Defending short corners

[steveecky]

I'm not a UEFA qualified coach but do coach U18s at a reasonably high level. Sending Croft out alone for short corners was futile. He couldn't stop Crawley crosses into the area because he had to position himself to stop the run into the area and respond to a possible return pass to the corner taker: they just got a better delivery angle every time. Better to send two out - it's not as if the attackers in the box outnumber the defenders.

 

Also, under pressure at the end we made the same mistake as England - two banks of 4 but so deep that you can't get out or link with the forward who is 40 yards up the pitch. All clearances concede possession to the opposition who start the next attack from 2/3rds up the pitch, ready to launch the next ball in. Crawley were very direct, certainly in the last 10 minutes, while we would all like to see Barcelona style intricate forward play - the fact is that at this level more balls in the box lead to more chances and more goals.

 

That said the players should be proud of the performance especially when 10v11 and the Latics' goal came from the best move of the match,

[Ritchierich]

Dickov gave up on trying to get 3 points by taking Baxter off and bringing Furman on and we just sat deep for the last fifteen mins.

 

I never understand why managers do that, they were not especially good yesterday and we could/should have pushed on for the points.

[Stevie_J]

I'm not a UEFA qualified coach but do coach U18s at a reasonably high level. Sending Croft out alone for short corners was futile. He couldn't stop Crawley crosses into the area because he had to position himself to stop the run into the area and respond to a possible return pass to the corner taker: they just got a better delivery angle every time. Better to send two out - it's not as if the attackers in the box outnumber the defenders.

 

Also, under pressure at the end we made the same mistake as England - two banks of 4 but so deep that you can't get out or link with the forward who is 40 yards up the pitch. All clearances concede possession to the opposition who start the next attack from 2/3rds up the pitch, ready to launch the next ball in. Crawley were very direct, certainly in the last 10 minutes, while we would all like to see Barcelona style intricate forward play - the fact is that at this level more balls in the box lead to more chances and more goals.

 

That said the players should be proud of the performance especially when 10v11 and the Latics' goal came from the best move of the match,

Should always send two players out to cover a short corner. Two players can beat one unsupported opponent too easily. It's pretty simple but Latics seem to have struggled with this for years.