BC TACTICS
Saved by @keith_f_smith

Thread - Why crossing is overrated, misunderstood and underutilised

 Recently I've been doing work on crosses, which you can see over the next few tweets and want to talk about some of my thoughts on crossing and how people perceive them. This will also probably be my last bit of work on crossing for a while

https://t.co/30wmoKylra
.https://t.co/6fDPnvGAYm
.https://t.co/HTQvh3UfUL
Crossing is a keystone of attacking play and one of the simplest methods to get the ball into the box. However, it is very inefficient. As Arsenal have shown recently and United used to show under Moyes, you can cross 40+ times in a game and fail to score.
Think isn't to say crossing is pointless, but in my opinion, crossing should be done with quality, not quantity. Attempting 20+ crosses in a game says one of two things
• Your plan is to cross (Liverpool)
• You can't do anything but cross (Arsenal)
Crossing is simple and it's easy to create opportunities to cross. However, I believe that it is viewed too simply. Liverpool and Arsenal cross in very different fashions, one is successful and one is not.
Liverpool's is calculated and planned for. Their players are able to cross extremely well and their 5'9 - 5'11 - 5'9 front line are able to exploit it. And if they don't then they are situated for the 2nd ball.
Arsenal on the other hand aren't tailored to crossing but are forced to. They aren't intelligently setup to score from these chances.
I then see people saying that Arsenal, and almost every other team, need a target man. But why don't Liverpool?
Headed goals from open play are completely different from set pieces. In open play, they aren't big contested headers where you go up against a big centre half, which I think is what most people picture.
Scoring from corners is about running onto the ball and intelligent movement and positioning in the box. Height and ability to head the ball is useful, but you don't need to be really physical and immobile
Screenshots of Lewandowski's last hour headed goals.
1 - positions himself well at the back post unmarked
2 - gets ahead of the defensive line to tap it in
3 - runs ahead of the defender and flicks it towards goal
4 - makes a run from deep to meet the cross unopposed
Being intelligent as the individual and the team is what matters. That's why Liverpool succeed. Having a bigger striker won't make a difference if they don't actually great good opportunities.
You need quality crossing with the correct decision making which the striker can run onto and that is ideally behind the defensive line. Wide players and forwards need to have a good understanding and strikers need to to make the right runs.
Hopefully, this wasn't too much of a ramble. But to summarise:
• Liverpool are smart
• Arsenal aren't
• more clubs should look at Liverpool
• Target man ≠ goals
• Clever movement + quality crossing = goals
• Win 2nd balls
• Attack at speed, cross behind the defensive line

You May Also Like

Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.


See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:

And see this thing that I wrote:

And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:

And see this other thing that I wrote:
SOCIETY
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
(THREAD) Pre-election Russia collusion may take down Trump. It's equally possible the Trumps' pre- and post-election collusion with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel will do it—a course of collusion also connected to the Kremlin. I explain here. I hope you'll read on and retweet.


1/ I must stress how unbelievably complex the "Grand Bargain" theory of the Trump-Russia case is—a different thing from saying it's not substantiated. It's substantiated in *almost every single particular*—it just *also* happens to be very confusing. Not byzantine—just confusing.

2/ The basics: Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE all view Iran as their chief regional enemy. Iran is propped up by Russia. Therefore the Saudis, Israelis, and Emiratis all need a US government willing to find a way to get the Kremlin to *stop* supporting Iran in the Middle East.

3/ The best way to get Russia to stop supporting Iran—or reduce support—was/is to drop all sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, as that'd be worth *trillions* to the Kremlin over the next decade. Everyone knew that Clinton wouldn't do this—and that Trump would.

4/ Per the NYT, on August 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met secretly at Trump Tower with a Saudi and Emirati emissary, George Nader, as well as an Israeli intelligence expert, Joel Zamel, with *significant* ties to both Israeli intelligence *and* Russian oligarchs allied with Putin.
POLITICS
Advertisement
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!


This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?


One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.


The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.
STARTUPS
Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
Due to the pandemic you may not have visited your local library in a while. So come with me on a virtual library tour, courtesy of stock photography, to see what we do for a living...


Libraries are of course information resource centres, but in many ways they are so much more. To get the best out of them you need to really know your way around the stacks.


The enquiries desk is normally your first stop in a library, and this is where you will meet The Angry Librarian! Why is she angry? Because you keep asking her stupid questions!


"Are you open?"
"Do you have a toilet?"
"That chair's wobbly!"
"Why isn't it available in audiobook?"
"Someone else is on the computer and that's not fair!"

On and on it goes...


And that's why in the library we insist on silence. It's the only way to stop us swearing at all the idiotic things you ask us. And we've looked up a lot of old swear words: beardsplitter, bescumber, rantallion, smellfungus etc. We're such muckspouts...
ALL
XVIII Airborne Corps\U0001f409
XVIII Airborne Corps🐉...
@18airbornecorps
1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.


2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.


3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.


4 of 16:

In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]


5 of 16:

Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.
SOCIETY