Set pieces..

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
Devil is indeed in the detail mate, so why get worked up if the rs get frequent penalties like they did in 13/14 then, as really how many of them proved decisive?

It wasn't a mere detail though was it? IIRC they were given record amounts of pens and sendings off in their favour for a season. It was hardly run of the mill stuff. It was literally remarkable...and many did remark on it at the time.

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
Because IF we want the team to actually achieve anything mate then changing something that is so blindingly obviously a flaw in the team should maybe - just maybe be a big priority, don't you think?

Let's focus on open play then - yup we are fantastic offensively and pretty ok defensively looking at the stats - so why on earth are we sat in 10th position then mate?

OK then when looking at these stats we should be far far higher, lets look a bit more in depth as to why we aren't - oh yeah we are absolutely horrible on set pieces which undermines every good thing about the way we play.

Christ mate their is a 13 goal difference on them between us and Spurs, given the fact they have been pretty crap in open play this year don't you think that may be a reason we are sat below them

The gap from 11th (Stoke) to 5th (Spurs) is three points mate. It's incredibly concertina'd - an absolute freak season so far in that respect. If there were massive gaps between 'the top of the set piece league' and Everton I'd accept your point in a heartbeat...but there isn't.

Does it mean we can and should try to improve? Yes, no question. But its gone massively OTT on all this business.

bluestevon · December 16, 2015

davek said:
The gap from 11th (Stoke) to 5th (Spurs) is three points mate. It's incredibly concertina'd - an absolute freak season so far in that respect. If there were massive gaps between 'the top of the set piece league' and Everton I'd accept your point in a heartbeat...but there isn't.

Does it mean we can and should try to improve? Yes, no question. But its gone massively OTT on all this business.

and maybe if our set piece attacking and defending happened to be just bang average for the teams above us we would be clear of that concertina'd group or at the very least not stuck at the bottom of it mate, I'm a Martinez supporter of the way he has us playing but to try to brush it under the carpet when we are clearly absolutely horrible in this area is ignoring the elephant in the room.

But by all means mock the set piece league thing as your doing, but can guarantee that over a season it can mean the difference on a team surviving in this league, or qualifying for Europe mate.

bluestevon · December 16, 2015

davek said:
It wasn't a mere detail though was it? IIRC they were given record amounts of pens and sendings off in their favour for a season. It was hardly run of the mill stuff. It was literally remarkable...and many did remark on it at the time.

and our 'goal difference' on set pieces is similarly remarkably bad mate, its a trend and not a fluke, over a season that gap should continue and only then will you open your eyes to how ridiculously bad we are at them compared to the teams we are supposedly competing against

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
and maybe if our set piece attacking and defending happened to be just bang average for the teams above us we would be clear of that concertina'd group or at the very least not stuck at the bottom of it mate, I'm a Martinez supporter of the way he has us playing but to try to brush it under the carpet when we are clearly absolutely horrible in this area is ignoring the elephant in the room.

But by all means mock the set piece league thing as your doing, but can guarantee that over a season it can mean the difference on a team surviving in this league, or qualifying for Europe mate.

It's not mocking it it's asking what the actual damage is from it.

Here's another point: what if we lost some of our open play game by placing a lot more emphasis on set piece play? Is that an improbability? I don't think so. This is a team that has a lot of players comfortable on the ball and geared to swift attacking football. I wouldn't like to see that threatened in any way. Besides, as all these articles usually insert in the small print about Everton's poor set piece record in the past 16 games: we're missing Baines all season and Jagielka and Stones have been out in turn too...so the stats are skewed in that respect.

No need to panic over this issue. It'll largely sort itself out over the course of the season. We may not be the best in this department, but we wont be the worst either.

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
and our 'goal difference' on set pieces is similarly remarkably bad mate, its a trend and not a fluke, over a season that gap should continue and only then will you open your eyes to how ridiculously bad we are at them compared to the teams we are supposedly competing against

It's not though. It's not noteworthy at all. That's the point. It's a goal either here or there conceded/scored from having Everton somewhere at the leagues' mid-point.

We are what we are: a team geared up to play a certain way. I don't remember anyone in the past criticising Arsenal for their emphasis on open play goals and being a bit flaky at the back.

orly · December 16, 2015

davek said:
It's not though. It's not noteworthy at all. That's the point. It's a goal either here or there conceded/scored from having Everton somewhere at the leagues' mid-point.

