Match Ratings vs Soton

[Finney Is Back]

Interestingly enough this statistical analysis of goals scored at the 2012 Euro Championships in Poland and Ukraine found that most goals were scored after a cross, totaling 43.7% of all goals scored in the competition:
http://thesportjournal.org/article/...s-in-the-2012-european-football-championship/

Crosses: 43.7%
Short pass: 35.2%
Individual action: 9.9%
Shot: 7.0%
Pass of between 10 and 20 meters: 4.2%

Has football changed that much since 2012?!?

And to go further on this 29.33% of all goals were scored from headers.... Now if one logically assumes that a player is very unlikely to score from a header from anything other than a cross it indicates that approximately two thirds of all goals scored from crosses are scored from 'high' crosses into the box. It would surely therefore seem to be a far from useless tactic?

 

[billyiddo]

Would be interesting to see if any of that matches up with Premiership football

 

[scaramanga]

So in that case why on earth do football teams not take every single corner short? You would've thought that some bright (no doubt continental european/south american) spark would've realised this by now and stopped bothering playing the ball into the box.

Because corners aren't crosses. They're corners.

 

[scaramanga]

Interestingly enough this statistical analysis of goals scored at the 2012 Euro Championships in Poland and Ukraine found that most goals were scored after a cross, totaling 43.7% of all goals scored in the competition:
http://thesportjournal.org/article/...s-in-the-2012-european-football-championship/

Crosses: 43.7%
Short pass: 35.2%
Individual action: 9.9%
Shot: 7.0%
Pass of between 10 and 20 meters: 4.2%

Has football changed that much since 2012?!?

That doesn't tell you how many crosses had to be played to score that many.

 

[Spur of the moment]

That doesn't tell you how many crosses had to be played to score that many.

Good point, that stat might be more telling.

 

[Finney Is Back]

That doesn't tell you how many crosses had to be played to score that many.

Well I guess that's a better comeback than the 'regression to the mean' one I was expecting.

It also doesn't tell you how many short passes, long passes, dribbles, etc had to be played to score the rest.

The facts are that in Euro 2012 more goals were scored as a result of crosses than by any other means of creating a chance.

 

[scaramanga]

Well I guess that's a better comeback than the 'regression to the mean' one I was expecting.

It also doesn't tell you how many short passes, long passes, dribbles, etc had to be played to score the rest.

The facts are that in Euro 2012 more goals were scored as a result of crosses than by any other means of creating a chance.

And if you're West Brom or West Ham more of your goals are scored from crosses than any other method (probably). That still doesn't make it any more efficient as a method of scoring.

It is though, a very efficient way of giving the opposition the ball.

 

[Finney Is Back]

And if you're West Brom or West Ham more of your goals are scored from crosses than any other method (probably). That still doesn't make it any more efficient as a method of scoring.

It is though, a very efficient way of giving the opposition the ball.

Perhaps.... But as the stats analysis shows it is also the way that most goals are scored in top level football (which I think it's safe to call the Euro 2012 tournament) and therefore not useless as an option when attacking as some have often tried to insinuate on here.

 

[braineclipse]

Interestingly enough this statistical analysis of goals scored at the 2012 Euro Championships in Poland and Ukraine found that most goals were scored after a cross, totaling 43.7% of all goals scored in the competition:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....s-in-the-2012-european-football-championship/

Crosses: 43.7%
Short pass: 35.2%
Individual action: 9.9%
Shot: 7.0%
Pass of between 10 and 20 meters: 4.2%

Has football changed that much since 2012?!?

Not sure the Euro 2012 is a good sample in this instance.

A quick google found this: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2225728

Haven't read all of it, but the abstract reads as follows:

Crossing in soccer plays a significant role in scoring, about 23% of all goals scored in the recent seasons of the English Premier League are the result of crosses. Set play crosses (after free kicks or corners) represent about 8% of all goals and open play crosses represent about 15% of all goals. However, crossing from an open play is hugely inefficient, only 1 open cross in 4.87 is an accurate cross and only 1 open cross out of 91.47 leads to a goal on average. Statistical evidence indeed confirms that games with smaller number of open crosses tend to lead to more goals. When we estimate the impact of open crossing on scoring of the individual teams, we conclude that the net effect of crossing is negative for all the teams. This is also true for the German Bundesliga and the recent World Cup 2014. The quality of the attacking team is the major explanatory factor on the number of such missed scoring opportunities, stronger teams are more negatively influenced than weaker teams. Stronger teams have more options how to score and open play crossing seems as one of the suboptimal ways of a goal creation. Interestingly, the actual conversion of open crosses to goals plays only a minor role for explaining the impact of open crossing on goals.

