When the boss asked me to write a technical article about why footballers miss chances, my immediate response was pure dressing-room bluster, pure survival mechanism. Hackles right up.
“What the f*** are you asking me for?” I shot back on our group chat.
Old habits die hard and nothing makes me more defensive, more irritated, than the thought of not scoring goals — but like every striker from every generation, from Dixie Dean to Erling Haaland, I missed more than I scored. It’s a thought that makes my bones ache and jaw grind (I hammered those words out, rather than typing them).
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Every weekend it’s the same, in the Premier League and elsewhere. Goals are outnumbered by the ones that get away.
“I’m sure our readers would love to know why,” the boss said. “Stop traumatising me,” I replied. But to no avail, because here we are.
Goals were my opioid. For a brief, ecstatic moment when the ball hit the back of the net — usually with some force — my life was boiled down to a rush of adrenaline. Nothing else comes close, however much you search for it. Missing was the opposite; desolate, s***, a mental scab I couldn’t stop picking.
Yet missing was also part of the process and bouncing back from a miss and not being afraid to miss again is part of what separates good forwards from the elite. You hate it, you face it and you come back for more, all in the hunt for that sliver of perfection and the jeopardy that comes with it.
Everybody misses, but the true greats have a quicksilver instinct that mitigates against it. You score more than the others and you score when it matters. You have a better, more reliable technique. You judge the line of the ball quicker and adjust your body quicker, you sniff out that opportunity. You make tens of futile runs for every one that comes off.
It’s the mentality of missing a penalty — I kid you not, even now, all these years after retirement, I still dream about those bitter moments — and still being desperate to take the next one, rather than shying away.
Scoring is the hardest bit about football, or so the cliche goes. It’s why the best at it cost the most money. In the biggest, toughest occasions on the biggest stages, you might only get one chance; it’s what I always suspected about Manchester City signing someone like Haaland, that having a player as prolific and clinical as him would turn them into conquerors.
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The modern game is played at the pace of a whirlwind and there are so many things that can go wrong, even before you factor in the fine goalkeepers and defenders whose job it is to stop you.
You might have a split second to make a decision. You sniff, you sense, you anticipate and then, given the scarcest instant to respond, it’s down to mechanics, mentality and technique. Can you switch your weight from your left foot to the right? Do you chest the ball, head it or take a touch?
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For the benefit of this piece, Liam Tharme, one of The Athletic’s tactics writers, compiled a list of reasons chances are missed. We then attempted to categorise some examples, although the more you analyse, the more you understand that most misses straddle multiple categories.
We looked at wrong shot selection, shooting too soon or too late (which also applies to headers and jumping), shooting without enough power or too much, being off balance, poor technique and use of the dominant foot when the non-dominant would be more appropriate.
Liam collated 26 clips for us, taken from the Premier League, Champions League and Europa League from the start of last season onwards. They were all designated ‘big chances’ by Opta — “a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score” — and we whittled them down to the selection included below.
And, before we go any further, let me tell you, I loathed every second of it. Detested it. Staring at my screen, error and catastrophe playing out in front of me, I groaned and tutted and winced and f***-saked and fidgeted and longed to turn away. It was my own equivalent of squirming through a horror movie.
But the boss asked and, like the good team player I have always strived to be, I delivered. So here is a phrase to be written once and, please, please, never to be repeated…
This is how not to score.
Mauro Icardi for Galatasaray vs Copenhagen: Shooting too late and wrong shot selection
So bad it’s unbelievable. This is dreamland for a striker, the kind of position you graft all week for.
Icardi is free and bearing down on the goalkeeper and has the opportunity to take a shot.
Why take another touch? That touch should have been a shot. The ’keeper, who was on his way down, can now set himself, the defender has more time to get back and rattle him, so Icardi is immediately under pressure. If you’ve got anything about you, put it past the ’keeper on the left side or lift the ball above him.
Yes, it’s a good save, but it’s one that shouldn’t be made.
Ugh. What a horrible place to start.
Note: Some videos in this article are geographically restricted.
Erling Haaland for Manchester City vs Red Star Belgrade: Off balance and bad technique
Disclaimer: it’s very harsh to criticise a striker with Erling’s record, but this shows everybody is human and can be undone when the basics are off. Most things he gets spot on here, creating space for himself and then taking his shot first time because there isn’t any need to take a touch. He’s clearly not overthinking it. It’s on a plate for him.
The ball has come at him quickly and he’s tried to sort his feet out, but the error here is leaning back and what happens next is absolutely inevitable; he skies it.
Forwards are taught from the youngest age to get over the ball and this is why. But everyone has done it, including me. I’m far less angry about this miss than some of the others.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for Marseille vs Ajax: Bad shot selection, shot too early, bad technique
Another golden opportunity.
If I put myself in Aubameyang’s position, what is racing through his mind? He knows he can’t take a touch to the right because there’s a defender bearing down. If he checks his run, the same defender might get a foot to the ball. He’ll be thinking that if he goes to the left, he’s reducing the angle he can shoot from and that starts to shift the odds in favour of his opponents. So Aubameyang hits it first time and goes for the dink and simply doesn’t get enough on it.
It’s a tough skill to pull off. There isn’t enough height on it and that comes down to technique, but if you look at these stills, it’s pretty clear to me he’s taken that decision really early — the ’keeper’s position, way out of his goal, will have influenced him.
For his part, the ’keeper knows he has to stand tall for as long as possible. He’s anticipating that finish.
But Aubameyang actually has time and space to take another touch. Take it to the left and it’s an open goal.
