#once again this post is a lie because i forgot to crosspost for a few days

[batshaped]

DRESSUP COUNTDOWN!

new outfit for the boy for every day left to preorder his plush >:) You can get him here until Dec 5!

SEVEN DAYS LEFT!

[memoriashell]

first impressions ( are they pointless if fate has already decided? )

Characters /  Pairing: Fukawa Touko/Naegi Komaru, ( implied ) Syo / Komaru

crossposted on ao3

Notes: day 7 of @tokomaruweek​!! soulmate prompt.

sorry if i manage to absolutely fuck up posting this one i'm half awake rn.

i appreciate how unrealistic and improbably soulmate aus are. anyways i knew i wanted to play with this idea as soon as i saw the prompt. i think that bodyswap au has interesting potential. the bodyswap soulmate au in the specific sense that you’d theoretically get to see the kind of hardships your fated might be going through but that’s not really the angle i took on it here but i mean do any of us want komaru to face abuse and bullying? no. i cannot comit to that. someone else can do that i am going to live here angst free anyways in case it isn't obvious the basis premises around this is that once you come of age, you swap bodies with your soulmate. HONESTLY not sure how a body swap au would work w/ a did person but considering that every alter / identity is considered their own person, i figured that it would simply just swap w/ the host, meaning any alters would be left behind. i do think it'd be an interesting concept to play with, maybe?

tw for trauma / abuse ( /ive parents )

Summary:  most circumstances to figure out the identity of your soulmate are pretty unfortunate, but she thinks this one might take the proverbial cake in some regard.

For most people, this would be the kind of momentous occasion that people would count down to. For Touko, it catches her completely off guard because she hardly registers the fact that her birthday is coming up until the day it happens.

‘It’ being the day she comes of age and is supposed to find out who her soulmate is.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t think about this kind of stuff on occasion. It was kind of a given, with her entire shtick of being a romance author. But quite frankly, she tries to forget it, because really? Soulmates? For someone like her? Not likely.

Who would want to be stuck with someone like her? Best not to get her hopes up too much, and stick to unrequited crushes on people she knows she’s probably not destined for.

The sound of an unfamiliar alarm is what wakes her up— Touko doesn’t really process anything more than trying to turn it off and laying down for a few minutes. And then realizes her body doesn’t quite feel right. Empty. Something’s missing and it’s too quiet and it all feels horribly wrong. And then opening her eyes and realizing she can see perfectly fine without her glasses.

Oh. Oh no. No no no no no.

She hops out of bed and spots a phone ( thank christ ) and confirms her fears. Right. It’s her birthday. Thank god she doesn’t need to know a passcode to figure out that information. Well, nothing she can do about that. Time to sleep off today, so she can go back to living her life normally, soulmate-free.

Or well, that is what she plans to do, until a picture frame catches her attention from the corner of her eye, and— oh. Oh no? Oh no. She absolutely recognizes one of the two people in the picture. She presumes the girl is the one whose body she’s currently inhabits ( nothing particularly special to note there, plain as plain can be ). The boy— she loathes that nonchalant, easygoing expression— the boy she recognizes as her classmate. One Makoto Naegi.

God, it’d be just her luck, huh. Speaking of which—

“Komaru!” Ah, so that’s her name. She hears a shout from downstairs, followed by footsteps. “You’re going to be late!”

Shit. Shit shit shit shit.

In a panic, she sprints to dive back under the covers and pretends to be asleep still. Maybe she’ll get off without much of a punishment that way? Definitely less than the realization that she’d been awake and not getting ready for...school, presumably. She has no clue what this girl is usually like, but hopes that it isn’t painfully obvious what is going on here.

“Komaru?” The voice is closer this time, the sound of the door opening follows close behind. While she panics over the thought of what to do asides from pretending like she’s asleep, Touko misses the sound of footsteps approaching and flinches when the covers are tugged away from her head. She doesn’t mean to let out a whimper of fear when a hand comes down on her forehead, teeth clenched, not that the sound is interpreted as fear. “Are you feeling all right, dear? You’re not feverish, but you are a little sweaty...”

