Dominik Szoboszlai is making scoring screamers cool again
This evolution didn’t sit well with former players who were beloved for their penchant for miraculous shooting feats, including ex-Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp, who spoke out on the issue in 2024. “Players now are coached almost to within an inch of their lives. It’s almost like they don’t think for themselves,” Redknapp told the iPaper.
“If we let academics and statisticians run the game, where is the pureness of it? Where’s the love? Where are the big moments that go down in history? Try telling Bobby Charlton, ‘Don’t shoot from 25 yards because the xG is 0.1. You’re the best striker of the ball the world’s ever seen but don’t shoot from there because there are a couple of coaches that say you’ve got less chance.’
“I practised long shots a lot. But it’s something you see less now because players probably don’t do it enough. This is where you have to have a feel, you have to take things away from academics and coaches and stats and go, ‘You know what, I’m going to have a shot here.’ Stats should never get in the way of the feel of it.”
In the 2005-06 campaign, 48.2% of all shots in the Premier League were taken from outside the 18-yard box, which remains an all-time high. By 2011-12, that figure had dipped to 44%, and the average sits between 31.7% and 33.1% from data collected in the 2020s so far.
That certainly proves that the “love” has diminished and players have been operating more mechanically than by “feel”. It’s not universal, though. There will always be those who go against the accepted norms, like Szoboszlai, and managers who not only share Redknapp’s sentiments, but also play an active role in helping to facilitate a return to the ‘good old days’.
