dayokanu:

LOLstatic

And which keper in the whole of United kingdom including the British Isle is close to 60% of his abilities

dayokanu:

Joe Hart ko Bret Hitman hart ni

Joe Hart cant even make top 10 goalkeepers in Europe.

Een in the EPL thats a gathering of useless goalkeeper he isnt even the best

dayokanu:

I thought De gea shipped 6 in 90 min average of one every 15min,
And Sczezny shipped 8 in 90 thats like one goal every 11min

[size=18pt]Italy's Gianluigi Buffon: Germany's Manuel Neuer is the best goalkeeper in the world[/size]

"I think it's a big problem for us if two or three players are injured," Ribery told German magazine Kicker.

"(Bayern) have no real good bench and don't have a really good second team. But I'm not the president, nor the manager, just a player."

dayokanu:

Dortmund have the advantage of being completely out of Europe so they get to focus only on the Bundesliga
Bayern have the distraction of playing midweek games just like Schalke too.
The bayern squad is just too lean and key players injury prone. But BvB and Mochengladbach have no such

From Next season when BvB get Reus they would be a real force, that is if they are able to keep all their other players
All their youngings should have added more experience.

Hummels should be a beast in defence by then. Sven Bender, Schmelzer, Moritz Leitner, Gotze and kagawa should be more matured
Grosskreutz should either shape in (Its not enough to depend on hardowrk alone) or ship out.

Also the issue of Gundogan should be resolved either he grows into the role or they bring back Sahin from Madrid.
Another key thing is for them to get rid of their oldies. Kehl, Owomoyela etc and a backup for lewandoski

coogar:

i hear this ish a lot but does it really matter?
it was supposed to hinder united's title race last season but they ended up winning it and taking chelsea to the cleaners.

in my opinion, europe can actually be a catalyst to a side winning the league title.
players go with the mentality that if we can be this good in europe, league opponents should be bread and butter.

let's imagine bayern munich beating barcelona in the quarter final over 2 legs. . . .do you know the kind of lift/motivation that would give the players?
they would murder any team from then on cos the mental strength suddenly becomes quadrupled. the usual scoreline of 2-1 would become 8-2.

dayokanu:

The CL knockout is a higher battle ground than most leagues games.
I would be tempted to say man utd lost the league in 2010 because of the injury Rooney copped in Munich that was aggravated in Old trafford.
Without those two high stake games Rooney might not have been injured or Ferguson would have a need to rush him in.

If man utd is playing Real Madrid on Wednesday and Man City or Arsenal following weekend,
You play a very intense game in Bernabeu or OT, lets say you lost or won, the depression or the Euphoria would consume the whole of Thursday
Fergie wont even think about about man City/Chelsea game at all till maybe Friday for a game in 48hrs time.
While your opponent of contender for the title has a whole 7 days to prepare.

coogar:

you have a point here - i think the best way is to have a sound first half of the season - it leaves a small margin for bad results without really going far too behind the rivals in the title race. the only question is how do barcelona achieve this almost every season.
they play an average of 60 games per season and they always somehow manage to be in and around winning the treble - they have the leanest squad too.
barcelona's low risk football should be adopted. . . .

dayokanu:

I think last season Man Utd won the league because Chelsea had a terrible form in December-January.

It was a miracle Chelsea were second and lost merely with 9 points.

Honestly I think the level of the EPL is reducing I mean for man utd to still be tied for top position.

If Man Utd should win the league this season then no EPL team should even say anything in Europe again.

Cos with Man Utds injuries and their transition players they shouldnt even have a say in the title race

Barcelona also makes the ball work than the players. You would notice that Xavi just strolls round the field while ozil, Ronaldo, kaka, Pepe are almost bursting their lungs running.

Barcelona has a good bench.
Look at this

Pinto, Adriano, Keita, Mascherano, Pedro, Villa, Thiago, Cuenca, Affelay. Most teams dont have a bench that rich in talent.
Pedro, Mascherano, Affelay, Vila/Sanchez would play for 95% of European teams

And it's not just fans who often seem to feel this way. On the last Saturday in October, Werder Bremen played away at Mainz and fell behind after 23 minutes from a set piece. Young Yunus Malli took a corner from the right, Niko Bungert won the aerial duel at the near post and the ball hit the back of the net.