It takes her a moment to recognize the tone of this woman’s voice is one of concern, an incredibly foreign concept for her to expect from any parent ( she’s presuming this is the mother ). It certainly was never one she’d expected to hear from her own mothers, squeezing her eyes shut as if to ignore the truth. “N-No...” It’s not a lie, at least— all of this makes her feel sick to her stomach.

( It leaves an awful taste in her mouth, knowing the love that she is being shown here is just an illusion; not meant for her at all. And yet Touko wants something that she has never had. What an awful child she is )

“Why don’t you take it easy for today, then? If you feel no better later, you can start taking medicine.” She manages to utter a thank you, whatever will get her with no repercussions and left alone again, and there is a hand gently stroking back her hair before she is alone again.

Once ‘her’ mother leaves, she locks the door and buries herself under the blankets, so she can sleep and forget about today ever happening.

In comparison, Komaru Naegi finds herself having a much less than pleasant awakening. In that she doesn’t know what wakes her up, just that she is suddenly, forcibly awakened and in a room she doesn’t recognize.

Weird. Is she dreaming? It kind of feels that way, because she has no control over the body she currently resides in, marching over to the desk and reaches into the draw for...a pair of scissors? Really, really sharp scissors, but a pair of scissors nonetheless.

It’s not a dream. Get out. They hiss at her, scissors pointed at her— themselves? Oh boy. Uh.

“I don’t think I can do that.” She says aloud; wincing. “I don’t— I don’t know what’s going on...?”

Ugh. You think I know any better? ( Yes! Yes she does!! ) It’s totally bullshit that this is my wake-up call after ages, and she’s not even awake and instead I’m stuck with you? Ah. Shit, hold on a second how long has it been. They reach for the calendar, and she feels her face frown. Aw, it hasn’t been that long? She really forgot her own birthday coming up? Some heads up would’ve been nice instead of just waking up to this fucking mess. The voice continues to complain.

“Um...” She hates to interrupt, but she’s still pretty confused. “What do you mean? Who are you?”

You’re expecting me to just give that up without knowing your own name? Or do you not care?

“Sorry!” And she is, given that she’d kind of gotten ahead of herself. “Komaru. Komaru Naegi. But just Komaru is fine!”

Ah— Naegi? What are the odds— Dekomaru it is!

“What? That’s not my name at all!” Komaru completely manages to miss the faint recognition, huffing a pout. “And I told you, so answer my questions!”

Syo. And what I mean is that now I’m stuck explaining this shit— did you seriously not pay attention to any of that or are you that dumb? Geeze, listen to me this time. Okay, so we can have a lesson on proper terms and all that shit another time, long and short of it is that we share this body— miss gloomy and I. It’s technically her coming of age birthday today, which is why you’re here instead of her.

“Oh, okay.” Komaru nods along in agreeably, before her mind catches up and process the implications of what she’s been told. “Wait, you mean I— she— this is my soulmate?!” Her voice cracks as it pitches, hands quick to clasp out of her mouth, a little worriedly.

Yeah, obviously. And don’t worry, the rooms are soundproof. Otherwise, I would’ve already told you to stop replying out loud. People would think that’s weird. They sound amused, reaching back towards the table and fumbles around for a moment before raising something up into the field of their view.

This is a student ID card, which provides her with several helpful bits of information— none of which Komaru chooses to fixate on. “...Hope’s Peak?” What were the chances of that?

Focus, idiot. Do you have any idea of what this means?

Komaru beams, an expression that might have been frightening for anyone else to see on this face. “It means I can be a Hope’s Peak student for today!”

No. Ouch, that’s probably the most cold they’ve sounded so far. Which is saying a lot, considering how they’d greeted her. Well, maybe. I know she really wouldn’t like it if you went around in our body. She doesn’t like it when I force control over our body either, but if it’s you then she probably won’t care. Personally, I don’t give two fucks— I can give you tips on acting more like her if you want.

Komaru makes a face. “I’m bad at acting. Am I really that different?”

Given that you don’t shut up, yes. That’s not a bad thing. They add on when they seem to sense the indignation rising in her. You really want to go around like normal today?

“Please?” She begs in what is sure to not be the last time that Syo enables her in doing something she probably shouldn’t do.

Okay! You’re more fun to have to share with than madam morose. This is way more chaotic. If things go wrong, I’ll help you cover up.