I would say that's a much better analysis based on a much better data set. Not accepting the conclusions at face value, but the stats are probably reasonably solid.

Because corners aren't crosses. They're corners.

In terms of "goals scored from crosses" stats I do think corners are counted as crosses.

Perhaps.... But as the stats analysis shows it is also the way that most goals are scored in top level football (which I think it's safe to call the Euro 2012 tournament) and therefore not useless as an option when attacking as some have often tried to insinuate on here.

It's safe to call a Euro top level football. But is it directly comparable to the Premier League? I would say not. The quality of defending at international tournaments is often substantially worse I think. There's also the issue of using a tournament of 31 games as the basis of a statistical analysis, that's a sample size totaling just over 3 rounds of PL football and it seems very much on the small side.

Your conclusion of "it is also the way that most goals are scored in top level football" is not supported by those numbers. Those numbers say something about the Euro 2012 tournament, I don't think you can extrapolate that to make general statements about top level football.

I do not think crossing is a "useless" option, what has been said repeatedly by Scara is that there's a low conversion rate. Something I think the numbers I posted above support.

 

[scaramanga]

Perhaps.... But as the stats analysis shows it is also the way that most goals are scored in top level football (which I think it's safe to call the Euro 2012 tournament) and therefore not useless as an option when attacking as some have often tried to insinuate on here.

That really depends on how many crosses had to be taken (and how much possession was given up) in order to score that many goals.

Just because lots of people are doing it wrong (and doing it wrong a lot) doesn't make it right.

 

[scaramanga]

In terms of "goals scored from crosses" stats I do think corners are counted as crosses.

The raw data show them as that, yes. Most analyses I've seen strip out all set pieces from the figures - that includes wide free kicks too.

I haven't really looked into it, but I suspect that corners and wide free kicks crossed in are fairly low-return methods too. In all likelihood, they're probably marginally better than the alternatives once you've reached that situation because a short corner/fk will be taken against a packed and structured defence. I also suspect a quick free kick/corner (if refs ever begin to allow them again) are far more useful than any of the alternatives.

 

[braineclipse]

The raw data show them as that, yes. Most analyses I've seen strip out all set pieces from the figures - that includes wide free kicks too.

I haven't really looked into it, but I suspect that corners and wide free kicks crossed in are fairly low-return methods too. In all likelihood, they're probably marginally better than the alternatives once you've reached that situation because a short corner/fk will be taken against a packed and structured defence. I also suspect a quick free kick/corner (if refs ever begin to allow them again) are far more useful than any of the alternatives.

I suspect it depends on where the free kick is, and for free kicks and corners it depends on if you have players capable of taking very good set pieces from those positions.

There are some situations where I think a cross from a free kick seems vastly superior, particularly if you have a good set piece taker. Corners, not so much perhaps. But like you say you're starting against a team that is organized if you take it short, almost like starting from a kick-off. And taking it short might have a higher risk of giving the opponents a good turnover chance...

 

[King of Norway]

I am a bit old-fashioned perhaps, as I don't look that much at statistics, but I do watch football matches. My experience from watching football matches is that goals are created from the wide areas all the time, and that it is quite rare that goals are scored through penetrating defenses centrally when they are set up and in balance. Only yesterday did I watch a match (Leicester v Chelsea) where all four goals came from the wide areas. I also saw goals from another match (Real Madrid v Almeria) where two of three goals came from the wide areas and the third from a long range shot.

You can also look at our league goals this season and you will see that almost all of our goals have been scored either from delivery from the wide areas, counter-attacks or from long range shots. When we have scored goals by going through the middle, it has been when defences have held a high line and we have put the balls in behind them. I think the only time we actually found our way through a settled, deep defence centrally was Kane's goal at Anfield. So for me, it is pretty obvious that you need to seek some width to find space when teams defend deep. To successfully penetrate centrally is very difficult and rare. You need top class players, great movement and often the aid of a bit of luck or poor defending to do so.

 

[Pandy]

The raw data show them as that, yes. Most analyses I've seen strip out all set pieces from the figures - that includes wide free kicks too.

I haven't really looked into it, but I suspect that corners and wide free kicks crossed in are fairly low-return methods too. In all likelihood, they're probably marginally better than the alternatives once you've reached that situation because a short corner/fk will be taken against a packed and structured defence. I also suspect a quick free kick/corner (if refs ever begin to allow them again) are far more useful than any of the alternatives.

I recall when Adebayor scored 2 goals from corners against Swansea a couple of years back, a statistic was quoted that suggesting 1/33 corners result in a goal.

At that point we had gone 130-odd corners without a goal! Glad to see we have progressed in that department this season.