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Set pieces, defending & cross claiming

Fairly sure when Roefs was signed, one of the reasons was because his stats for claiming crosses was really high. We all welcomed that, as it wasn’t Patto’s strong suit, and he showed it for more than half a season.

Not sure what’s happened, but he doesn’t seem to do it at all now. I wonder whether him coming and missing the one at Bournemouth has got him second guessing himself?

We used to win everything in the air from crosses into the box. We’ve now conceded 11 goals from 29 set pieces (not including penalties) in 2026. In other words we’re conceding a goal more than 1 in 4 set pieces.

6 goals conceded from crosses in 2 games.

None of that is tactics. It’s players not doing their jobs, claiming crosses or winning first and second balls.

Needs to improve.
 

he's definitely stopped coming and claiming balls into the box like ,
its all gone a bit weird lately,
 
Roefs has the most combined catches and punches from crosses and corners of any GK in the entire PL.

Article below is from a couple of weeks ago:

 
Roefs has the most combined catches and punches from crosses and corners of any GK in the entire PL.

Article below is from a couple of weeks ago:


As I said, he showed that. My point is it seems to have dropped off a cliff.

Either we’ve just been unlucky and the opposition have started putting beckhamesque deliveries in recently, or the eye test is correct and he’s not doing what he used to?
 
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