How to coach clinical finishing

[Southcoastffc]

"We want to play many minutes in the last third of the pitch, and we must show patience, precision, quality, and show the killer instinct, be clinical in this situation."

So says Slavisa. But do any of you who are or have been coaches know how to coach clinical finishing? Or is it an entirely innate skill that can't be coached?

[MrD1879]

Tough one it's normally said your born with it but after reading an article on Harry Kane he puts his down to hours and hours and hours of practise.

I think our biggest problem is a) we never shoot the amount of goals conceded from a deflection or a save off the keeper are enormous. B) we never get anyone in the box and when they do they never get across the first man

[alfie]

We do a lot of shooting practice in warm up, then proceed to not doing any shooting during the game.

[grandad]

Slavisa should get them to do 3 & in.

[filham]

We need to get the ball quickly to men with a bit of space in or around the box. We need some six passes to get to the box by which time it is full of opponents.

[HatterDon]

What you can do to improve finishing? Encourage your strikers to be greedy in front of goal. Get your midfielders to make passes that turn defenders.

In the few Fulham matches I've been able to watch this season, there seems to be a general reluctance to shoot. As GWG [that's Great Wayne Gretsky] once said, "You miss 100% of shots you never take." Slava's passing game seems to me to discourage this greediness that all great goal scorers we know.

[RaySmith]

Feeling confident enough to  risk missing, and the crowd getting on your back.

I don't think it's a matter of  lack of shooting skill, but things just aren't flowing for our players at the moment,  scoring a few in a couple of wins  would do wonders.

Also, we don't have a recognised front man, who can get in the box and on the end of things. The  'easy' headers missed by Ojo are an example of this, though the lad did well to get into those positions, and  the chances were the product of great  moves from the team.

[toshes mate]

Sure the first rule of finishing is always to be in the right position to finish, and perhaps it is an instinct that certain players have.  But it does tend to come and go with even the best strikers we have witnessed over the years and only a few seem to have that magic touch engrained so deep it doesn't go away. 

Last season we created spaces by moving the opposition about via patience, possession and passing, the three 'Ps' that seem to have gone awry this time around.  Some of it is the players themselves, their confidence levels, their concentration when not in possession and their bonding with team mates.  It's the same equation SJ and his staff had to work hard to achieve last season and it will happen again if the players look, listen and learn.

[HatterDon]

What's needed was summed up best by a former USA national team coach when he was asked what made Clint Dempsey a successful goalscorer: "He tries poo."

[HatterDon]

poo? really? are we like 5 years old?

[Ronnief]

Having watched the shooting practice in both the under 23's on Friday and then yesterday for the first team, there are too many players incapable of shooting on target even when not under pressure. I think our best shooters are in the under 23's.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Any shooters in the first team that cannot shoot need shooting.

[filham]

How to improve our shooting, just try rubbing shoulders with Ivor.

[ScalleysDad]

its time on the training ground, its realistic scenarios with pressure applied at times, more time on the training ground and practice, practice, practice which does not include running up to a ball unchallenged and blazing it wide which is a highlight of our warm up routine. I met a senior England coach at a seminar a few years back who titled his session 'getting the eyes in'. The session went on to look at getting the player to view the spaces in the box, where the ball was coming from, who had the ball and what the cross/pass was likely to be, anticipation, and we even covered orientation in the box which was very basically backs to the goal and then line up the near post or the far post from the pitch markings, the D for example or your alignment with your own goal, so that further options became available to you such as the one touch turn and shoot or shielding the ball, allowing it to travel and then shooting. Working with the forwards in such scenarios never included passing. The two goals Defoe scored against Palace recently were exactly what this session aimed to put across.
Class is permanent but practice something enough and it will see you through.

[Woolly Mammoth]

We do a lot of shooting practice in warm up, then proceed to not doing any shooting during the game.

If that's the case, then somebody should be shot.

[sarnian]

We do a lot of shooting practice in warm up, then proceed to not doing any shooting during the game.

Players don't seem to be coached in getting their heads over the ball when shooting.

In the warm up at games most shots seem to pepper the JH stand and both Johanssen and Ojo should have scored Saturday but both were leaning back when shooting  :dft003:

[Southcoastffc]

its time on the training ground, its realistic scenarios with pressure applied at times, more time on the training ground and practice, practice, practice which does not include running up to a ball unchallenged and blazing it wide which is a highlight of our warm up routine. I met a senior England coach at a seminar a few years back who titled his session 'getting the eyes in'. The session went on to look at getting the player to view the spaces in the box, where the ball was coming from, who had the ball and what the cross/pass was likely to be, anticipation, and we even covered orientation in the box which was very basically backs to the goal and then line up the near post or the far post from the pitch markings, the D for example or your alignment with your own goal, so that further options became available to you such as the one touch turn and shoot or shielding the ball, allowing it to travel and then shooting. Working with the forwards in such scenarios never included passing. The two goals Defoe scored against Palace recently were exactly what this session aimed to put across.
Class is permanent but practice something enough and it will see you through.

Thanks ScalleysDad. I knew someone must have a better understanding of the complexities involved.

[ScalleysDad]

its time on the training ground, its realistic scenarios with pressure applied at times, more time on the training ground and practice, practice, practice which does not include running up to a ball unchallenged and blazing it wide which is a highlight of our warm up routine. I met a senior England coach at a seminar a few years back who titled his session 'getting the eyes in'. The session went on to look at getting the player to view the spaces in the box, where the ball was coming from, who had the ball and what the cross/pass was likely to be, anticipation, and we even covered orientation in the box which was very basically backs to the goal and then line up the near post or the far post from the pitch markings, the D for example or your alignment with your own goal, so that further options became available to you such as the one touch turn and shoot or shielding the ball, allowing it to travel and then shooting. Working with the forwards in such scenarios never included passing. The two goals Defoe scored against Palace recently were exactly what this session aimed to put across.
Class is permanent but practice something enough and it will see you through.

Thanks ScalleysDad. I knew someone must have a better understanding of the complexities involved.

The snag with this is that it is not that complicated. If the current coaching staff do not have the basic ability, experience or natural flair to deliver sessions that count then get a DVD player in and show the 100 Great Goals compilation. There are hundreds of articulate, passionate and gifted coaches out there who could do a job for us. Perhaps we should be scouting coaches and not decidedly average players from the continent?
Progress of sorts would be an end to the pathetic warm up routine of blazing the ball high and wide. Targets, even skittles, on the goal line would be a start as the Keeper gets nothing out of this exercise either.

[Keynsham]

Remember Andy Cole on the BBC advert all about muscle memory.  I'mg guessing that must be a thing.

[Southcoastffc]

Next home game, watch how good the goalkeeping coach is at shooting. I don't know who he is but he's far better (at least in the warm-up) than anyone else in Fulham kit.