So far, so bad. Goals like that happen all the time. However, in this particular case, there was an element that elicited comments. "The defence isn't ready," said the television commentator before adding: "And the posts are unguarded." On the following day, former Germany international players Thomas Helmer and Thomas Strunz, plus former Hannover coach Peter Neururer, dissected this goal on a different TV station but reached the same conclusion. "There's no one at the post," they said, making it sound as if Werder had committed a primal footballing sin. "I once had a keeper who didn't like it when there was a player protecting the near post and he would send him away," Neururer said, making it sound as if he had committed that goalkeeper to a mental hospital a long time ago.

It wasn't the first time Werder had come under such criticism, as the team often leaves one or both posts unprotected at corners. Back in late February, when playing Leverkusen, the side safeguarded the near post at a corner but left the far post unmanned. Leverkusen scored when Eren Derdiyok headed the ball into that deserted corner.

As I've mentioned above, four days after the Mainz versus Bremen game I was following the Champions League on television and saw Inter Milan take the lead against Lille when Walter Samuel headed a corner into the net right next to the upright, as the French side had no defender standing at either post.

This game was not analysed by Helmer, Strunz and Neururer, but I'm sure their complaint was echoed by many Lille fans watching the match. "Why in heaven's name is nobody guarding the posts?" they will have yelled in anger and looked at Lyon, also active on the night and always protecting both posts on corners. "You learn to do this in kindergarten!" they may have added.

Because that's what we did. We learned very early that you must position one defender at the near post on corners, one at the far post. We never questioned the wisdom of it. Not even the fact that you'd usually put your two smallest players there, which - if you think about it - is a tad counter-productive when you want to defend against headers or prevent goals scored directly from the corner kick, made us wonder.

I'm not sure when I first noticed a team that defended corners differently. It might have been when Jose Mourinho guided Porto to great triumphs, because his name often comes up in this context. Whatever the circumstances were, when I finally saw teams that left one or even both posts unattended, I didn't think they were making a stupid, childish mistake. No, it made immediate sense to me and I shook my head not because I disapproved but because I wondered why nobody had done this before.

First, defending is all about having a numerical advantage. But on corners, many teams voluntarily reduce their advantage by putting two men into spots from which they'll hardly ever get to the ball first but will even in the best of cases only react to what happens.

For example, the reason that this Mainz goal against Bremen should - from the coach's point of view - never have happened is not that the posts should have been guarded, quite the opposite. The fact that the posts were unattended gave Bremen a huge numerical advantage in front of goal, which is why no less than three Werder players went up for the ball together with Bungert. He should never have been to able to win this aerial duel in the first place, that's why the goal was so annoying, not to say freakish.

Second, there's the offside trap. In August, the blog Defensive Minded ran a piece headed "Barcelona's Zonal Marking at Corners". It pointed out, among many other things, that "Barcelona do not put any players on the goal line at either of the goal posts. This is considered heresy in British football but Barcelona do it all the time with success. The reason they don't put any players on the goal line is because it would be very difficult to create an offside trap after the initial ball is cleared."

To illustrate this, let's look at arguably the two most famous corners in the span of only two minutes, namely the pair of set pieces that won the 1999 Champions League for Manchester United against Bayern Munich in stoppage time.

You may recall Teddy Sheringham's equaliser: the corner came in and the ball was cleared by Thorsten Fink, though not far enough. As Ryan Giggs knocked it back into the danger zone, Mehmet Scholl, guarding the near post, was a little slow in coming off the line. As Sheringham made contact with the ball and sent it into the net, Scholl was a half-step behind him.


GettyImages
An unmarked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored Man Utd's dramatic winner against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final
Bayern's goalkeeper Oliver Kahn immediately raised his hand in desperation to signal that Sheringham had been offside, but the German was wrong. However, had there been no defenders at the posts, Sheringham would have been offside by no less than three yards - provided Giggs would ever have gotten the ball to him in the first place, considering there would have been two more opponents blocking its path.

Now, also consider what happened a few moments later: when the next United corner was taken, Sheringham won an aerial duel and the ball was flicked on to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The Norwegian then sent the ball goalwards - to the exact spot where a defender, in this case Michael Tarnat, was standing, his left hand resting on the far post.

