Ward Prowse free kicks.

[Dman]

Is there currently a better free kick taker in the world at the minute? In fact ever? 
 

Every time he steps up, you expect him to score. I actually think I’d rather we had a free kick on the edge of the box than a penalty, he’s that good. 
 

I have to say, I don’t think his corners / crossing free kicks are as good though. 

[The Kraken]

We’re blessed.

When we look back at MLT’s free kicks, he was genuinely brilliant. But in some ways we look back through rose tinted spectacles. I remember many times when MLT whacked it into the wall or over the bar. I don’t know the stats on it, but JWP just seems to be more consistently accurate.

A true talent.

[Dman]

1 minute ago, The Kraken said:

We’re blessed.

When we look back at MLT’s free kicks, he was genuinely brilliant. But in some ways we look back through rose tinted spectacles. I remember many times when MLT whacked it into the wall or over the bar. I don’t know the stats on it, but JWP just seems to be more consistently accurate.

A true talent.

Beckham is the only one who compares imo. For me, Prowsey is better. Unbelievable. 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

19 minutes ago, Dman said:

Is there currently a better free kick taker in the world at the minute? In fact ever? 
 

Every time he steps up, you expect him to score. I actually think I’d rather we had a free kick on the edge of the box than a penalty, he’s that good. 
 

I have to say, I don’t think his corners / crossing free kicks are as good though. 

Agreed would try someone else on corners just to mix things up a bit

[East Kent Saint]

I remember JWP before he perfected his free kicks , when there was not much expectation of a goal ! He has certainly improved massively since those days .

[woodsaint1]

2 hours ago, Dman said:

Is there currently a better free kick taker in the world at the minute? In fact ever? 
 

Every time he steps up, you expect him to score. I actually think I’d rather we had a free kick on the edge of the box than a penalty, he’s that good. 
 

I have to say, I don’t think his corners / crossing free kicks are as good though. 

Juninho Pernambucano was probably the best ever. Think he scored over 70 free kicks in his career

[Saints foreva]

I'll be surprised if he's here next season. 

[Stud mark of doom]

10 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

I remember JWP before he perfected his free kicks , when there was not much expectation of a goal ! He has certainly improved massively since those days .

We used to call him Just Wide Prowse. Well all that practice has certainly paid off - he is superb now. 
 

I saw some stats recently and he is miles better if the free kick is to the left of the penalty spot than to the right (in fact he may not have scored on the right hand side) - if it’s in that left area it’s as good as a penalty. (Better than quite a few penalty takers - although not quite an MLT penalty.) 
 

 

[rallyboy]

It's one of the best demonstrations of the benefits of hard work and drive.

The hours he must have put in on the training ground to get to this level - a great professional who Ralph has moulded into an international midfielder who must go to the World Cup.

[Turkish]

13 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

I remember JWP before he perfected his free kicks , when there was not much expectation of a goal ! He has certainly improved massively since those days .

We used to joke that he’d perfected being able to get the ball exactly One metre above the top corner as everyone went there. He’s absolutely brilliant, yesterday knew he’d score. 

[Turkish]

13 hours ago, Dman said:

Beckham is the only one who compares imo. For me, Prowsey is better. Unbelievable. 

His conversion rate will be better for sure. 

[Graffito]

4 hours ago, Stud mark of doom said:

We used to call him Just Wide Prowse. Well all that practice has certainly paid off - he is superb now. 
 

I saw some stats recently and he is miles better if the free kick is to the left of the penalty spot than to the right (in fact he may not have scored on the right hand side) - if it’s in that left area it’s as good as a penalty. (Better than quite a few penalty takers - although not quite an MLT penalty.) 
 

 

Wolves

[Manuel]

14 hours ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

Agreed would try someone else on corners just to mix things up a bit

Same.  When Redmond was taking them for a while, there was a randomness to them that oddly was quite effective.  Gave us something different.  

[Miltonaggro]

Think Ward-Prowse is currently our joint top scorer in the league with Adams. Very, very important player for us. 

[TWar]

Yep, best free kick taker in the world. He's our main goal scorer and main assister on current form which is good for him but a bit of an issue with the rest of our team. Someone  needs to take the burden off him.

[Pilchards]

Annoys me when other fans say he only scores free kicks and does nothing else.

