Crossing

[Sheaf Saint]

Why do our players find it so difficult to cross the ball well. It's such a weakness in our play when we rely on using the full-backs in our attacks so much. It's pointless them even getting forward if they sre so utterly incapable of playing decent balls into the box.

 

This is something that has needed addressing for some time now yet shows no sign of any improvement.

[Pastor Patrón]

Who are they going to cross to anyway? Lambert's generally too deep to be on the end of crosses and we don't exactly have any other aerial threat.

[Saint Charlie]

Full backs crossing was poor today. But most of all we missed Jay's pace in behind the defence. Attackers all too similar.

[Saints foreva]

Shaw and Chambers crossing has been ****e all season.

[Wrensup]

Corners weren't up to much either.

[Crazy Diamond]

What was the point in crossing anyway? Cardiff were so comfortable heading them all away it made the exercise entirely pointless.

 

We had a big Jay Rodriguez-shaped hole in our team today, if we couldn't threaten Cardiff from crosses we needed to try running at them - Jay would have been the one to do it. Big miss.

[CanadaSaint]

Sure, this poor crossing/final ball weakens us offensively, and it's really frustrating that we've dominated so many teams but paid a price for failing to score/score enough when on top. Game after game.

 

But the other angle is that it makes us defensively vulnerable, with Fonte and Lovren back-pedalling under pressure and hoping to delay an opposition counter-attack until cover gets back.

 

I think we look better than we really are going forward because we commit our full backs so quickly and so wholeheartedly, but we also look worse defensively than we really are because our poor final ball makes us more vulnerable to counters with the FBs caught upfield.

 

The absence of Jay Rod really compounds a problem that has been there all season. With Rickie in his golden years becoming more a build-up player than a striker, the lack of a final ball and a real finisher will cost us more points before the season's done.

 

Doubtless, Pochettino is fully aware of that. I suspect that he didn't see Rickie as a regular starter in his system until he was called up by England, but then he couldn't really leave him out. And Osvaldo's meltdown removed any alternative options.

[Saint_John]

There is an argument that the ball should be played at pace in the gap between GK and the defenders without looking, to invite the forwards to gamble.

 

However we don't seem to do that, our forwards are usually stationary and therefore the crosser has to look up and try to pick out the perfectly weighted cross for the forward. In packed defences this often gives the defenders the "time" they need to either block the cross or get enough numbers around the forward to block any goal attempt. Against non-packed defences it is probably the right thing to do.

 

The downside could be that all the forwards go to the far post and the ball goes near or vice versa, (and the crowd all moan). But equally you open up the chance of a defender doing what Brown did for sunderland yesterday.

 

I sometimes think our Football is "too pure" and we just have to put the ball in the danger area before the opposition defenders are ready.

[corky morris]

Said before the game that Clyne should have played. Stand by it too. Clyne is a better player than chambers at the moment.

That does not mean Chambers is rubbish or that he wont be excellent, but its his first season in the PL & he is still learning.

[bpsaint]

If Shaw is to truly become a top player then he needs to get some major practice in crossing, particulary the ability to bend a ball around a player instead of having to beat him first. Too often his crosses are soft floaty balls into the box which most keepers happily claim all day long. Despite his shocking ability to defend Fox had one hell of a cross on him, that's the sort of delivery we miss.