Our Finishing...

penalty spot said:
Our shooting is also terrible the number of efforts that go over or wide is unbelievable. Then as previously mentioned our final ball which is consistantly played at the wrong pace or person is so frustrating after an excellent build up.

We are leading goalscorers and top of the league but an improvement in this final third would be welcome. We should reinact the situations in practice matches time and time again, but there again maybe we do.The number of clear chances spurned is beyond a joke.
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So we can't consistently or constantly (not sure which one you mean tbh) play the wrong final ball then ?

Still the same either way, we can not consistently or constantly play the wrong ball or we wouldn't be nearing 100 goals for the season, stop over reacting to a couple of bad misses and to all those that called Sterling(with an E for those that still struggle to get the guys fucking name right) a donkey you are a disgrace, the amount of points this lad as won us with his late goals deserves a little bit of a free pass from his mistake yesterday, he certainly doesn't deserve the amount of abuse I have seen delivered his way by so called fans.
 
I fully agree that the football we play to get in these positions is sublime.

Our chances created-to-goal scored ratio is, unlike everything else we do on the pitch, average. I think that we employ players with excellent personal qualities - good guys but who mentally lack that utter ruthlessness and killer instinct.

I'm convinced that a sports psychologist would help some of them.
 
NorCalBlue said:
It’s pretty clear that Sterling sometimes struggles in front of goal, yet he’s still our top scorer in the league. Aguero has been criticized a lot lately for missing chances and making bad decisions in the box, but he continues to score a ton of goals. I’ve had many ‘discussions’ on here and in real life about the ability (or not) of Dzeko, and yet his goals/min ratio for City was always extremely good.

So what’s going on – are these three no more than average goal scorers that are (were) lucky enough to play in a fantastic team? Is it just so easy to score that they can do so even when they’re (playing) shit? Could we save ourselves a ton of money and just spend 10 million on a Championship striker, because he’ll score for fun with all the chances we create? And what does this say about Bony?

Or maybe we’re missing something when we criticize these players. I think that part of the problem is that we see every chance our players get, so we see them miss most of the time (because that’s what even the best strikers do, on average). In contrast, we usually only see highlights of the other top strikers, and these mostly show their successes, so we get a false sense of how often they convert their chances.

Another problem is that we don’t give the player any credit for being in the position to miss the chance. But if Sterling hadn’t read the situation and busted a gut to get to the far post ahead of the defender, the ball from Walker would have whistled across goal and out for a throw-in and Sterling wouldn’t be getting any criticism right now for missing the chance. Yes, he f*cks up quite often, sometimes really badly, but he’s still scoring loads of goals because he keeps putting himself in positions to f*ck up, and sometimes he doesn't. A truly crap striker wouldn’t miss nearly as many easy chances, because they wouldn’t be there in the first place to have the opportunity.

So, to answer my own question, if a striker’s good enough to repeatedly get into the right positions (which is a vastly underestimated, but vitally important ability for a striker), this City team will provide him with a lot of good opportunities, so it’s pretty easy to score goals. A world class finisher in top form might convert 1 in 4 of these chances over a season – poorer finishers (or world class finishers who’re a bit out of sorts) won’t score as many, but if they can be in the right place at the right time in this team, they’ll still score a lot.
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That’s a fair point, but we unquestionably suffer from Arsenal syndrome as well, and it’s not as if yesterday was a one off. We fail to kill teams off until the last 10 - 15 minutes with monotonous regularity. The number of times we work the ball into presentable positions no more than 15 yards out, and then look to play one more pass or throw one more dummy instead of pulling the trigger, is nobody’s business. Perhaps related to that is that none of Dave, Sterling, Bernardo or Gunders has any real power when it comes to walloping the ball, and our long range finishing generally is frankly awful.

One key feature of the rags under Taggart was their utter ruthlessness from 20 yards out, centre of the goal. Their whole game was predicated on flat vicious crossing with their attackers playing the percentages game of one going near post, one going middle and one going far post, all just hoping for a touch. Defenders were under tremendous pressure when trying to head clear, particularly given that Keane and Scholes would then look to follow up just outside the box. The finishing of those two players was merciless and they must have been drilled for hours, with the most notable feature being that they always, always, always kept the ball low, even if it meant the occasional scuff. They made the keeper work. KDB aside, we lean back like rank amateurs and blaze the ball into row Z time after time. I’d argue that it’s the one feature of our game where they are still better than us. I’ve watched countless games where they’ve created next to fuck all only for Lingard, Martial or Mata to bury the first chance they get. Frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it
 
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TCIB said:
... has stagnated! First let me state this is not a knee jerk rant or moan but a concern that has nagged many of us. I think we have given long enough now with that fog we seem to have in that final pass or effort not clearing.