Wouldn’t it be great if he was employed as a specialist free kicker like in America.
You would roll him on if the free kick was to the left of the goal. Reckon his sell price would top 150m.

[Stud mark of doom]

1 hour ago, Graffito said:

Wolves

Sorry, the analysis was of where the free kick is from, rather than were the ball ends up - all his successful ones have been on the left hand side of the pitch or dead centre. None from the right hand side yet. 

[The Kraken]

5 minutes ago, Stud mark of doom said:

Sorry, the analysis was of where the free kick is from, rather than were the ball ends up - all his successful ones have been on the left hand side of the pitch or dead centre. None from the right hand side yet. 

I think they outlined this on Sky recently. Gary Neville said that David Beckham used to score them from the other side as well. Said JWP has the ability to do it, just needs to add it to his locker.

Beckham was an absolute phenomenon though, I read that he scored 65 set piece goals throughout his career.

[Singapore Saint]

West Ham's Creswell does a JWP.

[AlexLaw76]

I have noticed that over the last handful of games, we win very few freekicks in his 'range'....clearly deliberate by the opponent.

[Roo1976]

On 03/04/2022 at 01:42, Saints foreva said:

I'll be surprised if he's here next season. 

Id be surprised to see him in the world cup squad. Overlooked for our left/right

back free kick specialist Trippier (when hes fit again). Just a quickie ...right back Kyle Walker or Kyle Walker Peters...what are the chances just an add on,both very good but Walker is just starting to make errors.

[tajjuk]

On 03/04/2022 at 13:45, adriansfc said:

There was an athletic article recently that looked at attempts to goals. Fairly patchy data but JWP is amongst the best. Right now only Messi is probably better.

Messi has taken a lot more, he has scored more but he has taken something like over 200 over the last 5 years, whereas JWP has taken ~ 80 iirc, so whilst Messi has scored more, his conversion rate is lower, just obviously playing for Barcelona, a possession based dominant team that camps opposition boxes, with excellent dribblers like Messi himself they would obviously get a lot more fouls round the edge of the box than we would (especially as we have been relegation level bad for several periods in the last 5 years as well).

Others have better conversion rates from much smaller samples, like Coutinho for example I think has scored 5 from about 15 attempts or something like that.

But in terms of those who have taken a lot of free kicks over the last 5 years across Europes top 5 leagues, no one converts as well as he does or comes close, I think he has more than double the average conversion rate (which is around 6%). He also has something like a near 50% hitting the target rate, which is also phenomenal, which is again basically unmatched. 

So in terms of Europes big 5 leagues, over the last 5 years, he is basically the best free kick taker. So pretty much the best free kick taker in the world right now and has been for a while. 

Whether he is up there with Beckham yet, not sure, but he is definitely getting better. His all round ball striking technique is superb, not just dead ball, you can see it with his passes and his long range shots, I expect him to start scoring a few more long range goals as well.  

[Sunglasses Ron]

We've been pretty lucky to have had some of the greatest penalty (MLT and SRL) and free kick takers (JWP) the game has seen.

Although JWP is clearly the better free-kick taker of the two, MLT's goal against Wimbledon is easily one of the greatest ever free-kicks. 

Edited 5 April, 2022 by Sunglasses Ron

[jawillwill]

6 minutes ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

We've been pretty lucky to have had some of the greatest penalty (MLT and SRL) and free kick takers (JWP) the game has seen.

Although JWP is clearly the better free-kick taker of the two, MLT's goal against Wimbledon is easily one of the greatest ever free-kicks. 

MLG will probably be here soon to tell you that MLT didn't score a free kick vs Wimbledon.

[sydney_saint]

Has he even hit the wall in the last 3 years? Even the few he misses seem to only miss by a very small margin

[alehouseboys]

2 hours ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

We've been pretty lucky to have had some of the greatest penalty (MLT and SRL*) and free kick takers (JWP) the game has seen.

Although JWP is clearly the better free-kick taker of the two, MLT's goal against Wimbledon is easily one of the greatest ever free-kicks. 

*and Davie Peach shouldn't be left out here.

[Singapore Saint]

2 hours ago, alehouseboys said:

*and Davie Peach shouldn't be left out here.

