9 Nov 2012

'It's a crime!' - Aldo berates players for one specific attacking failure. Improvable?

Anfield legend John Aldridge has criticised Liverpool's wastefulness at corners, and he's called on the players to improve their corner accuracy over the rest of the season.

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo yesterday, Aldo bemoaned te Reds' shambolic delivery from corners:

"Liverpool had 14 corners on Sunday afternoon, and Newcastle United won every single header from them.

"I have never seen that before in my life and it is a crime that the Reds did not get anywhere near those balls into the box.

"Newcastle have great height in their team and defended well but we have got to be asking more questions from corners".


Aldo is right: this aspect of the club's attacking play is astonishingly bad. Last season, I analysed the club's conversion rate from corners, and in March 2012 (when the figures were compiled):

* Liverpool had scored only 4 goals from 249 (league) corners (!)

* That's a conversion rate of 1.6%

* Goal scored every 60th corner.

So far this season, the Reds have won 66 corners in the league, and I can't recall a single goal being scored.

Aldo is right to highlight this, but the reality is that scoring goals from corners is a rarity, and the same goalscoring paucity affects all teams in the league.

Indeed, According to a recent in-depth study, the average Premier League team scores 1 goal from a corner every 10 games, which suggests that as an attacking threat, corners are practically useless.

Jaimie Kanwar


26 comments:

  1. Corner kicks have been dreadful during the last two seasons.

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  2. Skrtel scored against Man City.

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  3. We got two players who are actually dangerous from those situation- and for most teams in pl it is not that hard to defend it. Skrtel scored, though...

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  4. Skrtel vs city bullet header.

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  5. Others could be dangerous if we had one or two that pose a real, constant threat.

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  6. Erm, if LFC were average they would have had 6 or 7 goals from corners this season.

    They have 1.

    Seems like a problem to me!


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  7. All I can say is for pass n move teams, short corners are the way forward!

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  8. Anybody taking bets on Rodgers playing 3-5-1-1 formation on Sunday? I have a feeling Enrique will start with johnson on the other wing. Wisdom pretty much got his clearance for centre half duty as of last night...

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  9. Or is it a 3-3-2-1? Either way.. I think BR likes it..

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  10. Agger Skrtel Wisdom
    Enrique Allen Sahin Shelvy Johnson
    Gerrard Suarez
    would love see that...

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  11. Was gona say Skrtels Bullet header vs City but agree we seem to dominate teams in the corner count due to pressure we mount but it often turns to nothing!

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  12. If the average is a goal every ten games your maths is bad

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  13. Barca players almost never cross the ball. Always pass it short. So what exactly is Aldo's f***** point.

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  14. LOL adam and carroll were supposed to sort this out.

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  15. The stats are completely wrong from that site... teams don't score an average of one goal every ten corners across the Premier League.

    You only have to think about it for a couple of seconds to realise that's a total load of rubbish.

    380 total games per season, average of 5/6 corners per team per match = approx 3800 corners every season.

    Do you honestly think there are 380 goals from corners every year??

    There are usually about 1,060 goals scored total in the Premier each season... just have a little think about whether more than 35% of them seem to come from corners!!

    Ridiculous.

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  16. It's not just corners, so many of our crosses seem to hit the defender, Downing being particularly guilty

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  17. cannot remember the last time we were dangerous from corners we need to think up some new routines because pumping it into the box obviuosly does not work for us unless we have a striker who is prolific in the air or defender but we dont also we always concede more from corners over a season

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  18. jaimie you seem to use the word legend a lot when it suits you aldo a legend 2to 3 seasons at anfield yet king kenny lawro hansen just ex players aldo was very good but ledgend not

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  19. No, that's not correct. I call Lawro, Hansen and Dalglish legends too. It's a matter of opinion; in my view, Aldo is a legendary goalscorer for LFC. Absolutely first-class player, dumped too soon by Dalglish.

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  20. kd made over a quarter of a million on aldo which was a good amount in those days and he also brung him to the club lets see rodgers turn a profit on his signings i think not

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  21. Downing or lack of tall people in the box?

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  22. One goal in ten games, not ten corners.

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  23. How so? Average is 1 every ten games and we have had 66 corners. That = 6 or seven to me? How do you math?

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  24. Gerrard rarely beats the first man from free kicks or corners.

    Should just play them all short, when we Adam we didn't let him just whip them in like he did at Blackpool.

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  25. He should be kicking up a fuss about our crossing instead! Manure have demonstrated time and again, with Swansea being the only other team that does it regularly, that we always need 3 players arriving in the box to receive the cross. I was hoping to see this when we signed Rdogers, but it hasn't happened yet.

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