The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Searching for the value of a striker that doesn't score

Luis Suarez will be crucial for Uruguay. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNIS
Expert
6th April, 2016
11

In basketball, a sport hugely enriched by the pleasant – if a little cringeworthy – American habit of minute statistical dissection, much is made of ‘floor spacing’, and for good reason.

In a game where only five players can take to the court for any one team, just the threat of a competent – let alone elite – shooter being left open on the perimeter can affect the play.

Said shooter doesn’t need to make his shots, or even take all that many of them (although that helps, obviously). No, a visible, productive impact can be made just by being there. They’re out of the way, away from the ball, and yet almost as responsible for it making its way into the basket as the player whose hand it leaves last.

The tight relational dynamics of basketball make seeing, even measuring, this effect fairly straightforward. In football, however, with its 11 participants, its constant fluidity, its sublime tidal motions of momentum and error, it can be much harder. But, naturally, as a team sport, these dynamics are just as present, if a little more concealed.

Having Jesus Navas on the wing, despite his inexplicable aversion to actually scoring goals, is nonetheless a worthwhile decision for Manchester City to make, such is the startling pace he offers.

Manuel Pellegrini could easily use a player with more of a goal-threat, or better on the ball, but the – let’s timidly call it – ‘pitch spacing’ Navas provides is too vital; the potency of a pass played over the defence, by David Silva or Yaya Toure, is greatly enhanced when Navas is chasing it.

This seems obvious, fast players are clearly useful in this way, but it has a host of other effects. Opposition full backs cannot be as adventurous, pinned back by the threat of Navas on the break. Subsequently, opposition wingers are more isolated, or the centre backs may have to slide toward the flanks more than they’d like to, opening up handsome space in the middle, which the central midfielders have to compensate for, and so on.

A football team is an interconnected body; nothing should be considered in utter isolation.

Advertisement

So with this in mind, let’s look at Danny Welbeck’s performance against Watford. Arsenal won this game 4-0, and Welbeck started the match as striker. He didn’t score, but played the full 90 minutes.

With the goals flowing freely, the fact that the starting striker ended the match scoreless seems, at first, evidence of an unproductive afternoon. As much as Welbeck can look a little gangly, not quite in control of his limbs, and as difficult as it is to tolerate his inconsistent finishing, he is undoubtedly a highly multi-talented athlete.

While Olivier Giroud scores more goals (slightly under one goal every two games for Arsenal, to Welbeck’s one goal every four games), he is a far less versatile player. Furthermore, he cannot contribute in ways Welbeck can. Take the first Arsenal goal, coming in the contest’s infancy, just four minutes in.

As Watford cleared Nacho Monreal’s initial byline cross, the Arsenal attackers retreated to an onside position. When possession was recycled, and Alex Iwobi gathered the ball, with a clear mind to cross, Olivier Giroud would have likely been already peeling off to the back post, ready to attack the ball aerially.

Welbeck, on the other hand, decided to dart towards Iwobi. If it had been Giroud who had followed Welbeck’s route here, there would only have been one outcome had Iwobi decided to pass to the striker – a quick one-two, the likes of which we’ve seen Giroud lay off hundreds of times for the Gunners. Welbeck can play neatly in this way as well, but the added threat of him spinning suddenly, and accelerating through a gap makes Welbeck’s presence demand even more attention.

And he gets it, you can see the way five Watford players hang unconvincingly, eyes all on Iwobi and Welbeck, in the space that any action between Iwobi and Welbeck could occur, hoping to snuff out any route through. All the while, poor Nathan Ake is being isolated by Alexis Sanchez at the far post, the only Arsenal player ahead of the ball when the cross is made.

The cross is excellent, Sanchez’s header is saved, but the fact that Welbeck took himself – and a few Watford players with him – away from the goalmouth gives the Chilean ample time to tap in the rebound before the centre backs can even enter the frame. Welbeck didn’t touch the ball throughout this entire sequence, but his movement, and the inherent threat his skills provide, helped create the environment in which Sanchez could profit.

Advertisement

Iwobi was a roving menace all game, appearing on either flank and down the middle. The youngster is a genuine talent, fueled by pure joie de vivre, sprinting with such enthusiasm, his head often tilts backwards like a cartoon character. It was crucial that Arsenal find ways of involving Iwobi as much as possible, and Welbeck’s movement assisted here too.

Take this small, unrealised moment. Mesut Ozil receives the ball in deep midfield, and cuts back almost immediately. His sudden change in direction jolts Welbeck into taking off just as suddenly. Welbeck’s action frightens both Watford centre backs into lurching after him, and for a lovely, shimmering instant, Iwobi, lurking just off Welbeck, is allowed a sumptuous radius around him, entirely free of any immediate markers.

Ozil decides to forego the option to find Iwobi, sensibly sliding the ball out wide, but the pass to Iwobi – and the space to receive it – was there. Defenders work tirelessly to compress these dangerous open pockets between the lines, but Welbeck’s aborted run, pursued only for a half-second, stretched the space wide open. Welbeck’s effect on the play extends further than what he actually does off the ball; it also necessarily includes what he can do, what he might do.

Although Welbeck seems to have a knack for picking these useful, supplementary runs, his constant movement means he spaces the pitch naturally anyway. Some players are less aware, or are unwilling to play the part that, although important, is done largely altruistically. At these moments, you need a teammate beside you with a preternatural sense so heightened, he can actually tell you what to do while the play is going on. Enter one Luis Suarez.

First, an example of just how supreme Suarez’s game-reading abilities are; his goal in last season’s Champions League final, that gave Barcelona the lead, is – when slowed down – simply astonishing. On the surface, it looks like a simple rebound, dispatched with power high into the goal. But a closer look shows that as soon as Lionel Messi cuts sharply onto his left, Suarez charges to the far post, anticipating – long before anyone else – that a shot is coming and, judging by the angle, that he has to hustle swiftly to his right to predate on the rebound. It all plays out just as he predicts.

But this ability isn’t used just to sniff out goals for himself. Here, in this clip, Suarez orchestrates a shooting opportunity for his teammate, without touching the ball once. As Neymar steadies himself on the wing, Suarez directs the teammate over his shoulder to continue his run to the far post, then readies the teammate approaching down the middle, telling him to stay on his toes.

As the pass is played, seemingly to Suarez, he dummies beautifully. The man behind him is too slow to react, and the late runner shoots waywardly, but the chance was created and conducted by Suarez, off the ball and in real time.

Advertisement

In football, a moment of attacking clarity is like a Rube Goldberg machine suddenly working; every titled weight, every timed drop, each minutely arranged factor that seems to be nothing more than a bundle of chaos suddenly works in symphony.

The man whose foot the ball touches last before it nestles in the net may wheel away the happiest, and the television cameras might keep him centre-frame, but the subtle, thankless work done by others can’t be forgot. All we have to do is tear our eyes away from the ball, and look off the the side, at the player pumping his fist quietly to himself.

close