Komaru thinks that’s supposed to be a compliment. Or flattery? Either way, she enthusiastically takes to observing her appearance in the mirror for a good several minutes— more than several, but who’s keeping track? Syo. Syo is— before they point out they’ll be late for class and still haven’t had breakfast. But Komaru really only registers late and class and grabs her bag and rushes out into the hall, only to realize she didn’t really know where she was supposed to be going.

Syo sighs at her and directs her in the right direction of their locker and then their class while Komaru considers what’s the best way to seem cool if she can’t technically be herself. And also try not to nervously overthink things. That is also a thing she tries to avoid.

You know it’s weird that we’re going to class early, right?

“It’s fine...!” She grumbles. I can’t help but be excited, okay? It’s not everyday I get to pretend to be attended one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

Uh huh. Okay. I don’t think it’s really ‘cool’ to be this early to class, but.. Syo snickers at her, and she pouts before opting to ignore them, gathering her nerves before ( with more confidence than the actual Touko Fukawa would ever muster ) pushing the door open and stepping inside the classroom.

And then the whole act cool plan falls apart because while Komaru had registered the, we’re at Hope’s Peak Academy, she had failed to consider the whole, this is the school my brother goes to, I might run into my brother dilemma that she is immediately forced to acknowledge in a very graceful manner.

( And by gracefully she means she very embarrassingly screams at Makoto and Syo cackles at her, and she learns a very important lesson on why she should not trust Syo so easily )

Unfortunately for Touko, her body refuses to sleep much, which means she is wide awake when someone tries to come into the room just after four. Clearly not giving up, a knock soon follows, and, “Fukawa-san? Can you let us in?”

And then the sound of her own voice, way too cheery for her own liking. “No one else is home right now, so you don’t need to worry about it. Please? I really want to meet you! Uhm, properly.” Silence follows, since Touko makes no attempt to acknowledge that- if she pretends to sleep, then they’ve got to give up eventually. Even if she can only run away for so long, given that Makoto will probably just confront her tomorrow if she doesn’t. “Uh, Syo-san says they’ll take matters into their own hands if you don’t...? I’m not really sure what that means, but...” Makoto makes a panicked noise and god damn it Syo. She hadn’t counted on Syo working against her as well. Should she have expected that from them? Eh.

( It might speak more about the other girl, if she’d managed to get something like Syo’s...approval? That doesn’t seem quite right, and feels weird to think about either way )

“Give me a moment.” She calls, just to make sure Syo doesn’t go ahead and try and start picking the lock or break a window or something else that’s drastic and unnecessary. Takes a deep breath as she pulls herself out of bed, doesn’t bother double-checking if she seems too presentable and trudges over to unlock the door.

No sooner than she does so, the door swings open cautiously— Touko manages to sidestep out of the way before she needs to worry about being hit by it. She can feel the other’s gaze focus in on her almost immediately, but she very pointedly decides to not meet her gaze, mostly because it feels weird to be looking at herself, and looks at the same bookcase she has been staring at for the past four hours straight.

( Manga. She hates it. Of course, she would be stuck with someone that loves something that she practically loathes. She also hates the fact that she’d also been so bored that she’d almost considered reading it )

The only thing she chooses to acknowledge is the fact that her hair is down and not braided, really could she not have put forth even that much effort— and that while having her in front of her now is much different from what she might have thought it to be, she really has no idea of what to think of her.

And then the other seems to decide that enough is enough and holds her hands in hers very excitedly. She can only guess what Syo makes of all this. Schadenfreude, probably. She doesn’t actually say anything to her, just giggles to herself ( she’s not sure if she’s trying to be creepy, or if that laughter is directed at something Syo is saying ).

“Stop that...It’s w-w-weird to see my face doing that.” She gnaws on her lip— is this what everyone else saw all day? That’s awful.

As if reading her mind ( and certainly not the atmosphere of room ), Makoto helpfully chimes in, “Give her a break, she’s done a pretty good job trying to not attract any unwanted attention.”

“They made me skip class.” She pouts, crossing her arms. “Syo even said that they’d take the blame for it, but no, I had to skip out.”

