3) Lack of Height
See, I've heard people say this before, but I can't buy it. Last year when we played Pompey away we had shit loads of set pieces, and our team that day had Arby, Carra, Hyypia, Sissoko, Alonso and Crouch - all at-least pushing the 6ft mark.
You look at our team and it's rare that we don't at least have four or five different players who are 6ft plus.
Nando, Gerrard, Babel, Riera, Alonso, Agger, Skrtel, Carra, even Arby. I think Kuyt is around that mark too. I mean, we're not a slight team. It's is (or will be) rare that we don't have at least 5 of those guys on the pitch. Half the out field players.
As for the actual technique of heading the ball... well, without wishing to offend any defenders... it's surely easier than the other aspects of technique? It's a bit like blocking the ball. It's about reading the situation, showing some desire and timing - the jump in this case. Not saying everyone will turn in to Sami or Shearer if they do that, but they should still be able to get a decent connection. Maybe some people will disagree strongly, but I've always thought it's a technique that could be 'taught'. All techniques can be improved upon if you work at them, but some are more natural than others. I'm not sure you can teach vision or good finishing, I think you can enhance it, but it's something that's 'there'. Heading the ball? I think that's something you can be taught.
We fall down on the basic aspects. Skrtel still horribly miss-times his jumps on occasions and gets a terrible connection as a result. He does this defensively as well, but I'm thinking from corners recently against Marseille and Boro where he's actually shown the desire to get to the ball first but then got the connection all wrong.
We don't even display any basic knowledge of how to attack them. The only two runs you see from our corners is Carra coming in at the back post (what a waste that is given the ball never gets that far and he hadn't got a clue what to do with it on the one in a million occasion it reaches him), and Skrtel making a fairly straight run in the centre - the place that's most congested.
We don't run across the line of the ball to the front post looking for flicks, and as a result we don't drag any defenders out of the area Skrtel is attacking. We can bemoan the quality of delivery for all we want, but it's fucking difficult to pick out one Liverpool player in a group of 10 static bodies. We've got to use runners alot more than we do. Yesterday we had one good incident where Arby went to offer Gerrard the option of a short corner, and as a result pulled away the defender that was ready to rush out and stop the ball being rolled back to Alonso. As a result Alonso got his shot in.
Fuck me, it really can't be that difficult can it? It's not even something that should take time to teach. They're professional footballers, they're bound to have attacked the ball at some point in their lives. Even if it was with the youth teams. I can't believe we're having conversations about something so sodding basic. Something that isn't even based in technique. Fuck me, just run and if by some chance the ball comes to you, put it in the net.
Infuriating. Such simple things shouldn't even be a sodding issue. He can coach a team to go to the Nou Camp and win but can't figure out a fucking corner routine that is vaguely threatening.
