Harte Signs

[ZacNaloen]

I think Long trapping a ball is more often by luck than design, but having seen the Germans hit the top corner of the goal with all of their penalties in 96, I don't think you can say that a penalty is _always_ scored through luck. A player on top of his game judges the weight and angle to strike a ball and hits it cleanly, whether passing or shooting. It's not the same thing as sticking a leg out and hoping it makes contact, is it?

I think Long's ability to trap the ball is often down to how confident he is in his own ability. I've just noticed that when's he's doing well he has a good touch, when he's on a bad run... he doesn't.

I also found it quite amusing that his entire game plan on Saturday seemed to be to play like Doyle. Not complaining though, cos it worked.

[Hoop Blah]

Bit of a chicken and egg thing with Long's touch and confidence isn't it?

Generally not quite good enough, but on his day, like Saturday, can be very effective.

[Wycombe Royal]

I reckon he put some duck tape on his boots.....

[Royalwaster]

It's not luck putting the ball in the right spot, it's ability.

The only time luck really comes into it is if you get a ricochet off the keeper or a post or the keeper gets a decent hand on it. You could argue that the keeper going the wrong way on what appears to be a weak penalty is luck, but it all depends on why the keepers gone the wrong way or when the taker actually hit it.

The most 'unsaveable' penalties are hit hard and high into the top corners. They're also probably those with the least margin for error, but if you've got the ability to do it consistently you won't need any luck to have a good record from the spot.

I thought Harte's was generally a much better penalty than Long's, purely because he hit it with more power and what appeared to be more accuracy into a difficult spot for a keeper to get to.

Completely right - if it was purely luck, then there'd be no such thing as a successful penalty taker, but there clearly is. I agree that Harte's penalty was far superior - Long was simply lucky that the GK went the wrong way; with Harte's pen, the keeper guessed the corner, but it still went in.

[rabidbee]

I think Long's ability to trap the ball is often down to how confident he is in his own ability. I've just noticed that when's he's doing well he has a good touch, when he's on a bad run... he doesn't.

He made a truly remarkable (ie. good) trap on saturday, stopping dead a high ball whilst holding off a defender. I thought he played well on Saturday, and he and the team seem now to be working out how best to use the 4-5-1 system. I think we'd all agree that his first touch is the worst aspect of his game, though.

[ZacNaloen]

Bit of a chicken and egg thing with Long's touch and confidence isn't it?

Generally not quite good enough, but on his day, like Saturday, can be very effective.

Not necessarily, he could have been working on his ball skills all week in training and thinking "yeh i can do this", then he wins a penalty scores a goal and all that training pays off and his muscle memory does the rest. I.e he stops thinking about it.


When he's unconfident he could be thinking "gotta got this touch right" but because he was thinking his mind wasn't on the task and bang, he cocks it up.

It's the same with a lot of mediocre players, it's all about confidence in ones ability. It's no shock really that so many premier league players have massive ego's, self belief is part of why they are where they are.

[Svlad Cjelli]

It's a fine line between confidence and trying too hard - when a player's confident they'll do things instinctively, without any thought at all. When they're under pressure they'll be thinking that the have to get it right, so they'll take that extra mini-second to "make sure" - which generally means they're less effective.

That's certainly the case with shooting, when a player under pressure will often choke at the vital moment, or not take a half-chance in the hope of getting into a better position to shoot.

Long's confidence is probably raised because of that first goal, which can only be good for everyone as he's clearly very much a confidence player (ditto Kebe - he was way, way, better once he stopped being general scapegoat).

So despite having Harte as first scorer at 25/1 I'm still happy Long had the first penalty.

[Big Foot]

You got 25s on Harte? Hmmmm, who's your bookie?

[Svlad Cjelli]

Blue Square on-line.

[Hoop Blah]

Bit of a chicken and egg thing with Long's touch and confidence isn't it?

Generally not quite good enough, but on his day, like Saturday, can be very effective.

Not necessarily, he could have been working on his ball skills all week in training and thinking "yeh i can do this", then he wins a penalty scores a goal and all that training pays off and his muscle memory does the rest. I.e he stops thinking about it.


