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(hmmm. Someone’s scoring important goals in high profile matches… quieten down there, Clint)
June 24, 2009
It’s the system
I am, I know, something of a broken record on this subject, but I’ve found more proof so bear with me.
It has been my contention that Bobby Zamora, while not playing as well as we might hope, has not been as bad as people say. He has played in a team that does not emphasise attacking play, does not commit numbers to attack, which makes it easier for defenders to close down chances.
People don’t seem to accept this, so perhaps the following graph will help:
These are the percentage of shots on target for the Fulham players who have played for the last four years in England and shot a bit. Here are the raw numbers, for completeness:
| Zamora | Johnson | Gera | Davies | Murphy | |
| 05/06 | 60% | 54% | 41% | 63% | 38% |
| 06/07 | 47% | 68% | 43% | 46% | 83% |
| 07/08 | 45% | 77% | 53% | 54% | 60% |
| 08/09 | 27% | 40% | 27% | 24% | 14% |
How about that then? Every single one of them lost their shooting mojo this year, often quite considerably. I concede that some will simply blame this on Zamora (!) but if this isn’t a clear pattern I don’t know what is. So I repeat, this is a very hard team to play up front in. Unless you believe that all five of them just got bad at shooting just like that. And if you don’t believe that and you still want to blame Zamora for being terrible you have to make exceptions for the four other players but not him, and I don’t think you can do that. So… what do you think? Convinced anyone?
