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Rich T The Biscuit

Hit Woodwork

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Means absolutely nothing in reality but there was a stat from earlier than we have had the second most chances hot the woodwork and had they gone in we'd be out of the relegation zone, small margins and all..... 🤷‍♂️

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I mentioned “luck” in the context of our defending yesterday and this isn’t really that different.

Antonio’s second - unlucky because the first “flick on” header from the corner definitely wasn’t intended to go straight to Antonio. But not really unlucky because we should have challenged the first header , meaning ball then likely goes somewhere else and/or we should have been closer to Antonio to challenge then.

Ings’ goal in the Southampton match - ricochets around off three Southampton players and fall nicely to Ings who curls it in - not intentionally passed to Ings, so unlucky? Nope - we didn’t win the first header, didn’t get tight enough for the second ball, were two yards away while the ball ricocheted around instead of being a yard closer and getting a foot in and then gave Ings too much room for his shot. 
 

You make your own luck. More clinical strikers put it in the net, ours hit the post. Once or twice maybe bad luck. Regularly, it just shows we haven’t quite got the quality to take the harder (and fewer) chances you get at this level.

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Luck doesn't exist as such. It's the term we use when the chain of cause & effect is too complex to model rationally. However, top class footballers know either instinctively or through experience (or best of all through both) what the balance of probabilities are in a given situation, where to position yourself to have the best chance to stop a goal/score a goal. Ings is excellent at the scoring bit.

When you add speed, strength (mostly down to muscle coordination) & quick reaction times you have the ingredients for a PL player.

We just don't have enough of those.

Hitting the post is a bit more problematical. Modern footballs can dip & swerve alarmingly, it doesn't take much for a difference in the way you strike the ball & the weather conditions on the day to make the vital difference. It's a bit like fast bowlers, even the best can just lose that tiny extra movement, bowl a foot too short or too long, which destroys their efficacy. And once you start regularly overpitching/hitting the post then your confidence gets shot. It's difficult to get back from that (though players do of course).

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1 hour ago, Rich T The Biscuit said:

Means absolutely nothing in reality but there was a stat from earlier than we have had the second most chances hot the woodwork and had they gone in we'd be out of the relegation zone, small margins and all..... 🤷‍♂️

Means nothing now but I pointed out before it's entirely relevant. It's also really unusual for a bottom club, hence the only team above us is Man City and the one's directly below us are Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United.

The season before it was Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool

Before that it was Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

For a team at the bottom who create limited chances it really has had an impact.

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20 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Means nothing now but I pointed out before it's entirely relevant. It's also really unusual for a bottom club, hence the only team above us is Man City and the one's directly below us are Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United.

The season before it was Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool

Before that it was Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

For a team at the bottom who create limited chances it really has had an impact.

Is it relevant though? Those big clubs hit the post so much because they create so many chances - the proportion of their efforts that hit the post might not have been much different to anyone else’s.

Whereas it sounds like the percentage of our shots that have hit the woodwork is pretty high compared to others. Which suggests not that we create more, but that we miss more. So really it comes down to the problem we’ve had all over the pitch for most of the season - we’re just not quite good enough.

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1 hour ago, Rich T The Biscuit said:

Means absolutely nothing in reality but there was a stat from earlier than we have had the second most chances hot the woodwork and had they gone in we'd be out of the relegation zone, small margins and all..... 🤷‍♂️

Is that adding only our efforts that hit the woodwork, or those of every team?

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1 hour ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Is that adding only our efforts that hit the woodwork, or those of every team?

Every team, there is a table to show who has had the most and had they gone in and not out where we'd be.

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1 minute ago, Rich T The Biscuit said:

Every team, there is a table to show who has had the most and had they gone in and not out where we'd be.

Fair enough.

I haven't seen the table but I'm amazed that if all woodworks for every team counted as a goal we'd have enough points to be out of the bottom three.

Have you got a link?

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Luck is where opportunity and preparedness meet, we created the opportunity but I guess weren't prepared for it.

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6 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Fair enough.

I haven't seen the table but I'm amazed that if all woodworks for every team counted as a goal we'd have enough points to be out of the bottom three.

Have you got a link?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8502583/amp/How-Premier-League-look-shot-hit-woodwork-season-gone-in.html

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2 minutes ago, Rich T The Biscuit said:

Bloody hell. It doesn't even seem like we've hit the woodwork so much more often than most sides, unless I've just not being paying attention!

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Just now, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Bloody hell. It doesn't even seem like we've hit the woodwork so much more often than most sides, unless I've just not being paying attention!

I know, I can remember a couple recently, Idah had one from a header.

Having said that the earlier part of the season seems like a long time ago now.

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