conceded the least amount of goals from shots then?

We have the fifth best defence behind City (24), Chelsea (28), Arsenal (29) and Swansea (29). Given that such a large proportion of our goals conceded have been headers I would imagine that we have conceded the least from shots.

billycopper · February 9, 2013

Brennan said:
Haha exactly, that's why it's so meaningless.

It's not meaningless. We want to have the tightest defence possible. We're doing well at keeping out shots but headers is a huge area for improvement.

blue61 · February 9, 2013

If only there was an 'over head height rule' like in 5 a side, we'd have won the league already.

ROMANS55 · February 9, 2013

I don't think Howard has been as dominant in the air this season. Often he stays on his line and doesn't come for the ball when quite obviously the defenders are looking for him to do that. Maybe it's a confidence thing as he has done it in the past.

samcdavies94 · February 10, 2013

blue61 said:
If only there was an 'over head height rule' like in 5 a side, we'd have won the league already.

how many headed goals have we scored though?

Baines' left foot · February 10, 2013

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

We used to be good at set pieces, didn't we? We seem to concede a lot more from them these days.

Joey66 · February 10, 2013

If Duffy had been given a chance at 6.4 inches tall he may have solved that problem! oh & he may have scored a few for us from corners too!

Chang Elephant · February 10, 2013

We have a manager selecting his defence on a completley random basis each week

Eggs · February 10, 2013

billycopper said:
Heitinga tends not to do headers but I don't think we can pin it all on him, since he doesn't play that often. Looking at the times when he has been involved:

(Headers conceded)

Villa- Agbonlahor
West Brom- Long
Newcastle- Cisse
Chelsea- Lampard
Norwich- Bassong
Reading- Le Fondre
Wigan- Kone
Southampton- Ramirez

Well, 8 out of 12 headers conceded when Heitinga played. Maybe Johnny is the weak link then.

....this is the stat I was most interested in. We probably lack a centre back who is absolutely dominant in the air, but the figures indicate that Jags/Distin partnership is adequate and the real weakness applies when the pairing is split up. Another sound piece of evidence for not tinkering with your number one partnership. Surely this is the type of detail the club analysts should be producing - good post this one.

BirkenheadBlue · February 10, 2013

Baines' left foot said:
Doesn't surprise me one bit.

We used to be good at set pieces, didn't we? We seem to concede a lot more from them these days.

Two words.

Tim Cahill.

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't half the player he used to be by the time he left us, but the number of defensive headers he used to win, even at the end, was ridiculous.

Joey66 · February 10, 2013

Two words - small defenders - I agree TC was invaluable in the defensive line but Distan & Jags are not great headers of the ball added to that our fullbacks are small - add to that the insistance of playing JH is scary !!!!