James Beattie wasn't too shabby either.

[marc_saint]

 

[Turkish]

One current and 3 ex saints in shearers top 10 list 

[saintwbu]

I don’t think i’ve ever seen a comparison of number of free kicks taken in realistic goal scoring areas, from Becks, JWP, Messi etc. Really surprised not to have seen one, imagine JWP would have taken a fraction of the attempts of most top takers. His conversion rate feels amazing. 

[Saint86]

15 hours ago, marc_saint said:

 

That video title is incorrect 😆

[Saint86]

3 hours ago, saintwbu said:

I don’t think i’ve ever seen a comparison of number of free kicks taken in realistic goal scoring areas, from Becks, JWP, Messi etc. Really surprised not to have seen one, imagine JWP would have taken a fraction of the attempts of most top takers. His conversion rate feels amazing. 

It would be interesting to see, but by the time he surpasses beckham i'd image it will be with significantly more games (so assume more freekicks) - albeit in a worse team.

Edited 6 April, 2022 by Saint86

[saintquin]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

One current and 3 ex saints in shearers top 10 list 

4 players who/are playing for Saints at some point. 👏

6 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

It would be interesting to see, but by the time he surpasses beckham i'd image it will be with significantly more games player - albeit in a worse team.

The amount of freekicks matters more than the amount of games I would have thought, though the more games you play the more chances of taking freekicks.

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

26 minutes ago, saintwbu said:

I don’t think i’ve ever seen a comparison of number of free kicks taken in realistic goal scoring areas, from Becks, JWP, Messi etc. Really surprised not to have seen one, imagine JWP would have taken a fraction of the attempts of most top takers. His conversion rate feels amazing. 

I have seen something but can't think where, about the amount Ronaldo has taken and missed.

JWP does have great consistency, and the number of games shouldn't matter too much when you think for the first half of his Saints career other players were taking them (Lambert, Tadic etc)

 

 

[Sheaf Saint]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

One current and 3 ex saints in shearers top 10 list 

Rory Delap is in the top ten of all time set piece takers?

WTF!?

[Matthew Le God]

2 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Rory Delap is in the top ten of all time set piece takers?

WTF!?

The thinking is...

Long throw in = set piece

Something he was very effective at.

Edited 6 April, 2022 by Matthew Le God

[saintwbu]

3 hours ago, Saint86 said:

It would be interesting to see, but by the time he surpasses beckham i'd image it will be with significantly more games (so assume more freekicks) - albeit in a worse team.

Yeah I think there’s been some comparison already on amount of games, but as mentioned below it’s one area that can’t really be measured by number of games. Given how much more time better teams generally spend in attacking areas than worse teams, it’s probable that Beckham took far more free kicks from shooting positions than JWP has. But it may not be the case, like I say i’m surprised that comparison hasn’t been done given all the weird and wonderful stats we have at our disposal these days!

[Toadhall Saint]

3 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

The thinking is...

Long throw in = set piece

Something he was very effective at.

Before he got to us.😉

[skintsaint]

47 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

Before he got to us.😉

After...

[Matthew Le God]

1 hour ago, Toadhall Saint said:

Before he got to us.😉

Afterwards... 😉

He was at Saints... from 2001 to 2006

He was at Stoke... from 2007 to 2013

[Pilchards]

Seen a video on the last 10 shooting free kicks between Messi and JWP.

James has scored in 3 of his plus 5 were pretty close while he did two bad ones at Arsenal.

Messi skied 6 of his, hit the crossbar plus one saved if I remember rightly.

Pretty clear who is the best free kick taker in the world right now.

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

 

15 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

Afterwards... 😉

He was at Saints... from 2001 to 2006

He was at Stoke... from 2007 to 2013

Our first goal, seems to me to be a Delap long throw straight onto the head of Crouch

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

There is a podcast, through the Athletic but available on Apple Podcasts, called the Athletic Football Tactics Podcast. This week they talk about free kicks and include lots of interesting statistics on the number of free kicks taken, percentage scored, and percentage on target. They do sadly then talk about whether JWP would be suited for a top 6 team.

[david in sweden]

Just waiting for the next Prowsey free kick, as he gets closer to Beckham's total, but the thought has occurred to me

 - just how can you put a realistic value on his performances - and what sort of fee should we expect  .. IF  he were to move ?.

