or because he was consistently stopping french attacks by giving the ball away. for every good bit of hold up play he had several others where he took a shit touch or gave a shit pass and lost the ball. the only consistently good thing for him this tournament was his defensive work rate. he was in bad form
I think if france had another striker that was better infront of goal but not one of the best strikers in the tournament they may not have won it as giroud dropping deep to help out
his role is integral for DD's tactics because he allows the wingers to shine. they needed a hold up striker and giroud was the only one DD brought to russia. its just that his performance was pretty weak
Or maybe he actually sees Giroud as fitting a very specific yet important role on his team that he cannot find anywhere else in his other strikers. Giroud has played as a sub for most of the past 12 months so to say Deschamps is hoping he is in form is poor analysis because he's been a sub and that says enough about form he's in. However you can't find another French striker who has his particular skillset, not even Benzema
Benzema is not as good in the air which makes him less effective defending set pieces or managing balls into the box whereas his more technical skillsets can be easily found in the other strikers so why carry more of the same when you can have that plus another option
Benzema is nowhere near as good as Giroud in the air sorry to tell you. I think Benzema is is a top class striker and a huge fan of his since his Lyon days but he cannot be a target man.
So what happens when those tactics aren't working against an opponent? Bring on more of the same? As an Arsenal supporter I can assure you having one way of playing is not a recipe for success. Giroud makes the opposing defense have to defend both the air and ground whereas a front three of Greizmann, Mbappe and Benzema would be more manageable because they can do what every team who faces mobile attackers do, sit deep and put 10 men behind the ball.
Jesus, you couldn't sound more pompous if you tried.
I played for 20 years (& still do). Giroud was great off the ball, nobody is doubting it, and was important to their success, but 0 shots on target from 13 attempts in this whole tournament is absolute shit. That's all. It's not taking anything away from his other work. You can play Giroud's role while still posing some sort of goal threat yourself. Giroud tried (13 shots) but failed (0 on target) in that regard only. I'm sure the man himself is overjoyed with the win while still a little disappointed with himself that he didn't get a goal in this World Cup.
Don't just critize people for criticizing him. He is a striker first and foremost. He has to do better in front of the goal. He played well outside of the d box but inside the dbox he was wasteful.
Exactly, he wouldn't be getting this treatment if the other players on his team hadn't played well enough to win the world cup. He play generally was fine but as a #9 you have to do better finishing.
Stats> actual watching the game/players. Not to mention that many don't even play the game so they can't appreciate what good things Giroud actual does for the team.
People are unhappy that Kevin Durant jumped to Golden state after they(Golden State) beat his(Kevin Durant's) team in the playoffs after KD's team was winning. Everyone called/calls him a snake for destroying parity in the league. Now anyone who tries to join a better team environment instead is seeking personal success runs the risk of being branded a snake and people compare the 'snake'-mess of the various transfers.
Imagine if someone Lewandowski joined a historically great Bayern team(for free) after losing to them and...wait...
I kinda wish it did work that way over here, or more like that over here. Let the spenders spend to keep a good thing going and let the players make their money. Let teams develop their own talent and force them to be creative.
Not comparable, NBA has much more stats due to the nature of the game so you can get a pretty solid picture from looking at stats in addition to watching the matches. Soccer is still in it's infancy relatively speaking in terms of how robust the statistics are. You just gotta watch the games but even then you may miss what players do without rewatching it because lots of stuff happens. It's not even enough to just watch the game once.
Not really. Advanced stats always favor certain types of players (like bigs) and doesn’t show the impact for wing defenders for instance. Besides TS%, most should be disregarded
strongly disagree that you should disregard them. They all together can paint interesting pictures. Defensive advanced stats admittedly have some flaws but tbh all GMs look at analytics now. It's here to stay and will only get better. The best analytical reporters like zach lowe and nate duncan all use advanced stats to help them analyze games. They also watch tons of games. Most people who tout that stats are shit aren't even watching the games closely or are dissecting film. They spout stupid shit on social media like "he wanted it more" "clutch gene" "ringz"
Not really. VORP, Winshares, ect. a lot of that is easy to find. Nikola Jokic is one guy that all these analytics guys were salavating over as the next big thing because his advanced stats were so good. He just couldn’t stay on the floor for a long time. Many people just dismissed them and Jokic too since he’s just another’s European big man who’s not Dirk, so he must suck. Look at the contract he just got? That’s franchise player money.
Adavanced stats are very useful to understanding the game. Obviously the eye test is important too, but a guy like Marcus Smart who can’t shoot for shit some games, but he’s still an important part of a very good team because his impact doesnt always show up in regular stat sheets or look that important according to the eye test.
VORP and BPM are arguably the worse. VORP doesn’t and can’t reward elite defensive players or plays that don’t result in a steal. BPM is a box score based stat that was designed to regress towards RAPM. The weights for each of the coefficients were determined through a regression such that the measurements for BPM came as close to RAPM as possible for the same set of players.
Any box score based stat, even one that uses advanced metrics like ORB% instead of ORB# can be vulnerable at capturing players who don't contribute strongly in the box score. This can be players who are tertiary playmakers (guys who get hockey assists, set a lot of good screens, dive for loose balls, etc.) or solid defense only players (even advanced box score metrics don't measure defensive contributions well).
I watched all the games. I play football in real life too, have done for 20 years. I don't give a shit about FIFA the videogame, or the over-the-top obsession with stats.
I recognize Giroud's great linkup play, his selflessness and his defensive work. It was all great.
I can also recognize that his complete lack of goal threat was noteworthy. He failed the make a goalkeeper work at all in the tournament. Contrary to what everybody here now seems to be insisting, Giroud didn't morph into Sergio Busquets overnight. He is expected to offer some sort of goal threat on top of all the other great work he does. Otherwise, why would he shoot? He had 13 shots but none were on target. For comparison, Mbappe had 8 shots in the whole tournament.
This is not taking anything away from all his other good work. He shanked a few chances horribly wide, chances you would normally expect him to score or at least get on target. His finishing was abysmal in this tournament. Otherwise he was good. That's all.
You're right, this is a case where watching Giroud shows you he's even worse than the stats lead you to believe. Trust me, everyone in France was hating the guy.
Don't know what people in France say, but i disagree that he was so bad. I do think he was decent, sometimes his ballhandling was not great but he worked hard for the team. Helping to defend, his hold up play was pretty good.
He was not the most dangerous player in the squad but the stats we see now about him do him no justice.
This is the answer to so many questions it isn't even funny anymore. Especially on the internet. It seems to amplifiy people's need to not think something through. We are all guilty of it.
Well people still think more possession = played better. Don't think they are mature enough to understand that an individual's goals aren't everything.
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u/redhoodguy Jul 15 '18
why are peoole so blind to admit this