Headed Goals

[tonyh]

The following quote from the sentinel, made me wonder how many goals we've scored this season from headers.

"The Frenchman scored again when a Birchall cross to the far post was headed home."

We often have two wingers putting balls into the box, but little end product. I can only remember 5: one from AJ; one from Daniel; one from Foley; one from Dicko and one from O'Connor.

I realize that, rightly or wrongly, Campion is never going to get a look-in, but we need the option in some matches of just crossing to a big guy who can head the ball. Judging by the video clips of their past goals, Theo and JJ don't score from headers.

Am I alone?

[For Us All]

The following quote from the sentinel, made me wonder how many goals we've scored this season from headers.

"The Frenchman scored again when a Birchall cross to the far post was headed home."

We often have two wingers putting balls into the box, but little end product. I can only remember 5: one from AJ; one from Daniel; one from Foley; one from Dicko and one from O'Connor.

I realize that, rightly or wrongly, Campion is never going to get a look-in, but we need the option in some matches of just crossing to a big guy who can head the ball. Judging by the video clips of their past goals, Theo and JJ don't score from headers.

Am I alone?

 

We are very poor at attacking the ball in the air in both boxes.

[MattW]

Campion scores headed goals in the reserves against young inexperienced defenders, put him up against Neill Collins on Saturday and he'd get nothing.

[valefan16]

Campion scores headed goals in the reserves against young inexperienced defenders, put him up against Neill Collins on Saturday and he'd get nothing.

 

Uche tore Collins to pieces at VP mind, get it on the deck with pace and we can cause him alsorts of issues.

 

Cant recall many headed goals this season, Dicko v Swindon and AJ scored a beauty with his head at Barnsley (plus Occy and AJ both got one at Maidenhead) ... but overall I cant recall many goals other than that from headers or from our defenders who usually score headers (from set pieces)!

[JAMO-IN-MEXICO]

I was thinking about our poor goals output when looking at the league table. The last time I remember centre backs scoring was when we had McCombe in the side. Have we had a centre back score this year? I can't think we have. Anyone?

[Tomo]

Dicko the only defender that has scored this season (from Vale site player stats), and that was only against Swindon not too long ago.

[stupers]

I would say that this is one area we can improve immensely with just a couple of changes. Firstly take Foley off set pieces. They are atrocious. If he beats the first man (rare), they're so softly hit it's bread and butter for the defence to handle. I suspect he may give O'Connor a start tomorrow which will help. Neither of our centre-halfs are worth any special attention in the box as I would say neither are particularly strong at attacking the ball. Innis is the only one I've seen who really wants to head the air out of the ball at any given opportunity, but he's not been on the pitch enough to be a consistent threat. Perhaps if we got those two things together, we would be more threatening in the air.

[Tomo]

That's the problem I feel, Grant & Foley play well in centre together, but set pieces from Foley are pretty useless, however put MOC in & grant doesn't seem to fit anywhere near as well. I think in general as a team we are much better with Grant & Foley, but we do need someone else for set pieces.

 

That said, there's no point us being good at putting balls in, as we don't currently have anyone that can score off them in the air. Inniss is the only tall one, & he's not consistently in the side yet, let alone scoring.

[stupers]

That's the problem I feel, Grant & Foley play well in centre together, but set pieces from Foley are pretty useless, however put MOC in & grant doesn't seem to fit anywhere near as well. I think in general as a team we are much better with Grant & Foley, but we do need someone else for set pieces.

 

That said, there's no point us being good at putting balls in, as we don't currently have anyone that can score off them in the air. Inniss is the only tall one, & he's not consistently in the side yet, let alone scoring.

 

I wouldn't say much better because Foley has been well below his best in my opinion across the last 6 weeks or so. No idea why (carrying an injury perhaps?) but he's stood out to me as playing poorly. At times it's looked like we've been carrying him. I was impressed the early part of the season. He looked like he was going to work hard and chip in with a few goals. That's not the same player we've seen the last few weeks.

 

Coupled with his poor set pieces, I would look to bring O'Connor in. O'Connor & Grant could work if they played a bit more together as they've not played in many games. It looks more about who supports the attack with those two, as O'Connor and Grant do tend to stick back a bit. They're both good players so they should be able to work out between them. Having said that, how many years did we say that about Gerrard and Lampard :D

[For Us All]

I wouldn't say much better because Foley has been well below his best in my opinion across the last 6 weeks or so. No idea why (carrying an injury perhaps?) but he's stood out to me as playing poorly. At times it's looked like we've been carrying him. I was impressed the early part of the season. He looked like he was going to work hard and chip in with a few goals. That's not the same player we've seen the last few weeks.

 

Coupled with his poor set pieces, I would look to bring O'Connor in. O'Connor & Grant could work if they played a bit more together as they've not played in many games. It looks more about who supports the attack with those two, as O'Connor and Grant do tend to stick back a bit. They're both good players so they should be able to work out between them. Having said that, how many years did we say that about Gerrard and Lampard :D

 

I prefer Foley to O'Conner because he gets forward more.Granty and Oaks are both holding players and are never going to get a hatful of goals from midfield even though they do protect our back four very well.We tend to rely more on our wide players to add to our goals tally but our defenders do really need to contribute more goals.

[fuzzyvalefan]

Kennedy has shown that he takes a decent corner in his short spell here and should be on set pieces. As for converting them, well we just haven't got any height in the side. The only one you can imagine scoring a few from corners is Inniss but unfortunately we've not managed to get him on the pitch much. The only other one with a big of height is Granty but for some reason he always sits back at corners.

[Tomo]

I wouldn't say much better because Foley has been well below his best in my opinion across the last 6 weeks or so. No idea why (carrying an injury perhaps?) but he's stood out to me as playing poorly. At times it's looked like we've been carrying him. I was impressed the early part of the season. He looked like he was going to work hard and chip in with a few goals. That's not the same player we've seen the last few weeks.

 

Coupled with his poor set pieces, I would look to bring O'Connor in. O'Connor & Grant could work if they played a bit more together as they've not played in many games. It looks more about who supports the attack with those two, as O'Connor and Grant do tend to stick back a bit. They're both good players so they should be able to work out between them. Having said that, how many years did we say that about Gerrard and Lampard :D

 

Would agree on him not being great as of late, however I think he brings out the best in Grant...

 

I'd be willing to try Grant & MOC more though, both decent players, & I want MOC to get back to how he was last season, before the injury.

[Little_Al]

At last some people are beginning to realise that high crosses into the middle are a waste of time and opportunity. This applies particularly to wrong foot crosses (Right foot from the left ,left foot from the right). Wrong foot crosses, sometimes called inswingers, run away from attackers and on to defenders which makes them easy for the defenders and goal keeper. Very occasionally -the stats boys can tell us how often but I estimate at about one in a thousand with help of a following wind the ball goes in the net. The other point is that a moving player can always out jump a stationary player (some will remember Kenny Beech, but Anthony Griffith is a more recent example). Our players tend to be rooted to the spot and to huddle together in the area. Why don't the wingers take the corners? Has anybody ever taken or practised a Maguire corner?

[Jacko51]

I can only remember 5: one from AJ;

 

I can remember 3 by Ajay - Barnsley, Blackpool and Maidenhead.

[marfc]

Campion scores headed goals in the reserves against young inexperienced defenders, put him up against Neill Collins on Saturday and he'd get nothing.

Put you in a bed with Rihanna, you'd get nada ...