As a part of my coach development review, I was asked by my head of coaching to complete a project to help build on my technical knowledge to support my coaching. I was asked to provide an analysis of Jamie Vardy's goals in the Premier League this season, which as well as being beneficial for myself could be shared with other coaches that I work with, and anyone interested in general!
This link will take you what I produced: CLICK HERE
The Project
As mentioned, I was asked to analyse Jamie Vardy's goals, breaking down key aspects of them to gain further insight into the art of goalscoring at the highest level. The end product was a powerpoint with an analysis of each goal, key statistics and themes that I had drawn from them! I will try to summarise how I came to them below...
Context
Before looking at the goals I wanted to get some decent context for what I was about to analyse. After all, I was only watching the goals he had scored rather than every shot he had made throughout the season. I found that he had scored from around one in every four shots he took, and his goals per 90 minutes was an impressive 0.77! Additionally, I was able to source a shot map of all of his shots taken as well as a shot map of his goals as you can see below. The location of the shots can give us a good insight into the type of positions Vardy takes up to score and the probability of those efforts going in the back of the net!
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| Sourced from Understat.com |
It's interesting, but not surprising, to note the location of the shots compared to just the goals! Just one of them come from outside of the penalty area, while many of them come from within the 'second six yard' box. These are certainly worth considering as I go on with my analysis!
Analysing the goals
Initially I broke the goals down into three sections, partly based around our own playing and coaching philosophy; Dead ball, build and break. The goals from dead balls required somewhat less analysis as they were all penalties (!) whereas the goals from counter attacks or more slower attacks with more build up play required more of my time.
While watching the goals I noted; the amount of passes from turnover (when Leicester regained possession) to goal, the time it took, the player who assisted the ball, the amount of touches by Vardy before finishing and the location of his finish (as seen above). Doing this, as well as breaking the goals down as seen in the presentation document, helped me to develop three key themes; How he finds a dangerous resting/start position, how he loses/drifts from his marker to arrive in the box and his ability to finish first time or if not, set himself up to finish.
Developing those themes into practices for players
What I wanted to make sure was that despite this being a personal project, it would be something that I could use to help improve the players that I work with. So the themes that I developed, I wanted to turn into actual practices that I could use to support forwards (and others) with something that was based on evidence, or that knowledge that I had gained anyway.
As you will see in the presentation I attempted to use pictures from the game, taken from the analysis of the goals, to develop practices that had realism and relevance to the players.
Analysing the goals
Initially I broke the goals down into three sections, partly based around our own playing and coaching philosophy; Dead ball, build and break. The goals from dead balls required somewhat less analysis as they were all penalties (!) whereas the goals from counter attacks or more slower attacks with more build up play required more of my time.
While watching the goals I noted; the amount of passes from turnover (when Leicester regained possession) to goal, the time it took, the player who assisted the ball, the amount of touches by Vardy before finishing and the location of his finish (as seen above). Doing this, as well as breaking the goals down as seen in the presentation document, helped me to develop three key themes; How he finds a dangerous resting/start position, how he loses/drifts from his marker to arrive in the box and his ability to finish first time or if not, set himself up to finish.
Developing those themes into practices for players
What I wanted to make sure was that despite this being a personal project, it would be something that I could use to help improve the players that I work with. So the themes that I developed, I wanted to turn into actual practices that I could use to support forwards (and others) with something that was based on evidence, or that knowledge that I had gained anyway.
As you will see in the presentation I attempted to use pictures from the game, taken from the analysis of the goals, to develop practices that had realism and relevance to the players.
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| A picture from the analysis that I attempted to translate into a duel practice. |
The picture on the left is an example of Vardy having a dangerous resting position out of possession. When Leicester regain the ball, he is in a position that immediately makes him an option to penetrate the opposition's defence. With the practice to the right, the players are put into a 3v3 duel. A 2v1 in each half, they can join the attack to make it 2v2 in the attacking half. The forward for the defending team can attempt to find positions that will make him dangerous when the ball is turned over. In this small sided game there should be lots of opportunities where the team will be out of balance to exploit.
Additionally, I have designed the pitch area as if they were attacking down one sided of the pitch. If they score in the goal on the angle, where the players would be going towards goal in a match, it is worth three goals. If they dribble the ball over the line at the end, like attacking in a wide position to then deliver a cross, it is worth one goal. This will hopefully provide incentive to attack the goal on the angle, while still have the option to attack in a realistic way in wide areas too.
I have done this with every theme I came up with as the result of my analysis of the 19 goals Jamie Vardy had scored this season. Hopefully (!) when the time comes that we can return to the pitch and coach again, this will be something I can put into practice and reflect on.
If you have any questions, or any feedback, please don't hesitate to contact me by commenting below or on twitter (@louiesilvani4).
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