Rory Smith is the young Times scribe I told you about.
Philippe Auclair turned me on to him quite a while ago.
Rory is the guy who wrote that story about data analytics 5 weeks ago: Bespoke data gives Arsène Wenger a tactical edge at Arsenal.
He revealed that AFC is the only club that has its own unique data analysis company and how Wenger has benefited from the work of Jaeson Rosenfeld.
This innovative analyst found that how many passes a player completes depends more on where he is on the pitch and how hard the passes are, not how gifted a technician he is.
That info flagged up the efficiency of Gabriel, the first player signed after his output was measured in this new way.
Today Rory talks about the death of crossing in the game.
That headline made me smile because (1) I always said that Wenger’s laptop picks the team and (2) that the crossing by Sagna and Clichy was so bad that it was obvious that they didn’t practice it.
Arsenal, claimed, only practiced quick forward passing and walking the ball into the net, so they screamed at Oxy for shooting from 26 yards. Not just the manager shouting at him, about four players as well
If we saw a cross by Arsenal it was mainly because they’d run out of ideas. Or become tired .
Today’s Rory story is headlined The death of crossing: why teams all now want to get the ball to ‘Zone 14’ instead
According to info provided to The Times by Opta, there has been, over the last 15 years, a huge decline in the number of crosses in the Barclays Premier League.
In the 2003-04 campaign, an average PL match produced about 42 crosses.
In the 22 games so far this season, that’s dropped to 29.
In 2003, roughly a third of those crosses found their target. This season, it’s only a fifth.
Why didn’t Arsenal cross the ball? Because they knew it doesn’t work and the manager wanted to spend that practice time on other things.
Centre forwards are different these days and, for my money, the only No.9 in Europe who can do everything is the big but delicate Robert Lewandowski. The Pole is an ultra-modern footballer who can also do the old-fashioned things.
QPR director of football Les Ferdinand notes that, “Every forward that comes to me now is a No 10.That is how they see themselves. They are not No 9s who want to head the ball. Most teams play with one up front and three rotating behind them; the forwards are not trying to win headers and the players behind them are not looking to cross the ball.”
Wide attackers these days are mostly taught to cut back inside.
Ipswich youth coach James Scowcroft says, “In a lot of the coaching literature, the focus is on what they call Zone 14. It’s the part of the pitch about as wide as the six-yard box, around 25 or 30 yards out from goal. A lot of studies have been done to show that is where most goals come from, where through-balls are most likely to be successful. Players are encouraged to get into those positions and wait for an opportunity. That is seen as much more effective than crossing.”
Up till now we’d wondered why Wenger signed so many inside forwards and guessed the reasons behind his philosophy of attacking narrow.
But now we know. Thanks, Rory!