Walking to Anfield before the Burnley game I was trying to ready myself for the worst and I managed to say something stupid, outloud. I asked “why are we so bad at taking setpieces AND so bad at defending setpieces”. I didn’t think Burnley could hurt us from open play but was worried about their threat from setpieces. I was wrong that day, but we struggled once again in the game against West Ham, conceding both goals from setpieces.
Every goal Liverpool have conceded this season has been from a setpiece (the first against Spurs was a rebound from the wall). But as Tony Barrett points out in The Times, this isn’t because Liverpool are uniquely awful. Almost half of all goals conceded in the premiership are at setpieces (42%), which tells you something about how exciting the Premiership really is.
Simpletons blame Liverpool’s problems at setpieces on zonal marking, although discredit their position by failing to point out the problems with man to man marking. Zonal marking has previously worked very well for Liverpool. Two seasons ago they conceded fewer goals from setpieces than anyone else in the league.
So what is going wrong? Liverpool’s key defenders are shorter than their equivalents at Man United and Chelsea. Most defences have one small defender (Evra 5′ 8″, Cole 5′ 7″). With left backs Insua and Aurelio both at 5′ 8″, that’s Liverpool’s short position. However, with Carragher at 5′ 10″ and Glen Johnson at 6′ they really aren’t the tallest. The central midfielders are also smaller than average with Lucas at 5′ 8″ and Mascherano at 5′ 7″. Fletcher, Carrick, Essien, Lampard and Ballack are all taller. But that’s not just the answer. Any Liverpool fan who has seen Peter Crouch and Fernando Torres knows that height doesn’t equate to an ability to attack the ball in the air. And Liverpool aren’t much shorter than last year.
What I found was that Liverpool are conceding far more free kicks in dangerous positions than in equivalent games last season. Last season at home against Wigan (won 3-2) and Hull (2-2) we were poor but only conceded 3 and 4 freekicks in ‘problem areas’ in the whole game. In the games we lost this season against Spurs and Aston Villa we conceded and 6 and 7 freekicks. Against Man City last season (luck a3-2 away win against 10 men) we conceded 2 tricky freekicks. Against Bolton this season (lucky 3-2 away win against 10 men) we conceded 4. Interestingly, we aren’t conceding more freekicks per game. It is consistently around 15 in each game. We’re just giving them away closer to our own goal.
Compare this last season:
by Guardian Chalkboards
With this season:
by Guardian Chalkboards
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Cracking post. Would love to see Gray confronted with that kind of logic when he’s wheeling out his lazy “zones don’t score goals” tripe.
you are absolutely right. It was really embarrassing watching Andy Gray last night on the ‘final word’ trying to criticise Wolves’ defending at a corner without mentioning that they used man to man marking .