Free Kicks

Free kicks in and around the bow; Mata for finesse, Zlatan for power

Shooting free kicks further out; Pogba (based on his two recent free kicks )

Free kicks where a ball should be whipped in; we have nobody who can cross a ball

Mata is good at clipping balls in when it's near the box but he lacks the power from further out.

Pogba has a good cross on him but really we want him in the box to get on the end of them. Same with Zlatan.

Maybe Mkhi can be the man? With the strength of some of our players in the air we should be scoring more from set pieces.

Zlatan seems to have the Ronaldo effect when it comes to freekicks. I'm sure 1 in 10 go in and look amazing and maybe in training he does it with ease but he misses far too many.

I guess that's just what comes with such as ego, although it would be nice if we could actually e a threat from them now and then.

Thing with Zlatan is that I've always found that even if he doesn't score they hit the target or go close more often than Ronaldo's do, even if Ronaldo would actually score a fair few more free kicks - not so much recently but a few years ago Ronaldo was the leading goal scorer in Europe for free kicks.

Free kicks seem to go wayward a lot more than they used to because of the balls now. Really hard skill to master. I think that's what makes Messi so ridiculous as he scores a lot and such a varied type of free kick, in terms of distance and position to the goal. And all with a balloon!

Messi's prowess with fks is only a relatively recent phenomenon. I remember when he used to be terrible at them.

Anyhow, Mata/ Rooney close-range. Pogba/ Zlatan further out.

Maybe Blind for whipping the ball in as he seems to hit the ball cleanly and with power too.

Messi's been class at free kicks for years. Recent years he's just become even better.

comment by Zlatan The King Ibrahimovic (U10026)
posted 4 minutes ago
Messi's been class at free kicks for years. Recent years he's just become even better.
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Don't think he has been class for years.

In fact, i recall a few years ago he had a 6% or so conversion rate of fks which was p !ss poor for any player let alone a genius like Messi.

For the past three or so years though, he has been very good indeed. One of the world's best fk takers.

Zlatan has been pretty much perfect so far considering his age and being new to the prem. In saying that, his free kicks have been atrocious. Really bad. Really really bad.

Don't get it. Is he a great free kick taker from previous clubs?

Yeah wasn't that like one bad season, though? And he was still one of the top scoring free kick takers about? I justcan't agree he was poor up until recently. I've watched him banging them in for nearly ten years.

What about Blind? I have it in my head that he can take a decent free kick?