Grappling at corners - my solutions

[ChicagoBlue]

Neither was given as a foul/penalty!

City don’t generally get such fouls given to them, and it’s a joke!



On the Arsenal game, it is simply OBSTRUCTION on the goalkeeper! There is nowhere else on the field a player can turn his back to another player looking to go for the ball and block (set a pick!) them off from advancing, yet Arsenal are somehow considered geniuses for scoring two goals from clear and obvious fouls, all while commentators give a nod and a wink to the “dark arts”!!

It’s a fucking joke that has produced 3 EXTRA points (2 extra in the Spurs game and 1 they shouldn’t have got in ours!).

I know the League wants a NON-City PL winner, but this is not the way to go about it!

 

[Saddleworth2]

Arsenal are profiting from the lack of refereeing on their current corner routine.

We should have been far better prepared for it. Someone at the near post protecting a shot directly at goal, Haaland and Gvardiol stopping Martinelli etc from blocking Ederson who is then in a better position to clear the ball. They did the same thing against Spurs and it was pretty poor to see us so inept at dealing with it.

they have been doing that routine and variations on it for the last two seasons. I think they scored 12 goals from corners last season. I was genuinely surprised at how poorly we defended against them with so much evidence of what they do. Maybe refs will now catch on as to how the blockers are obstructing the goalkeeper and other defenders.
Might as well be American Football.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Ridiculous today early on in the game from Semedo but the ref can't give a penalty as the ball isn't in play. We see this all the time so I've two possible solutions.

The first is to extend the six yard line across the whole penalty area and use that to keep attackers and defenders apart, with attackers not allowed inside the line and defenders not allowed forward of the line. Or maybe no more than two defenders allowed. As a corner is supposed to be advantageous to the attacking team, that gives them the advantage and stops the grappling.

The other solution is to sin-bin any offending players for a short time after the corner is taken. Send them off the field for a minute after the corner has been taken.

I'd much prefer the ref to signal the corner kick and then award the penalty. What happens at the moment is that he delays the kick so he can talk to players and no doubt inform them that they should stop all that wrestling or he's gonna award a pen. He signals the kick, the wrestling continues and he doesn't award the pen!

 

[supercity88]

they have been doing that routine and variations on it for the last two seasons. I think they scored 12 goals from corners last season. I was genuinely surprised at how poorly we defended against them with so much evidence of what they do. Maybe refs will now catch on as to how the blockers are obstructing the goalkeeper and other defenders.
Might as well be American Football.

Was it the league cup final where the dippers had a goal ruled out from a set piece because of obstruction? Arsenal aren’t doing anything different, so shouldn’t be getting away with it. But because there are so many bodies in the box, it’s hard to identify the specific culprit or look for an issue. They make it look like a mutual scrap and so there’s no punishment.

As you say, it was poor not to defend it better. We should have been positioning Ederson somewhere else and getting players to create space for him by driving the Arsenal players away from blocking, whilst our biggest players then dealt with the ball itself if Ederson couldn’t get to it.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Neither was given as a foul/penalty!

City don’t generally get such fouls given to them, and it’s a joke!

View attachment 132877

On the Arsenal game, it is simply OBSTRUCTION on the goalkeeper! There is nowhere else on the field a player can turn his back to another player looking to go for the ball and block (set a pick!) them off from advancing, yet Arsenal are somehow considered geniuses for scoring two goals from clear and obvious fouls, all while commentators give a nod and a wink to the “dark arts”!!

It’s a fucking joke that has produced 3 EXTRA points (2 extra in the Spurs game and 1 they shouldn’t have got in ours!).

I know the League wants a NON-City PL winner, but this is not the way to go about it!

I just did a quick search on corner goals to see if anyone else is routinely getting away with this.

Found this video of different variations of corner goals from 22/23:



There are one or two examples of blocking defenders, but not a single other team is getting away with obstructing the goalkeeper in these examples. The rules are not unclear about this. A player is under no obligation to move from their position, but the point at which they try to use contact to prevent the goalkeeper from moving towards the ball, it's a foul.

