KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Commolli's hand revealed?

Absolutely spot on.

Watever the case - if results pick up and the next couple of signings are not complete LOSERS , it will show lfc did well to ditch Comoli, otherwise all eyes will be ob KD

so much money at stake clubs will try it to get 'an edge' over others

I find it hard to believe the people saying this is all rubbish. It's not. As Rafarendum correctly points out, these stats are the effect of a team playing naturally, which incidentally is a point made in the article (though more in passing). A team that dominates possession is likely to put in more crosses than that same team would were it missing a midfielder who could cycle the ball and keep possession, for instance. But if that team now puts in 10 fewer crosses on average per game, but has a top drawer finisher like Hernandez, you still win anyway. The games you keep the ball better and put in the extra crosses tend to be the 5-0 wins rather than 1-0.

The point is: the team has to be a moderately effective unit to begin with. If it's ineffective, the quantity of crosses will never materialize. Trying to put in more crosses under such conditions will not necessarily lead to better results, as the malfunctioning unit will tend to do this under greater pressure, resulting in poorer quality of cross and poorer positioning of the target man. Critically, the team will lose the ball more often by giving it away. As we can see from those stats, we only won 2 of the 15 games where we supplied the 30 crosses, none of which were in the top 9 on the list. While putting in fewer crosses had us scoring at almost double the points per game return. Being more careful about choosing whether, when, and to whom to cross is obviously more important than just hoofing it across the 6 yard box.

Fundamentally we persevered with the cross at all costs strategy largely in the absence of Andy Carroll. Which quite frankly is just stupidity. Suarez may be over 6', but he's much better with the ball at his feet than in the air. While it may be that Commolli suggested that the way to win was to cross more often, Dalglish should have understood that the tactics must suit the players who take the pitch.

The other issue (again raised in the article as an afterthought), is that we "overbought" players who created chances. Henderson, Adam, and Downing all took set pieces with their former clubs (as already mentioned), and they tended to be the "go to" player for crossing/hollywood balls/etc. Having them all on the pitch at the same time would reduce their effectiveness, not just because they get less of the ball, but also because they're all expecting to be the originator of the move rather than just another link in the chain, and therefore they would not naturally take up positions forward enough when one of the others has the ball (this is especially noticeable with Henderson). They're getting ready to start the move, but once they realize the move has already started the defence has already recovered. From that perspective alone: Henderson-Spearing-Adam-Downing is a midfield destined to fail, and may become even weaker if you replace Spearing with Gerrard.

Too many people with the same role; too many cooks spoiling the broth.

I still don't believe that fundamentally our summer purchases were poor on an individual basis (though I didn't like Adam initially, and have come to question Downing [even though he's largely improved as a player] partly because he does not find himself on the pitch at what I believe are the correct moments, and therefore we signed him for the wrong reasons or misunderstood what kind of player he was). But I do believe that collectively the group we bought were too similar, and in addition were English and therefore overly expensive.

We just didn't get the balance right.

Personally I think the crosses made and headers won stats are misleading. But final third regains and final third pass completion are critical to success. That we're top in the league at the former considering we average 25% of the expected target is interesting, but may just be a symptom of the English game. Our final third pass completion however cannot be in the top half dozen, and not least because we're putting in 20-odd crosses a game that don't find their target.

These stats do seem to correlate quiet well with our position actually, except for the 30 crosses per game. Because as the final third regains stats show, with our final third regains per game it appears the point per game seem to be around 1.35 per game lets say which with 33 games played calculates to around 44.4, and our current points gained is 46. Statistically, according to our the final third stats, we are where we should be.

that makes two of us Rafa

don't forget some new coaches as well please

Further to the debate on crossing: READ THIS

Maybe these stats put the lie to the 30 cross per game requirement?

Told that it might be something a little murkier behind the Comolli departure,something to do with a major signing and dodgy dealings ALLEDGEDLY