The debate surrounding the pros and cons of zonal marking versus man marking at set pieces will doubtless rage on, but most of the big teams will continue to use a combination regardless. Indeed, the argument about what constitutes zonal rather than man marking will be no more likely to reach consensus any time soon.
All of that is outside the scope of this post, I’m simply going to go through each of Bolton’s eight corners and translate what I saw
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I hate to sound like a broken record, but a consistent theme I’ve stressed in the Statshack series is the need to look at match statistics as a whole and to be suspicious of anyone attempting to leverage a point with the use of a single metric. Passing for example.
Last season, I read many times that the number of complete passes was an indication that our brand of football was dour and failing to improve, except when the statistics
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I’ve read a lot of criticism of Martin O’Neill’s technical nous, or lack thereof according to some. A lot of it has to do with formation, people want to see something new and sexy. They want to keep up with what the Man Utd’s and Chelsea’s are doing. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of 4-2-3-1, but you’ve got to have the personnel and all systems will ultimately boil down to the personnel employed. Square
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There can’t be too many people close to Martin O’Neill’s innermost thoughts. In fact, there may be a few who wonder whether he is close to his innermost thoughts sometimes, but I couldn’t possibly comment. I’m certainly not among the inner sanctum so it’s idle speculation on my part here, but is it possible that MON’s transfer dealings to date reveal a tactician who is actually ahead of the curve? Wait, hear me out here!
MON’s activity in
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