“You screamed at me and scared Fujisaki-san? I was more relieved that Ishimaru-kun was willing to get you excused for the day.” Oh good, at least she can count on having reliable notes and not misplaced homework like with some people ( Syo ).

“It wasn’t that bad, Makoto, you’re making it seem worse than it was—”

“Because screaming like that could come off as good somehow?” He butts in.

“— and what’s done is done, so with that said, let’s eat!” She raises a bag that she’d failed t notice earlier. “I know it’s a little weird, but it’s still your birthday, so we can at least celebrate, right? I even asked Syo what you’d prefer the most while we were at the bakery.” That kind of disgustingly desperate face is all too fitting and completely foreign on her face, and Touko scowls at her.

It’s also a very foreign thought to actually be celebrating her birthday for once, and with a practical stranger nonetheless.

“Actually, I have a call I’m supposed to make. So I’ll be waiting downstairs, Komaru— we do have to get back at a reasonable time, so I’ll come back up if you’re staying too long, okay?” Makoto flees in the most inelegant way possible, fittingly.

Traitor, she wants to yell at him. She’s not quite being left alone here, because Syo is clearly present, but it’s not the same. She still feels a sense of betrayal here on all sides nonetheless.

“Touko-chan! Come sit with me!” Not that she gets any say in this, dragged along by her hand into following. She considers telling her off because when did she say that she was allowed to call her that? But bites her tongue for the moment because she’s still a little startled about the ease at which she has accepted all of...this, given the fact that she’s currently got Syo co-fronting. She suspects that they have arbitrarily elected to not acknowledge the elephant in the room which is very annoying to her, but she’s not really given a chance to acknowledge that either since a plate is shoved into her hands.

Fruit tart. So she’s not lying about the fact that Syo has taken a liking to her, apparently.

( No she’s not jealous over her own apparent soulmate. Why on earth would she envy that? )

“Fukawa-san?” Pale lavender eyes peer up at her, lips pursed in a small pout. “I know this isn’t the most ideal situation, and..I don’t expect you to warm up to me right away. But I’d like it if we could meet again sometime, as ourselves.”

Touko gives her a long look, scrutinizing, and then looks away. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay!” She’s quick to agree like she’d said yes; humming happily with a fork in her mouth ( which would be cuter if she didn't have to look at her own ugly face ).

[starprincecas]

so it goes

15x18 spec fic (written and posted before the ep aired on how it might emotionally eviscerate us that I forgot to share here) [1.4k]. Crossposted on Ao3

“So…” Dean drawls, grabbing Cas’ attention from where he’s squinting intently at the contents of a book, still somehow hopeful of eking out some heretofore unfound information that’ll change the game in their favor. Dean’s not all that optimistic but he can’t really begrudge the guy for it. “What’re you gonna do once this is over?”

Cas cocks his head as he eyes Dean. “After defeating God you mean?”

“You got anything else on your plate I don’t know about?”

Cas looks down at the book in front of him, idly running his thumb over the edge of the pages. “Return to heaven I suppose. While there’s not much I can do, if Jack intends to use the remnants of Adam’s power to fix things up there, the least I can do is give him what support I can.”

Dean half-smiles at that ruefully. “You ever heard of retirement, buddy?”

“I have.” At Dean’s patiently amused expression, Cas straightens up. “Oh. You mean for myself.”

He’s never had a need to consider the prospect before, but now that Dean has set it before him… He ponders aloud. “Heaven’s not made for angelic retirement, so I’m not sure where I would go. I suppose I could travel again-”

“Or,” Dean cuts in, a little too loud in its nonchalance, “you could, y’know, stay here.”

Cas stares at him.

Ignoring the loud, nervous drumbeat of his heart, he meets Cas’ eyes. “I said it before, didn’t I? We’ve got enough space for a dozen of you in here with room to spare. So… stick around after. If you want.”

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Dean grins, open and easy in a way he hasn’t for months.

Cas smiles back. “Yes.”

--

Dean’s busy texting Sam for updates on the survivor relocation efforts when there’s a sudden palpable shift to the room.

His head shoots up reflexively even as he reaches for the gun strapped to the underside of the table, immediately on edge, only to stop short when he realizes it’s Billie.

He forces himself to relax, if only so that he doesn’t tip her off to the fact that they’ve been clued into her master plan.