Looking back at stats. (to end of March)....and compare him to another oft-vaunted Prem. player.

Jack Grealish                 age 26      Total apps. 284       goals scored 42    .  England apps. 19....  goals 1

James Ward-Prowse     age 27      Total apps. 358       goals scored  41   .  England apps.  10 ... goals 2

Certainly JWP has converted more free kicks than JG ...and probably penalties, too.

Other positives:  JWP has clocked up more Prem. minutes, and covered more distance than any other player

in the last 3 years ...AND he doesn't fall on the ground shouting " Mummy"  whenever he gets ankle-tapped.

 

....and so my question is:  If Grealish was sold for £ 100 million .. what price Prowsey? ,  (justify the difference someone).

Villa are certainly a worse team since JG  left,  and the argument that Prowsey " only plays for Saints "  is no argument at all

and his achievements could be classed as greater, as they have been attained despite playing for Saints, and not because of it. 

[Paulwantsapint81]

JWP is now 6 games from beating Jason Dodd’s record of 105 premier league wins for saints

6 appearances from going 6th on saints all time top flight appearance list with every chance of being 4th by Christmas time. If he stays for the long term should pass MLT by end of career 

currently joint 12th on scorers list 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

I think Grealish was key in a team that came up and stayed up, just. His rolling around got a lot of their chances. People will always like a player running at defences.

In a different role, JWP has been in a squad doing well in the league; his improving form handily coming along as the squad quality dipped.

Grealish might be more talismanic and getting people out of their seats. While JWP gets on with it. That might be a price difference. But JWP is worth just as much, if not more, to us.

[david in sweden]

Holmes and Watson just reminded us of the " Crime of the Century ", namely with Villa  JUST managing to survive in the Prem.

Grealish might never had such an enormous transfer deal if Villa had been relegated - as they should have been.

At the start of a "Covid " season;  with an empty stadium and no goal line technique / VAR in place, Sheff Utd clearly "scored" a goal that was 

missed by the Ref.  (goalie clearing ball away from behind the line) and that " stolen point " was enough to keep Villa up, but relegated Bournemouth

who finished on the same points tally but a one goal worst difference.  You often hear of  clubs winning / losing because of a last minute goal, but

to survive on the strength of  a goal that was wrongly disallowed is gross.    How much luck can one team have?  

I wonder if Man City feel they've got their money's worth?.   

As for as " talismatic players " Saints have had a few of those themselves over the years, and who promised much, but in the end delivered very little. 

 

[Sunglasses Ron]

3 hours ago, david in sweden said:

Holmes and Watson just reminded us of the " Crime of the Century ", namely with Villa  JUST managing to survive in the Prem.

Grealish might never had such an enormous transfer deal if Villa had been relegated - as they should have been.

At the start of a "Covid " season;  with an empty stadium and no goal line technique / VAR in place, Sheff Utd clearly "scored" a goal that was 

missed by the Ref.  (goalie clearing ball away from behind the line) and that " stolen point " was enough to keep Villa up, but relegated Bournemouth

who finished on the same points tally but a one goal worst difference.  You often hear of  clubs winning / losing because of a last minute goal, but

to survive on the strength of  a goal that was wrongly disallowed is gross.    How much luck can one team have?  

I wonder if Man City feel they've got their money's worth?.   

As for as " talismatic players " Saints have had a few of those themselves over the years, and who promised much, but in the end delivered very little. 

 

I thought there was goal line technology and VAR, but the former didn't work and the latter wasn't used for some bizarre reason?

[Whitey Grandad]

21 minutes ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

I thought there was goal line technology and VAR, but the former didn't work and the latter wasn't used for some bizarre reason?

VAR’s remit doesn’t extend to goal line decisions because there is Goal Line Technology. Yes, it’s ridiculous.

[Sheaf Saint]

53 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

VAR’s remit doesn’t extend to goal line decisions because there is Goal Line Technology. Yes, it’s ridiculous.

Indeed it is ridiculous. No point even having VAR if it has such a limited remit. On field refs should be allowed to ask for replays of anything they want, and VAR officials should be able to notify the on field ref of any incidents where there has been an obvious error.