steviemc said:
Thia was taken from an article about data analysis in football in 2013...
Manchester City’s data department analysed about 400 corners in several national leagues over seasons, and concluded that the most dangerous corner is the inswinger: the ball that swings in towards goal.
The data team took this finding to City’s manager Roberto Mancini, who had played football for many years, and his gut told him that the most dangerous corner was the outswinger. But City’s outswingers kept on not producing goals. Mancini’s assistant David Platt came to chat to the data analysts, and they noticed that City had begun taking inswinging corners. Last season City scored 15 goals from corners, the most in the English Premier League. Vincent Kompany’s headed goal against Manchester United, which effectively clinched the championship for City, came from an inswinging corner.
I don't need a data analyst to tell me an inswinger is more dangerous; it's blatantly obvious. At a corner, attacking players are facing the goal and defenders have their backs to it. If the ball swings in, the attackers are on the front foot, attacking the ball, and the defenders are either static or back-peddling, plus they're trying to watch the ball and the attacking players. So the odds must favour the attacking players, particularly if the corner taker can put the ball where it's expected.
If it swings out, the defenders are on the front foot and the attackers are static. But even that assumes you put the ball in the right place. I sit in 109 so am level with the 6-yard box and far too often you see an outswinging corner go beyond most of our players, so they're not going to get it anyway. There was a good example of this against Boro, where the ball arrived between the penalty spot and the edge of the 18-yard box and there were 5 of our players between the penalty spot and 6-yard box. That's utter rubbish.
And then
yesterday was at least the second time we've been at the arse-end if a game,
with seconds to go and we've pissed around with a short corner. I didn't have a problem with Navas giving it to Milner but he should have crossed right away, rather than give it back. Milner's supposed to be a bright guy but that was utterly fucking brainless.