When he's unconfident he could be thinking "gotta got this touch right" but because he was thinking his mind wasn't on the task and bang, he cocks it up.

It's the same with a lot of mediocre players, it's all about confidence in ones ability. It's no shock really that so many premier league players have massive ego's, self belief is part of why they are where they are.

So it is chicken and egg then...

His touch is good because his confidence is up after working on it, or his confidence is up because his touch has been good.

[Snowball]

Underwhelmed doesn't come close

+1

Ten thousand years old, hasn't been all that good for a number of years, was always defensively suspect and slow to begin with, smacks of desperation and is simply put relegation material.

Scored 2 goals in four games,
Kept three clean sheets out of four
Selected for this week's Championship 11

[Snowball]

confirms what we all thought about any chance of a return for Armstrong

COUGH!!!

[Snowball]

WE NEED A GOALSCORER FFS.

We need to stop letting goals in
Kish and Harte should help with that.

THREE CLEAN SHEETS IN FOUR GAMES

We need someone to score free-kicks. Harte should help with that.

TWO GOALS IN FOUR GAMES




We need our 4-4-2-style strikers to play 4-4-2.

PLAYED 4-4-2 TWICE, W1 D1 3-0, 4 POINTS


Job done.

[Snowball]

WE NEED A GOALSCORER FFS.

We need to stop letting goals in
Kish and Harte should help with that.

THREE CLEAN SHEETS IN FOUR GAMES

We need someone to score free-kicks. Harte should help with that.

TWO GOALS IN FOUR GAMES




We need our 4-4-2-style strikers to play 4-4-2.

PLAYED 4-4-2 TWICE, W1 D1 3-0, 4 POINTS


Job done.

CORRECTION: That's four clean sheets in five games now

[URZZ]

WE NEED A GOALSCORER FFS.

We need to stop letting goals in
Kish and Harte should help with that.

THREE CLEAN SHEETS IN FOUR GAMES

We need someone to score free-kicks. Harte should help with that.

TWO GOALS IN FOUR GAMES

We need our 4-4-2-style strikers to play 4-4-2.

PLAYED 4-4-2 TWICE, W1 D1 3-0, 4 POINTS

Job done.

CORRECTION: That's four clean sheets in five games now

To be perfectly honest, I don't see why you're trying to beat me on wisdom.

We STILL need a forward who scores regularly. It's nice Kebe is doing well, and our midfield scores the bigger percentage of our goals but I'd still enjoy a forward averaging at a goal a game.

For the record anyway, so what if you got those assumptions right, and I'm not as right as you... I'm not oxf*rd perfect, we all say things that turn out to be complete bollocks.

When we lost to Plymouth on the opening day of 2005 some of the things I heard were LOL'able, but I have the decency to admit, we're all fickle.

[Snowball]

I'M not fickle

[From Despair To Where?]

.. and he's got the statistics to prove it.

[26-10-06]

[

We need to stop letting goals in
Kish and Harte should help with that.

THREE CLEAN SHEETS IN FOUR GAMES

We need someone to score free-kicks. Harte should help with that.

TWO GOALS IN FOUR GAMES

We need our 4-4-2-style strikers to play 4-4-2.

PLAYED 4-4-2 TWICE, W1 D1 3-0, 4 POINTS

Job done.

CORRECTION: That's four clean sheets in five games now

To be perfectly honest, I don't see why you're trying to beat me on wisdom.

We STILL need a forward who scores regularly. It's nice Kebe is doing well, and our midfield scores the bigger percentage of our goals but I'd still enjoy a forward averaging at a goal a game.

For the record anyway, so what if you got those assumptions right, and I'm not as right as you... I'm not oxf*rd perfect, we all say things that turn out to be complete bollocks.

When we lost to Plymouth on the opening day of 2005 some of the things I heard were LOL'able, but I have the decency to admit, we're all fickle.[/quote]

A goal a game? this aint fifa mate! that just isnt going to happen

[Ryn]

A goal every OTHER game would be pushing it to be honest, there's not a lot of 20 goal strikers at this level.

[Ryn]

And Harte's set piece delivery, so far, has been consistently shite.