What Arsenal are doing is against the rules, but they've realised that it never gets given and act accordingly. They are basically being allowed to cheat by the referees, who might not see it in real time in the hustle and bustle of a corner, but also by VAR. VAR seems to operate on the guidance that they only give fouls for things like blocking if they feel like the blocked player "would have got there." So you'll see it all the time that a player dragging down a player at the far post isn't penalized because the corner went to the near post. What Arsenal do is basically obstruct the goalkeeper so early that he's never getting anywhere near it in the first place, and so when it goes to VAR, they don't disallow it because he "wouldn't have got there anyway." If you watch the one against Tottenham, Spurs actually have to have two players around the keeper to block the blockers, which means their keeper can get nowhere near the ball.

In essence, fair play to them for spotting a loophole and using it to their advantage. But they definitely need to come out now and make it explicit that any future play like that will result in a foul (i.e. they will actually enforce the rules they already have).

Let's be honest, we should start doing it and then see how quickly it gets shut down as a tactic if we start scoring loads.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I'd much prefer the ref to signal the corner kick and then award the penalty. What happens at the moment is that he delays the kick so he can talk to players and no doubt inform them that they should stop all that wrestling or he's gonna award a pen. He signals the kick, the wrestling continues and he doesn't award the pen!

Yet more of the substitute teacher vibes.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

As you say, it was poor not to defend it better. We should have been positioning Ederson somewhere else and getting players to create space for him by driving the Arsenal players away from blocking, whilst our biggest players then dealt with the ball itself if Ederson couldn’t get to it.

But as we all know, as soon as you block an attacking player, they'll throw themselves to the floor and claim a penalty. It's just not worth it to prevent a possible goal. Only 2% of corners result in a goal.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I just did a quick search on corner goals to see if anyone else is routinely getting away with this.

Found this video of different variations of corner goals from 22/23:



There are one or two examples of blocking defenders, but not a single other team is getting away with obstructing the goalkeeper in these examples. The rules are not unclear about this. A player is under no obligation to move from their position, but the point at which they try to use contact to prevent the goalkeeper from moving towards the ball, it's a foul.

What Arsenal are doing is against the rules, but they've realised that it never gets given and act accordingly. They are basically being allowed to cheat by the referees, who might not see it in real time in the hustle and bustle of a corner, but also by VAR. VAR seems to operate on the guidance that they only give fouls for things like blocking if they feel like the blocked player "would have got there." So you'll see it all the time that a player dragging down a player at the far post isn't penalized because the corner went to the near post. What Arsenal do is basically obstruct the goalkeeper so early that he's never getting anywhere near it in the first place, and so when it goes to VAR, they don't disallow it because he "wouldn't have got there anyway." If you watch the one against Tottenham, Spurs actually have to have two players around the keeper to block the blockers, which means their keeper can get nowhere near the ball.

In essence, fair play to them for spotting a loophole and using it to their advantage. But they definitely need to come out now and make it explicit that any future play like that will result in a foul (i.e. they will actually enforce the rules they already have).

Let's be honest, we should start doing it and then see how quickly it gets shut down as a tactic if we start scoring loads.

We should put 5 players little players around the keeper on our first corner against NUFC, and have 4 big lads spread out to all run to the back post!!

Let’s see if they award a foul!

What will happen, though, is NUFC will simply put players in there to protect the keeper, it’ll be a mess and he’ll tell players to stop!!

It’s a (bad) joke they’ve gained 3 points from it already!!

 

[2bluejacko]

Simple way to stop the basketball blocking is to award a penalty straight away if the defender is not facing the corner.
If he is facing the other way his only intention is to block the movement of the attackers, he's not bothered one bit about where the ball is.
Soon stop

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Simple way to stop the basketball blocking is to award a penalty straight away if the defender is not facing the corner.
If he is facing the other way his only intention is to block the movement of the attackers, he's not bothered one bit about where the ball is.
Soon stop

Great, but the “Arsenal problem” under discussion is how the ATTACKERS box in the keeper, not attackers going down!

On BOTH GOALS (Spurs & City) Martinelli is facing away from the ball and backing into the keeper. Not looking at the ball at all, only blocking the keeper from moving backwards!

Don’t refs look at this shit between games? WTF does Howard Webb do all week? Wonder if he’ll address it in his chat with Owen???