Adel Taarabt discussion

[stationcafe]

'Don't think more crosses = creativity'
Probably the dumbest thing I've heard on here!.... was you serious when you wrote that stationcafe??
Crossing is a huge part of the game and probably creates most chances.

This mentality is partly the reason why the England side never deliver. It's so outdated! Very few top sides rely on crossing to create chances any more.

Of course crossing has its place and can be effective, but the amount of times I've seen our side and countless others just smash the ball into the box and hope for the best is unreal. And it's so wasteful!

I'm not saying you have to dribble past your man every time, but more often than not it would be wiser to simply retain possession instead of hoping that your striker is going to beat 2 big CBs to the ball. Your argument about losing possession can be said for any attack. The best option is often the simplest - patience and keeping the ball until an opportunity comes up...

[Nick]

This mentality is partly the reason why the England side never deliver. It's so outdated! Very few top sides rely on crossing to create chances any more.

Of course crossing has its place and can be effective, but the amount of times I've seen our side and countless others just smash the ball into the box and hope for the best is unreal. And it's so wasteful!

I'm not saying you have to dribble past your man every time, but more often than not it would be wiser to simply retain possession instead of hoping that your striker is going to beat 2 big CBs to the ball. Your argument about losing possession can be said for any attack. The best option is often the simplest - patience and keeping the ball until an opportunity comes up...

You say you've seen us smash the ball into the box and hope for the best, but have you seen HBA do that for us? Because that's what this was originally about... his stats v Adel's... maybe you didn't like the fact that a stat went against Adel (creative player's puting a ball into the box for striker's HBA 94 - Adel 53) so you came up with this argument?

[madara]

I hope someone is foolish enough to pay the asking price.
65k a week to 2016... **** me, missing training camps......

[stationcafe]

Nope, I was saying that Ben Arfa is inconsistent and produces less than Adel does, despite looking good on MOTD every once in a while.
Geng put the stats up to prove this, and someone said that we should look include crosses as well if we're looking at creativity.
I argued that crossing does not = creativity, and that the way the team's set up and the player's role in that setup is a massive factor.
Corse I haven't seen HBA do anything for us, he's never played here.

[Nick]

Nope, I was saying that Ben Arfa is inconsistent and produces less than Adel does, despite looking good on MOTD every once in a while.
Geng put the stats up to prove this, and someone said that we should look include crosses as well if we're looking at creativity.
I argued that crossing does not = creativity, and that the way the team's set up and the player's role in that setup is a massive factor.
Corse I haven't seen HBA do anything for us, he's never played here.

But that's what I don't get how can you say crosses don't = creativity? If you can pick a player out and find him with a cross, you've created a chance.....

[Geng]

Wow some real dinosaur thinking going on here. Let's criticise Adel for not fitting into the WM formation too while we're at it.

As stationcafe points out, crosses aren't the be all and end all, and haven't been for decades. They're actually a pretty inefficient way of scoring. See, eg:

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/europes-most-prolific-crossers-revealed-does-prove-crossing-inefficient

Or

In 2010, a group of leading European coaches published a tactical analysis of the UEFA Champions League that questioned the effectiveness of crossing as a viable tactic in the modern game.
The report noted that while crosses accounted for about 16% of all goals scored in the tournament, only one of every 92 crosses actually produced a goal, making it an extremely inefficient use of possession. "Crossing and finishing is not quite the fertile source of goals it was a few seasons ago," the report read.

Some academics have gone further. Jan Vercer, a finance professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, published a paper last year that analyzed crossing data from the English Premier League for the past five seasons.

His findings suggest that not only is crossing a decidedly inefficient way to create scoring chances, but that crosses have such a profoundly negative impact on goal scoring that leading teams should abandon the tactic altogether.

According to Vercer's study, the odds of scoring from a cross are so slim that the average team surrenders possession 73 times for every one cross that yields a goal. The cumulative impact of those lost possessions is so detrimental that he estimates the average team would score an additional 0.57 goals a game if they ditched crosses and simply elected to start their attack all over again.

"It sounds a little bit bizarre, but each cross is costly," Vercer said. "Most of them result in a loss of possession, so the team has to fight to win back the ball, they lose time and consequently they lose scoring opportunities. It's a suboptimal play."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/are-outdated-soccer-tactics-a-cross-to-bear-keeping-possession-is-the-way-to-goal-1402007011

It's ludicrous that, in attempting to demonstrate Ben Arfa is more creative than Adel, you cite "crosses" rather than "key passes". Here are the definitions:

Cross
- An attempted/accurate pass from a wide position to a central attacking area
Key Pass
- The final pass leading to a shot at goal from a teammate

This conversation basically went:

- HBA is really creative; Taarabt has no end product.

*stats show Adel creates more chances than HBA*

- yeah but what about the crosses?

Have a think about how daft this makes you look.

[Geng]

But that's what I don't get how can you say crosses don't = creativity? If you can pick a player out and find him with a cross, you've created a chance.....

But chances created is captured in the 'key passes' stat, where Adel was far ahead of HBA and almost anyone in the league.

It's great that Ben Arfa sent lots of balls over for Cisse to knock down to someone but I'd take Adel's chance creation over that thanks.

Anyway, both players are far, far too talented to be judged on their crossing. It's pretty depressing that you'd think of this sort of player as a crossing machine.

[Nick]

Geng I'm not looking for an argument here but.....

If I make an acc

[Nick]

Geng I'm not looking for an argument here but.....

If I make an acc

...if I make an 'accurate pass from a wide position to a central position' and that central player goes on and scores have I not just 'created' a goal???

[Geng]

Ok here's the top ten "key passers" in the PL last season (the stat Adel was 7th in, in 2012/13):

And here are the top ten crossers in the PL last season:



Now you tell me which company you'd rather keep...

[Geng]

...if I make an 'accurate pass from a wide position to a central position' and that central player goes on and scores have I not just 'created' a goal???

well why not say Xavi creates 100 goals per game? Because they don't always go on and score. That's what the assist stat is for. The key pass stat at least captures when the player goes on to take a shot (in the case of a cross, if the person the cross is aimed at gets a shot off it'd count as both a succesfful cross and a key pass)

[Nick]

well why not say Xavi creates 100 goals per game? Because they don't always go on and score. That's what the assist stat is for. The key pass stat at least captures when the player goes on to take a shot (in the case of a cross, if the person the cross is aimed at gets a shot off it'd count as both a succesfful cross and a key pass)

Ok that's fair enough but also crosses don't have to be creative, they can also be key when getting your team out of trouble (not an assist) in a defensive position, still a big part of the game... but all this is well and good but when it comes down to it does Adel even want to play for us? Because his weight when he returned from pre season tells me otherwise and there's his attitude problems. Ok HBA has attitude problems but he's not played for us so he could be different when he's here, just like Morrison was.

[Hoopsmad]

Ben Arfa or Adel? Adel was awesome in the Champ but looked outclassed in the prem. Ben Arfa all day long. Would be a good signing!

[Shepherds Mush]

LOVE the fact we are banging on about a player we arent even linked with!

Geng...hows your stat comparison hold up for Adel v Christiano Ronaldo?

[Geng]

What's your point? Steven Caulker doesn't look too good compared to Mats Hummels either.

I would love to see any of the people who have spent the past 19 pages ranting about how useless Adel was in the PL actually engage with some of my posts with evidence. Give it a try!