“Hey, Billie,” Dean says as nonchalantly as he can. “Wasn’t expecting-”

“That’s not Billie,” Cas interrupts, standing up abruptly and dropping into a defensive stance as his angel blade drops into his hand. “Dean get back.”

Dean obeys immediately, even as ‘Billie’ croons, “Oh, don’t worry angel, you know I’m not here for him.”

“It’s the Empty,” Cas says tightly, not looking away as he slowly backs up, knowing Dean’s doing the same.

“Whatever deal you and Billie made for Jack, he’s not-”

The Empty rolls its eyes and cuts Dean off. “I’m here for Castiel. Figured I’d hedge my bets, just in case.” At his confused expression, it snorts. “Oh that’s cute. You didn’t even tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Dean demands loudly, glancing between the Empty and Cas. Cas doesn’t look at him. “Tell me what, Cas?”

“Ask the little half-angel brat,” the Empty cuts in flatly. “I’m not staying in this stupid dimension any longer than I have to.”

It takes a step towards Cas. Dean reacts without thinking and shoots. It doesn’t so much as flinch as the bullet penetrates its shoulder, glancing at Dean with almost sardonic amusement. “You didn’t really think that would work, did you?”

Dean shrugs, plastering on a smirk. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

The Empty materializes Death’s scythe while leveling Cas with a look. “Tell your pet human to stand down or I stop playing nice.”

It taps a finger pointedly against the scythe’s handle.

Dean takes the brief moment of distraction to grab Cas’ angel blade from his lax grip and lob it right at the Empty’s chest with practiced accuracy.

Shock and anger flicker past its face as it inexpertly tries to dodge and swing the scythe at Dean.

Too slow to react, the scythe grazes Dean’s side just as the angel blade hits its target, his yell of pain louder than the Empty’s muffled grunt. Cas is there to catch him as he staggers back, dragging him hurriedly out of the library.

--

They hobble down the hall, Cas bearing the brunt of Dean’s weight as he struggles to walk from the pain.

“There,” Dean grunts when he notices the door to one of the storage rooms lying ajar. Cas redirects immediately. When he turns to Dean, concerned and hand stretched out to heal him, he grits his teeth and shakes his head, taking a half-step back to lean against the wall. “Block the door.”

Cas gives him a look like he wants to object but accedes, moving to push the nearest shelving unit in front of the door. It won’t do much to delay the inevitable, but Dean’s nothing if not stubborn.

“That was reckless,” Cas mutters as he focuses on healing Dean’s wound after.

Dean grunts and tries to smirk. “Have you met me?”

Cas keeps at it for a few more seconds but the pain only abates, not subsiding much. Cas’ hand falls away as he steps back, staring down at Dean’s bloodied side. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I’m not strong enough - an injury from Death’s scythe isn’t something I can heal.”

Dean waves off the apology. “Why’s the Empty after you?”

Cas doesn’t respond. His brows furrow as his gaze drops down to his feet, his bloodied hand clenches into a fist.

“Cas.”

“I made a deal,” Cas admits, the words falling heavily in the space between them. “To save Jack the first time he died.”

A yawning pit opens up inside Dean at the admission. ‘No, no, no,’ he thinks wildly, ‘not again. Please, not again.’

Cas finally looks up and meets his eyes, there’s resignation in his eyes but no regret. “I did what I had to.”

“There’s got to be some way out of this,” Dean blurts out, even as Cas shakes his head. Dean wants to reach out and grab him by the lapels of his trenchcoat and shake him till he takes it back, but the pain and panic have him rooted to the spot. “I’m not going to lie down and just let it-”

“Dean,” Cas interrupts, “there’s nothing you can do.”

“The fuck there isn’t,” Dean says heatedly. He doesn’t have a solution now, but they’ll figure out something, they always do.

Cas smiles at him then, though it wobbles. There’s the beginning of tears in his eyes and it’s a sucker punch to Dean’s gut, because he’s never seen Cas cry before.

“You’ve fought for this whole world, given up so much for it.” Cas swallows and tries smiling again. “It needs you one last time. So this is one battle I’m asking you not to fight. If there’s one last thing I can ask of you before I die -”

“Don’t,” Dean says softly, tears springing to his own eyes. He moves to physically stop whatever Cas might try to say but stumbles, the sudden movement pulling at his injury. Cas reaches out immediately, grasping at his shoulders to steady him.