We are what we are: a team geared up to play a certain way. I don't remember anyone in the past criticising Arsenal for their emphasis on open play goals and being a bit flaky at the back.

1 Arsenal (C) 38 26 12 0 73 26 +47 90

davek · December 16, 2015

orly said:
1 Arsenal (C) 38 26 12 0 73 26 +47 90

Not sure what this is meant to prove.

bluestevon · December 16, 2015

davek said:
It's not though. It's not noteworthy at all. That's the point. It's a goal either here or there conceded/scored from having Everton somewhere at the leagues' mid-point.

We are what we are: a team geared up to play a certain way. I don't remember anyone in the past criticising Arsenal for their emphasis on open play goals and being a bit flaky at the back.

Errrm really? There is a difference between being an open team that concedes due to it's play style and a team that 'does not do' set pieces mate. Unless ofc your trying to say the way we play attacking and open football means we are inherently unable to do set pieces?

the leagues mid point would be 0 mate, after 16 games we are stuck at -5, so more than a few goals it's basically 1 every three games worse than the league average, looking at it another way, it's the same difference that having a player add 15 goals to his total would make to the team over a season.

Never mind the fact that the teams near the top tend by nature to be above average in this regard which would just widen the difference further

Difference right now between us and spurs for example is 1 more than Lukaku has scored this season

bluestevon · December 16, 2015

davek said:
Not sure what this is meant to prove.

That when Arsenal have been most successful they haven't been flakey at the back mate maybe, when they have Wenger has been slaughtered non stop about it - especially when they went through a period of being terrible at ... Set pieces.

orly · December 16, 2015

davek said:
Not sure what this is meant to prove.

They weren't flaky at the back - at their best, they conceded 26 goals in a season. It can be done.

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
Errrm really? There is a difference between being an open team that concedes due to it's play style and a team that 'does not do' set pieces mate. Unless ofc your trying to say the way we play attacking and open football means we are inherently unable to do set pieces?

the leagues mid point would be 0 mate, after 16 games we are stuck at -5, so more than a few goals it's basically 1 every three games worse than the league average, looking at it another way, it's the same difference that having a player add 15 goals to his total would make to the team over a season.

Never mind the fact that the teams near the top tend by nature to be above average in this regard which would just widen the difference further

Difference right now between us and spurs for example is 1 more than Lukaku has scored this season

But here's the thing: we've conceded 7 goals from set pieces in 16 games; we've conceded twice as many from open play. There's a massive exaggeration going on here.

The real stat on goals to be given any credence is +GD, and on that we are surpassed by only five other teams. That's a big improvement for us over the years. +8 at this stage is very decent for us.

njligernj · December 16, 2015

davek said:
No need to panic over this issue. It'll largely sort itself out over the course of the season. We may not be the best in this department, but we wont be the worst either.

Stats don't lie; people lie.

The people who put that chart together know there isn't a big enough sample size to draw conclusions but they wrote it anyway because hits.

At this point there is a range and the best a small sample can do is say something like "there is a 95% chance that the 'real' effectiveness of set pieces number will be somewhere between a -7 on the low end and a +1 at the high end."

Now on the one hand this would be one of the lowest high end ranges in the league.

Our high end is "average at set pieces."

Our low end is "the worst in the league at set pieces."

Given the fact we are in many other respects at least average if not above average, looking at set pieces from last few seasons, and factoring in key players injuries (Jags) and new players (Mori) it's not unreasonable to expect the number to regress toward the mean. So we will get better.

That said I don't think it's unreasonable to look at that and say "we aren't good at set pieces" -- I do think it's unreasonable to look at that and say "we are definitely the worst set piece team and unless we drastically change everything we are doomed to finish as the worst set piece team."

Odds are our numbers will improve by doing nothing. Personally I wouldn't say no to an extra 15-30 minutes a week set piece practice but don't think we need anything as dramatic as the numbers might lead some to think.

davek · December 16, 2015

bluestevon said:
That when Arsenal have been most successful they haven't been flakey at the back mate maybe, when they have Wenger has been slaughtered non stop about it - especially when they went through a period of being terrible at ... Set pieces.

Successful and 'most successful' seasons for Arsenal is the difference between CL spot secured and title secured. Set piece fragility doesn't necessarily mean failure.