Unprofessional Foul
I can't deny this blog has been a bit football-centric lately - it's just that with QPR doing so well and Barnet top of the conference I can't get enough of the beautiful game !
So much so that I watched Palace-Fulham last night, which was a decent game (much better than Chelsea-Liverpool the day before). The game was turned by the early sending off of Fulham defender Ian Pearce. If you didn't see it, Pearce underhit a back pass and then pulled Andy Johnson down as he raced onto it, a clear red card. What no one mentioned (of course) was the fact that this happened with only 6 minutes played. From a risk-reward point of view, committing a professional foul like this so early in the game must be wrong. Maybe it's more pot odds than risk-reward. Fulham's gain is that Johnson is denied a one-on-one opportunity - from which he has no guarantee of scoring, in fact he missed one later in the game. Their loss is that they have to play with 10 men for almost the entire game (the resulting free-kick was so far from goal that this loss is insignificant). If this happens in the 86th minute instead, it would clearly be "value" to commit the foul. In the 6th minute, it can't be. Even Palace can pass the ball well enough to punish ten men over that length of time. In the event they could have had 4 or 5 in the last 20 minutes, Fulham being exhausted. They settled for a very comfortable 2-0 win.
Are any coaches smart enough to tell their players not to commit professional fouls early in the game ? I doubt it. Wenger maybe, he is "The Professor" after all :-)
So much so that I watched Palace-Fulham last night, which was a decent game (much better than Chelsea-Liverpool the day before). The game was turned by the early sending off of Fulham defender Ian Pearce. If you didn't see it, Pearce underhit a back pass and then pulled Andy Johnson down as he raced onto it, a clear red card. What no one mentioned (of course) was the fact that this happened with only 6 minutes played. From a risk-reward point of view, committing a professional foul like this so early in the game must be wrong. Maybe it's more pot odds than risk-reward. Fulham's gain is that Johnson is denied a one-on-one opportunity - from which he has no guarantee of scoring, in fact he missed one later in the game. Their loss is that they have to play with 10 men for almost the entire game (the resulting free-kick was so far from goal that this loss is insignificant). If this happens in the 86th minute instead, it would clearly be "value" to commit the foul. In the 6th minute, it can't be. Even Palace can pass the ball well enough to punish ten men over that length of time. In the event they could have had 4 or 5 in the last 20 minutes, Fulham being exhausted. They settled for a very comfortable 2-0 win.
Are any coaches smart enough to tell their players not to commit professional fouls early in the game ? I doubt it. Wenger maybe, he is "The Professor" after all :-)
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