I was going to take screenshots of passages of play and gifs etc, maybe i will if this thread gets busy. I do not think i need to though. Nor do i want to give up my secret identity as being a tactical genius who secretly taught Guardiola all he knows :-D

Again it is not a huge issue but now i feel it is costing us points we really should have in the bag and it is tangibly the final touch of a passage of play or just before. Until that point we are peerless in this league with Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool having the ability to pull of such complete displays as we do on a far less regular basis, far less, if at all! Some will say "but look at our goals for" well yes we have scored a lot but if you used that xG thing i bet it shows us dropping off goals scored from positions we would be expected to.

Earlier in the season i remember Gundogan near the oppo's 6yrd line and he got crowded out. He turned on a 6pence and recycled it out of a situation 9/10 as a person who watches mainly the prem would expect the player to just hammer it at their shins in hope. He got the ball back out to the 18yrd line and a goal came from that secondary assault on their area. It is composure in that area and situation which has slightly dipped imo.

It really is only a concern thus far for myself but big and not necessarily good things come from small beginnings. I understand Guardiola leaves the final 3rd almost to players instincts and ability to sort it with their talents and understanding of each other, tactics and the game in general. Thus far it is the one area i would say we have stagnated slightly, and i do mean slightly, non of this is doomsday scenario.

There are factors outside of the strikers with that mainly being David Silva spoils us and our strikers as much as De Bruyne does with killer passes if not more so. He also holds the ball high up the pitch often under pressure of 2-3 defenders and still gets it out to a blue shirt. This of course leaves their defence in big trouble. There is no doubt we lose an edge with no Silva.

The same goes for Jesus, his movement and ability puts oppo players well out of position with the ability himself to score 30 a season. With Guardiola's basic style the loss of Mendy can not be understated either, for the overloading principle he is a must. Delph is fantastic but he can't do that attacking bit which was probably the main trait Guardiola coughed up a lot on Mendy for.

So i look at all that and i come to the conclusion injuries/personal issues are starting to tell but not showing in classic fashion. For example teams attacking our left as a specific weak area and getting joy due to Mendy's injury. On that score Delph has been world 11 standard along with helping to bring the ball out a bit to with decent support further forward. Our left struggles to overload and overlap with such ease now. Overlaps going to their touch line that scares the crap out of defenders forcing them to stay back is not there. For a proactive ethos that we carry it becomes a slight concern as our attack is indistinguishable from our defence as they are the same thing almost. If our attack is not their then neither more so than others is our defence.

All of this i feel is making our strikers snap at the ball just a bit, not to much but a bit and enough to see a lot of chances to score go at the last moment. These misses in turn make the forwards tense up a bit more the next time they have a chance or again not have clarity of vision to make the pass just to the side to your open team mate etc.

We simply need to calm down in front of goal and play like we have all the time in the world again and the 6's and 7's we should be scoring will return.

Am i imagining things or do you think we have slacked of in the clinical attempts on goal goes? Is it even a concern for you as long as we keep it up? I think we have another 30% or so in this squad so to see us stagnate in any manor at all i think merits debate.
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Great post
 
H
Exeter Blue I am here said:
That’s a fair point, but we unquestionably suffer from Arsenal syndrome as well, and it’s not as if yesterday was a one off. We fail to kill teams off until the last 10 - 15 minutes with monotonous regularity. The number of times we work the ball into presentable positions no more than 15 yards out, and then look to play one more pass or throw one more dummy instead of pulling the trigger, is nobody’s business. Perhaps related to that is that none of Dave, Sterling, Bernardo or Gunders has any real power when it comes to walloping the ball, and our long range finishing generally is frankly awful.

One key feature of the rags under Taggart was their utter ruthlessness from 20 yards out, centre of the goal. Their whole game was predicated on flat vicious crossing with their attackers playing the percentages game of one going near post, one going middle and one going far post, all just hoping for a touch. Defenders were under tremendous pressure when trying to head clear, particularly given that Keane and Scholes would then look to follow up just outside the box. The finishing of those two players was merciless and they must have been drilled for hours, with the most notable feature being that they always, always, always kept the ball low, even if it meant the occasional scuff. They made the keeper work. KDB aside, we lean back like rank amateurs and blaze the ball into row Z time after time. I’d argue that it’s the one feature of our game where they are still better than us. I’ve watched countless games where they’ve created next to fuck all only for Lingard, Martial or Mata to bury the first chance they get. Frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it
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it is the one area where I think we still fall short of prime Pep Barca and Bayern. I think it’s the product of a number of things. Poor last ball (Gundogan had Raheem free outside him 2nd half and passed to a defender), not attacking crosses in numbers ( watch Kuns movement to Walkers cross (the Raz miss), poor technique (when Raz is on the left he continually want to cut inside to use his right foot. His miss yesterday was on his trusty left!), injuries, over elaboration. If it was an easy fix, Pep would have fixed it by now. It’s scary to think what this team could achieve if they added clinical finishing to everything else.
 
Poor finishing was the feature of this game, and maybe a poor final ball. But do we generalise from one game? It would clearly be stupid to do so in respect of Sterling.
 
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