[morrismasch]

For those of you who, like myself, love a wee stat, I've just discovered The Telegraph have an impressive new Match Analysis centre (http://footballstats.telegraph.co.uk/MatchCenter.aspx).

By clicking on the Lille v Liverpool game on the right, then "Team Stats", you can see a range of options, including "Players Average Positions". This self-explanatory tool shows where on the pitch each player stood on average, and is pretty interesting. Dirk Kuyt, for example, is positioned far nearer the centre circle than the touch-line. Babel, on the left, is about half-way between them. It also shows Gerrard positioned slightly above Torres, which seems crazy to me.

This only substantiates the view that Gerrard was, yet again, not involved enough in the middle of the park, and it's as if he's playing a "free role". In relation to Kuyt, I noticed many a time tonight that there was plenty of space on the wing, but he seemed hell-bent on staying more central. Perhaps Johnson's over-lapping is responsible for this, but I feel Dirk needs to play further wide if we're going to open teams up.

Gerrard's performance is summed up by his passing stats: 30 passes attempted, with only 43% success rate. To put that into context, the next lowest was Fernando Torres with 61%, and Gerrard's opponent Rio Mavuba managed 54 passes at 83%. Another appaling performance from the captain.

[LeeTheRed]

Colin's gonna fuckin hate you! Haha

Interesting stuff though.

[Redsmithy]

I dont think I have ever seen wide players throughout the season be so ineffective. whether it is kuyt, maxi, riera or Babel
they seem to offer very little end product.
how to solve a problem like right midfield........
if we had options at the back i would play johnson on the right of midfield . with kuyt up along torres in a 442.
other than that there is the possibility of moving Gerrard out to the right.....
maxi, babel, forget it.
I dont think Kuyt has the ability to get the best out of the flanks, and torres is invariably the player that is pushed out wide attempting to take on the whole back four from the corner flag because there is nobody to cross too.

can we start a campaign to stop gerrard taking corners....it is ridiculous.

[LeeTheRed]

can we start a campaign to stop gerrard taking corners....it is ridiculous.

Haha, you would think someone would have noticed this by now, wouldn't you?!

[morrismasch]

Just been conversing with Opta on Twitter (http://twitter.com/optajoe), to find out Gerrard's corner success rate.

Only 21% of Gerrard's corners find a team-mate. Mark Noble, Lee Chung-Yong and Matthew Etherington all have over 50%. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole story as the above players play for teams full of 6ft plusses, so their accuracy will be improved by that, but it's clear we don't do enough from corners.

If we've only got a 1 in 5 chance of actually finding our own man, what are the chances of that man scoring from a given corner? Must be less than 5%, but I dread to think really.

As I said, it's clear we're not making the most of them, regardless of the height of our players. I'd like to see us mix things up a bit from them, to try and counter-act our height disadvantage. Torres is brilliant in the air, but not the tallest, so he's more likely to win a ball he's chasing than from a standing jump. So maybe we could try dragging the opponents out of the box before firing a cross in?

[LeeTheRed]

So maybe we could try dragging the opponents out of the box before firing a cross in?

I thought you were becoming a ref, not a coach! haha

It's gone on for long enough now with Gerrard wasting corners, and with Stevie being 6ft tall he would serve a better purpose in the box rther than Benayoun/Insua/Maxi etc, and we all know what Stevie is capable of from the edge or outside the box.

Its a no brainer!!

[Redsmithy]

I think the last corner (and the only one ) we have scored direct from was scored by Gerrard.

[LeeTheRed]

The only one we have scored (Morris, feel free to correct me) was Dirk's header against Neverton, courtesy of Steven Gerrard's set piece.

I'd be intrigued to know how many corners we have had this season, just to see how many we waste. It's usually the same from free kicks as well, set pieces in general must be something that we don't bother with in training!

[morrismasch]

Lee, you are spot on, that is the only goal we have scored directly (i.e. scored by the first attacker) from a corner this season. We've managed a few from knock-ons etc (Johnson x2, Ngog v Debrecen...).

As for total corners, I'm awaiting a response from one of my sources so will let you know in due course!

[Redsmithy]

sorry.... goal i was thinking of ;-

at west ham. Benni corner, header was going in by Gerrard but kuyt got a toe to it .
So kuyt`s goal...... and cant get much more direct from a corner.