Does anyone else think that maybe we should start to think about moving away from these? Seems to me that Barnes has taken nearly all of the attacking throw-ins this year, and that has lead to maybe 1/2 of a chance, and a ton of lost possession. I know all about Rory Delap but let's face it--Delap's throws create goals. Ours do not. I'm not saying never use the long throw, but especially given the lousy nature of our attackers (Joseph is the only real threat on balls in the air, maybe Larentowicz), I think we're much better off trying to keep the ball a bit, instead of just throwing it away time after time. We're relying on this throw in business too much when it's just not producing anything worthwhile.
Greg Lalas agrees with you, but I don't get the hate on the long throw. You're right that we haven't scored off one directly, but we've had a couple of decent chances after the ball rattled around the box. I don't recall us scoring on any corner kicks yet, either, but I don't think we should use our corners to simply get the ball back to the middle of the field and pass it around. It is true that we need to do a better job covering the counters off both corners and long throws. I haven't watched closely enough to see where our coverage problems are, but TFC certainly got numbers up on us more than they should have.
This is going to sound harsher than I intend (maybe jokeefe80 is rubbing off on all of us) but, since I view the throws by Barnes as being really similar to corner kicks, should we stop taking corners or play them all short? I agree that we haven't scored on the throws, but they have at least created 1/2 chances, sometimes in games where we've only had a half chance or two. Now that other teams have scouted the long throw, I would like to see the occassional shorter throw to an open creative player (Rally maybe) who could put a cross or through ball or shot in from 20 or 25 yards out as a way to keep the opponents off balance.
With the way the team has been playing they'd end up losing position of the ball regardless of how short the throw in is. I'd rather keep putting the ball in the box...it seems to be one of the only ways the ball ends up in the box these days.
I like the long throw and think it's only a matter of time until we score off one. That said, it does get a bit predictable and I think it would be a better strategy not to use the long throw every time but to mix it up a bit.
Exactly - it's not that hard to defend if everyone knows it's coming (I see this all the time on adult teams - you get one guy who can throw it long and he demands to take every throw, and they become less and less effective). In fact, I'd use it on 1/4 of the throws or less (the less often you use it, the more effective it's likely to be) - especially considering the fact that we are struggling to keep possession, I would think we'd want short, safe throws most of the time.
We have 8 goals all season. We haven't really scored by trying to play soccer. So we should stop trying to play soccer. :/