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lake district canary

Mclean's header

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Not seen much mention of this in all the excitement. So many good performances right through the team, but what a superb header it was, getting the timing of the run just right and the angle of trajectory to place it in the top corner.   Had a very good game overall too.

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15 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Not seen much mention of this in all the excitement. So many good performances right through the team, but what a superb header it was, getting the timing of the run just right and the angle of trajectory to place it in the top corner.   Had a very good game overall too.

Agreed Lakey. Also a great leap. The Mayor is very good in the air. 

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Give me a player that didn't perform. I couldn't be prouder of this team.

McLean has always been great in the air. Many times last season where either Krul or an opposition goal keeper has lumped the ball into the middle of the park Kenny has won a vital header and started an attacking move. Just think some of his ground play and decision making could be better and is a less technically gifted player than either vrancic or leitner.

Edited by CanaryChris

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Agreed McLean was excellent, probably his better ever performance in a Norwich shirt. It was a great header but Man City have always been rubbish at set pieces due to this zonal marking malarkey.

Edited by Capt. Pants

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MacLean is an interesting player, not always silky and not with obvious strengths, but often makes an assist or scores a goal when he plays. Something of a ‘golden arm’ player as they say in cricket, just makes meaningful things happen. 

Suggest a strong mentality, will, focus and self-belief. No law against any of that, talent a wonderful thing to have, but not the only thing to have. 

Parma

 

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1 minute ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

MacLean is an interesting player, not always silky and not with obvious strengths, but often makes an assist or scores a goal when he plays. Something of a ‘golden arm’ player as they say in cricket, just makes meaningful things happen. 

Suggest a strong mentality, will, focus and self-belief. No law against any of that, talent a wonderful thing to have, but not the only thing to have. 

Parma

 

Agreed, although that will probably work against him for a regular starting spot when everyone’s fit - there are others who are better in specific areas.

As for the header, yes it was good, but for that sort of goal it’s as much (if not more) about the delivery. It was an excellent ball in - and almost certainly something which had been worked on.

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23 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Obviously straight off the training ground and executed to perfection.👍

I don’t understand zonal marking but I’ve read that we use it at set pieces. Man City had lots of players in the box but Kenny still got to the ball first-and they didn’t have anyone on the posts, unlike us.

Also saw some criticism for Ederson, saying he didn’t make much of an effort to make the save-but there didn’t seem much that he could have done about it.

Edited by Mr Angry

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I don't really understand it either. But it wouldn't be "a thing" if it didn't work. You can analyse the goals conceded but can't analyse the ones that would have happened man to man.

Man City had 16 corners yesterday....

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Statistically last season McLean was more effective at the defensive side of things than both Leitner and Vrancic. Surprised me as saw him as more attacking and popped up with important goals and assists but he’s a real grafter and often goes unnoticed as to his importance in the team

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2 hours ago, Mr Angry said:

I don’t understand zonal marking but I’ve read that we use it at set pieces. Man City had lots of players in the box but Kenny still got to the ball first-and they didn’t have anyone on the posts, unlike us.

Also saw some criticism for Ederson, saying he didn’t make much of an effort to make the save-but there didn’t seem much that he could have done about it.

I saw talk about “blockers” when zonal marking from corners - Man City apparently had three or four men zonal marking the edge of the six yard box (whose job it is to attack the ball if it comes into their zone) and then three or four “blockers” to try and stop the runners.  A very strange tactic nowadays with VAR and a seemingly bigger focus on manhandling players in the box.

 

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Some element of zonal marking at corners is perfectly sensible. There is some embarrassingly ignorant ‘little England’ black-and-whiteness about this subject from commentators and pundits.

A combination of man-marking particularly talented attackers of the ball, with the protection of key ‘heat map’ scoring areas is perfectly logical and reasonable. There are some areas that are repeatedly ‘dangerous’ and are more often where such goals are scored from. 

Commentators are often guilty of mis-appropriating cause and effect. A player doing something obviously wrong is not the same as a failing in a system. 

Even very good headers of the ball very rarely score from the penalty spot or further out for example. They attack that ball and run into dangerous spaces. If these spaces are heavily populated space is at a premium (including ‘blocking’ or making people run a longer way around and ‘buying time’ for someone else to then defend), or defenders - not man-marking the said good attacking player - start from a deeper zonal position and move towards the zonal area that the good, attacking player is trying to attack, there is no ‘run’ on anybody, both defender and attacker are in motion and - generally - it is much easier to ‘head away’ (up and away, distance, not precise), than ‘head in’ which ideally means getting above the ball, heading down (onto the line if possible). 

Background: In Holland teams don’t even much like corners. Feeling that they compromise tactical shape defensively too much for too little reward. Mourinho also produced interesting data that agreed with the Dutch view. 

Both stressed that true analysis includes what doesn’t happen - and what it costs - rather than the confirmation bias of remembering the relatively rare goals scored this way (compared to all goals scored) None of this is to decry the importance of the set piece.

Zonal also intrinsically focuses on dangerous spaces relative to player position and ball position. This is very much in synch with the way Norwich and Man City play, whereby received wisdoms are overturned. ‘Don’t pass across your box’ might be one, which both teams have been trained to make exactly such a pass in order to move opponents, to encourage them to feel they might win it, in order to pop the ball around the high press (à la a Matador) and then inevitably have an overload in numbers in the rest of the pitch, which - played correctly isolating opposition players 1v2 in small, dangerous areas - should see a chance of a chance created.

This can also be considered focusing on limited ‘zonal’ attacking areas (rather than focusing on the shape of the overall game).Thus zonal used both in a defensive and attacking sense and becomes an all-encompassing mindset. A Permanent focus on time, space, ball and immediate options in your ‘zone’. This leads to what I would call the ‘constructive bunching’ that we see City (either) operare, the opposite of what many were taught previously. 

Parma 

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1 hour ago, Hairy Canary said:

Considering the number of corners Man City had we can say that we executed the zonal marking better than they did. 

On MOTD they said that 55% of the Premier League goals that Man City have conceded since the start of last season have been from set pieces.

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2 hours ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Zonal also intrinsically focuses on dangerous spaces relative to player position and ball position. This is very much in synch with the way Norwich and Man City play, whereby received wisdoms are overturned. ‘Don’t pass across your box’ might be one, which both teams have been trained to make exactly such a pass in order to move opponents, to encourage them to feel they might win it, in order to pop the ball around the high press (à la a Matador) and then inevitably have an overload in numbers in the rest of the pitch, which - played correctly isolating opposition players 1v2 in small, dangerous areas - should see a chance of a chance created.

err yes, quite

......I think 😕

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6 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

Obviously straight off the training ground and executed to perfection.👍

Trying to remember, didn't Zimmerman score one very similar last season?

 

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