“- it’s that you don’t risk your life pointlessly because of me. I don’t want that to be the last thing I see.”

Dean shakes his head harshly even as tears blur his vision. ‘It’s not pointless,’  he thinks, ‘not if you’ll survive,’ but the words don’t come out. All the things they’ve left unsaid between them all these years choke him and steal his voice. Even now they’re both cowards.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this

There’s a loud pounding at the door that has them both turning. The door and shelves rattle as it bears another hit before shattering into splinters. Dean finds himself being pulled behind Cas as they both try to shield themselves from the debris.

“Time’s up,” the Empty says, scowling.

Cas doesn’t look back at the Empty even as he pulls back from Dean. He attempts a smile, like he’s trying to convince them both that he’s at peace with what’s about to happen. Dean’s incapable of pretending the same, jaw tight as he stares back at Cas, his own expression a rictus of grief.

Large black tendrils envelop Cas at an alarming speed. Cas steadfastly ignores them, not looking away from Dean. “Thank you for-”

And then he’s gone.

[walkonwalkonwithhopeinyourheart]

So I decided to analyze every single corner goal liverpool have conceded since the start of 16/17 to see if there was a pattern. There is. via /r/LiverpoolFC

So I decided to analyze every single corner goal liverpool have conceded since the start of 16/17 to see if there was a pattern. There is.

Crossposting this from r/soccer, slightly changing up the language to be a bit less of a dick towards Liverpool

So as we all know Liverpool have gotten quite a lot of shit for a while now due to setpiece defending, corners in particular. I figured I'd try to find out where the problem seems to lie and whether it's more down to organization or just general incompetence.

Note: since not all of us easily recognize every player, let alone Hull City mids who are probably not even at the club any more, I'll usually be referring to them by the colors I assigned to them on my still images. If many of you find something particularly unclear then I will edit this post later.

1. Hull City (H): 3-1

Immediately we notice an odd setup: black is standing in no man’s land while yellow has to worry about 3 players potentially running into his zone. At the far post it’s a 2 vs 2 situation which is far from ideal. Black should be much further back to deal with no 25 and no 5s run as blue is already sufficient cover for his area. No 5 ends up in the duel which doesn’t get properly cleared. At this point green (Clyne) has completely let go of his man to track blue’s run which was entirely unnecessary. Woops.

2. Swansea (A): 1-0

This one actually isn’t bad. Blue covers the far post man so yellow can help in the center if needed, near post is completely harmless and there’s pretty much no chance for a Swansea overload anywhere, even in the center. However, blue ends up ballwatching too long and misses his man by about a yard, who heads it back for a rather unlikely tap in complete with questionable goalkeeping. However, during all this red lets his man chill in an extremely dangerous position at the far post.

3. West Brom (A): 2-1

Unlike the last example where 5 potential Liverpool players were able to provide cover in the centre, this time it’s only 4. Odd considering we’re talking about West Brom’s airforce here. I think having yellow take over blue’s zone to have blue as an extra man in the middle would have been better, since 2 men entirely dedicated to mark 1 near post man is overkill. A center player ends up rather impressively winning the aerial duel resulting in a goal.

4. Swansea (H): 0-1

Not keen on repeating the same mistake twice, Liverpool now use a whopping 6 men to defend against 3 men running into the center area. The downside is that Fernandez (a center back FYI) is covered by only Henderson who is 7 cm shorter and not exactly known for his heading ability. Unsurprisingly, Fernandez wins the aerial duel. After that, 4 liverpool defenders fail to cover 2 guys leading to the goal. Very alert guys. At least the closest one could have made an effort.

5. Hull City (A): 1-0

So this one is just terrible. Yellow (Henderson again) has to deal with 3 guys running into his area all by himself with only Emre Can even somewhat nearby to provide coverage. All the while 3 players + the goalkeeper are worried about 1 guy in the 6 yard box. What the hell was the plan here? Did they really think having 5 players run backwards was more efficient than covering their zones? Did a triple substitution just happen and Liverpool forgot to reassign the roles? Were they that convinced they would all go running towards the near post? (Actually we'll get to such a situation later). This also leads to Red having literally half of the penalty area all to himself a few seconds later. If the ball had dropped to that guy and he’d tapped it in it would have been talked about for ages. But alas, it took a far less threatening ball and a goalkeeper mistake instead.