Put differently, it was exactly the kind of situation coaches position players at the posts for. But did it Bayern any good? No. Of course not. Because as happens so very often in such circumstances, the ball came at Tarnat from such close range that he simply didn't have any time to react.

So the coaches who commit "heresy" by not putting men into the corners on corners actually have very good reasons for doing so. It's just that of course you never notice all the goals that were prevented by unguarded posts, you only notice those that were scored because of it.

For instance in another crucial game between United and Bayern. Eleven years after the 1999 final, Franck Ribery took a corner at Old Trafford and his cross found Arjen Robben. United were guarding the far post, but not the near corner. And this was the spot Robben volleyed the ball into.

I'm sure there were commentators who said that the goal would've never happened if a defender had been standing on the line. Yet it wasn't a mistake by the United coach or his goalkeeper or whoever had decided to defend that way on corners from the left. Rather, it was a terrible marking error, as the nearest United player was an amazing twelve yards away from Robben as the cross came sailing in.

So I guess I have to conclude that the times have changed and that there are indeed sound reasons to not protect the posts, to not put passive men in the corners.

Put differently, once it was true that, in the words of Cicero, it is the character of a brave and resolute man not to desert his post. But today many coaches prefer the wisdom of Winnie the Pooh: You can't stay in your corner waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

dayokanu:

My point is despite their argument against it, the number of goals I have seen saved on the goal line by these post markers is enough to convince me as a coach to stick to the tradition

FBS:

As much as I find the article 'interesting" I totally disagree. I manage/play with a small team in me town and the first thing I shout when defending corner kicks "MAN THE FREAKING BACK POST"

Damn it WORKS! and I stick to it.  

BlueDiva:

We know how many goal line clearance have been made in the past. Important ones at that.
If i was a manager, i'd stick with it.

dayokanu:

My point is despite their argument against it, the number of goals I have seen saved on the goal line by these post markers is enough to convince me as a coach to stick to the tradition

So the coaches who commit "heresy" by not putting men into the corners on corners actually have very good reasons for doing so. It's just that of course you never notice all the goals that were prevented by unguarded posts, you only notice those that were scored because of it.

medjai:

I think it depends on the team you're playing against.

Against Barcelona, for instance, it doesn't make any sense having men marking the post because Barca hardly poses any threat from corner kicks and set-plays generally(yeah, they might score one or two). Infact, they themself know this. That's why they choose to pass their corner kicks most times.

But playing against a team like Stoke, Blackburn, Bilbao or Madrid - teams that pose a huge aerial threat, you've just gotta have men marking the post. Effective marking doesn't guarantee a 100% success rate. It's always 50/50. And even if your defenders do well to prevent the first ball, what of the 2nd ball? They could get a shot on target from that and having men marking the post could prevent that from going in.

dayokanu:

We had an argument on Bigsoccer some months ago regarding marking the post at corner kicks. Where 2 players (typically the smaller ones) mark the post
I noticed in the last few seasons some coaches are moving away from that agelong practice claiming it doesnt make sense. Ulli Hesse Lichtenberger seems to agree but I disagree

His claim is that its players that score corners, If every player is marked effectively then you wont even have an attempt on target and the goal line men should do better things that resting on the post.
he claimed those on the goal line makes offside difficult .

I totally disagree.

dayokanu:

I disagreed also because there is no way you can be realistically outnumbered in your box

Assuming Bayern is defending a corner vs Man Utd.

Man Utd already have a man taking the corner which is minus 1, they would have their keeper in goal(Unless dying minutes) minus 2 and probably one or two defenders around the center line to prevent counters thats totalling about minus 4.

So with the minus 2 of Bayern defender staying on the line, you still cant be outnumbered

It would be hard for Man Utd to outnumber Bayern in their own box in corner kicks.

Also those short players like Lahm, Modric, Rafael & Fabio, Dani Alvez, Messi and Rafinha are useless aerially so why not make themselves useful at the post instead of pretending to be marking someone and just loafing around

dayokanu:

Also those short players like Lahm, Modric, Rafael & Fabio, Dani Alvez, Messi and Rafinha are useless aerially so why not make themselves useful at the post instead of pretending to be marking someone and just loafing around

AjanleKoko:

Mesi's not useless aerially in the box.

coogar:

put him in the box against stoke or blackburn.