Mykhailo Mudryk for Chelsea vs Man Utd: Bad technique, bad shot selection, dominant foot reliance
All of this is terrible, starting with the ball in from Lewis Hall. If the pass is hit a couple of yards ahead of Mudryk, he runs onto it without breaking stride, but he has to check, then go again. After that, the mess is all down to him.
Mudryk is trying to get the ball onto his right boot. Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with that, but in practice it means he’s effectively having to step over it and his feet are all over the place, turning what should be a simple chance into something horrifically complicated. He can’t sort them out. Strike it with his left boot and he scores.
Junior Messias for AC Milan vs Inter Milan: Bad technique, shot too early, dominant foot reliance
A fantastic pass from Sandro Tonali leaves Messias in a great position, on the right side of the area and with nobody around him.
His first touch is about getting it onto his left foot, bringing him inside. It’s not an awful touch, although if it had been nudged forward rather than to the left, he would have made a better opportunity for himself.
I can’t say the same about the shot. He’s trying to curl it around the ’keeper but there’s no bend at all. Having come inside, it leaves him having to sort his feet out — when I say that, I’m talking about balance, natural movement and momentum — and if you look at the connection he makes, it goes exactly where the foot is aiming. It goes straight because the ball pings off his ankle.
This and some of the other examples I looked at put me in mind of golf. In that sport, you’re hitting a static ball, but there are some similar principles — hit it face on and it’s going to go in the direction your body is aiming. As soon as you start complicating things, you put your technique under pressure.
Marc Cucurella for Chelsea vs Real Madrid: Shot too late, bad technique
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. F****** NO. I fully acknowledge that Cucurella isn’t a striker, but that’s kind of why I wanted to include this. There’s no instinct. It has all the hallmarks of a player who isn’t used to being in that position. (Although fair play to him for getting there.)
There is zero reason to have a touch. None at all. He’s six yards out and when the ball reaches him, he’s got two-thirds of the goal to aim at. If he shoots, it’s a goal (indicated by the red arrow).
But because he takes a touch, he’s got the ’keeper sprinting out to him and two defenders back on the line (the ball can be seen just to the right of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois’ elbow as he makes the save).
No. Just no.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for Napoli vs Eintracht Frankfurt: Shot too late, dominant foot reliance, poor placement
This is all about decision-making.
It’s a lovely dribble from the man nicknamed ‘Kvaradona’, but if you look at our second screen-grab, this is where he should shoot. Look at how inviting it is — he could go to the goalkeeper’s left or right (red arrows).
By taking another touch, by continuing his run for another few yards, he’s heading in the wrong direction, he makes the angle impossibly tight and gives the ‘keeper time to set himself. He turns a seven or eight out of 10 chance into a one or two.
Gabriel Jesus for Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspur: Bad shot selection, poor technique
Jesus does really well to anticipate the pass and nabs the ball from James Maddison’s toes.
It leaves him in an ideal position in the middle of the goal, with space around him and the choice of aiming either side. He goes with the option of hitting his shot with the front of his foot, which is fine; it’s something I used to do a lot of the time.
He also goes for power and there’s nothing wrong with that either because power shouldn’t take away from your accuracy. I always felt that if I picked my spot and got my shot away, then the harder I hit it, the harder it would be for the ’keeper to stop it. A load of my goals were struck firmly and weren’t more difficult to control.
But this is another example of leaning back for a shot; Jesus’ body and technique are all wrong.
Without wishing to pick on him, he has consistently been underperforming his xG over the past few years, which tells you he’s getting into good positions and isn’t finishing them. Exhibit A right here.
Nicolas Jackson for Chelsea vs Aston Villa: Dominant foot reliance, poor shot selection, poor technique
Another one where I struggle to compute what I’m seeing. It’s a great pass by Mudryk and a great run to meet it, with Jackson slowing up to allow the ball to come back to him.
From there, though, where do you start? I just don’t understand what he’s trying to do, letting it come across him to the other side and then attempting to hit it with the front of his foot. There are so many things going awry.
He has an unbelievable opportunity to shoot with his left boot and because he doesn’t want to do that, he causes himself a world of pain. It’s a natural desire to make life easier for yourself, but if the thinking here is that Jackson does this by allowing it to run across him, it’s completely flawed.
Look at his positioning, his body, his shape, his lack of balance, his technique. It’s so poor.
This time, it’s a 10 out of 10 chance that becomes three or four.
Darwin Nunez for Liverpool vs Aston Villa: Poor shot selection
Nunez makes one run for the defender and Pau Torres (white circle) falls for it.
Then he makes a run for himself. It leaves him in a perfect position when Mohamed Salah’s cross comes in, but Nunez’s brain is frazzled and this is really just an instance where, in the blink of an eye, you can either make a decision and regret it or delay it and regret it.
Does he head it or does he kick it? Does he understand the flight of the ball? By the time it reaches him, he still hasn’t decided and by then he can’t adjust himself.
He thinks, “S***, I’m going to miss” and chucks his head at it.
Everybody misses. Slowing clips down and watching them frame by frame is unforgiving. Just as slo-mo replays tend to make every tackle look like a leg-breaker, here you can almost see brains catching up to bodies an instant too late. One heavy touch and the chance has gone.
But misses only tell half the story, albeit one that can create headlines or stir mockery or derision. The other part is that to miss, you have to be in the right place to miss and that is actually a small success story.
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The consistent goalscorers, the best scorers, clutch onto that success and hold it tightly. You don’t drop your head. You work and work, putting yourself in those positions so often, coming back for more, that your body and feet adjust and set themselves before you have a chance to think about it. Before you have a chance to f*** it up.
You have a single thought and you play it on repeat: next time, next time, next time.
Although, my only thought right now is let’s never do this again if it’s all the same to you.
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(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)