It’s worth noting at this point that all 5 of these goals were indirect. None of them were assisted by the corner taker and they all needed an extra touch before leading to a shot. At least Liverpool don’t seem to give away too many threatening shots so far. It seems like a lot of these goals are just failed clearances landing at the right place.

6. Everton (H): 1-1

Everton’s short corner threat pulled Red out of position leading to a 3 vs 4 situation at the near post. Yellow has to worry about both his zone and helping out to deal with Lukaku if necessary. It seems Everton wanted to take advantage of this by trying to reach Lukaku indirectly, watch how the headed pass seems to be aimed wide and how Lukaku rather effortlessly moves past his man to get to the far post. So yellow makes the call to pull away from the center meaning green has to defend number 5 by himself. Unfortunately he (Firmino) wasn’t really paying attention and not only lets number 5 run but also fails to close down the goalscorer immediately after. All around just very bad defending by him. It seems like Koeman must agree that trying to head it through is the best way to score corners against this Liverpool side.

7. Crystal Palace (H): 1-2

The final goal Liverpool conceded in 16-17 and it’s by Benteke on a corner, how poetic. To be honest, this one seems okay as well, with what should be 2 people challenging Benteke in theory (Wijnaldum kind of leaves Can to it a second later), 3 vs 2 on the near post, no far post threat. The goal happens because a) somehow near post man gets a pass through that mess and b) yellow (Emre Can) didn’t think tracking the run of one of the biggest aerial threats in the league 9 meters from your goal was all that important. Note how blue (Lucas) sees Benteke coming but is stuck between deciding to cover the center or the guy annoying Mignolet. He makes the wrong call. Guys, either trust your goalkeeper to deal with the one fella or put a man there to help him out, none of this half and half shit.

8. Watford (A): 1-0

This one is odd. 4 vs 2 at the near post while blue is stuck defending 3 defenders at once (where have I seen that before?) There seems to be a communication error on who’s supposed to be picking up who. Green, red and blue end up all tracking blue and green target even though someone, probably red (Lovren), should have been tracking Okaka who runs off freely. Lovren and yellow (Firmino) seem to switch targets at the last second. By the time Firmino is with Okaka he is powerless to stop the 180 pound momentum carrying striker. Yet again, the goal took an extra touch to happen.

Also worth noting that despite 3 men accidentally doing the work of 2, they still manage to let Watford’s number 3 escape to the far post.

9. Watford (A): 3-3

Kind of similar to the previous goal, with a striker moving inwards leaving behind a pretty clueless defensive line. However this time they all run forward making the lack of response by Liverpool’s defense even more inexplicable. Maybe Liverpool were sick of leaving massive gaps at the far post they decided to stay there? Or maybe they were just knackered. Anyway, the goal itself seems questionable and rather flukey but it could have just as well been a near post header if the cross was better and Liverpool would have stood no chance yet again. Hell they didn’t even track this guy’s very late and far run, it’s like they knew they’d concede. Because they’re Liverpool, and that’s what they do. And we wouldn't want them any other way.

Conclusion: Liverpool aren’t great at defending corners, but surprisingly rarely do they ever concede a threatening shot directly from them. The fact that none of these corner kicks were assists is a pretty interesting and even kinda ridiculous stat. Most danger comes from bad defending by people who can’t be arsed tracking their man once they see the cross is landing somewhere else. This never happens through the middle, unless you’re West Brom in which case obviously the normal corner rules do not apply.

TL;DR: If you want to score a corner against Liverpool, aim for your biggest off center guy and let everyone else just run forward to score the inevitable tap in after it doesn’t get cleared.

Bonus: this didn't lead to a goal but it was still so unbelievably bad I found it worth mentioning: granting Harry Kane a comical amount of mouthbreathing space. Seriously, just look at this. Wow.

Submitted August 23, 2017 at 04:16PM by KVMechelen via reddit http://ift.tt/2vY3V7C