Welcome back to the Alternative Premier League Goal of the Week, where we count down our three favorite goals from the Premier League weekend just gone. They might not technically be the best, but we’re looking at the whole picture. Last week’s edition is here.
Everton’s sweeping counterattack is the alternative Premier League goal of the week
We count down our three favorite goals from the EPL weekend.
Christopher Lee/Getty Images
3. Joel Ward vs. Arsenal
Cech beaten from distance; great strike from Ward to level it up. #Arsenal #CPFC pic.twitter.com/jKMVQLqMpe
— Arsène's Son (@hughwizzy) August 16, 2015 One of football's minor joys: the goalscorer who looks entirely surprised to have scored a goal. Against Arsenal and 1-0 down, Crystal Palace's Joel Ward -- a right back of limited goalscoring pedigree -- only took a shot because, well, because he couldn't really think of anything else to do. Nobody was really making a run, he had nobody to cross at, and hey, why not.
So he swings a foot ... and Arsenal's defensive unit respond like he's just pulled a bazooka out of his shorts. Lauren Koscielny jumps out of the way. Petr Cech flings himself down on the ground. And the ball trundles gently along a straight line -- no curl, no swazz, no unusual bounce -- from Ward's foot, through the area, into the side of the net. He looks equal parts confused and delighted, while Arsenal's defense assume those 'er, what?' faces that they do so well.
Ward could have had a second later on, too, had he caught a header better. And given that he was generally quite poor for the rest of the game, this goal also poses an intriguing question for the very serious business of marking footballers out of 10. Simultaneously a seven and a three? Or split the difference at five? Science is hard.
2. Shinji Okazaki vs. West Ham
Goalkeepers are empty vessels without soul or conscience, and it’s just as well, for they spend their professional lives destroying the beautiful and denying the brilliant. They are to football as the barbarians were to Rome, as flames are to pages. And sometimes it’s not even worth it.
Take West Ham's Adrián. Or, to give him his full, secret name, Adriáninnitha'al, Despoiler of the Pure, He Who Comes With Flames, The Woesinger. On Saturday, as Leicester City ran amok in East London, Jamie Vardy broke into space down the left. He looked up and saw Shinji Okazaki free in the box. He crossed, and Okazaki leapt into the air and slapped the ball towards goal with the outside of his boot. Had it been Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the world would have drowned in hashtags. Had it gone in, it would have been very nice indeed.
It didn’t. Adrián saved it. But he didn’t stop the goal: Okazaki and the ball were reunited a yard from the line and he was able to nod home. Which merely drives homes the pointlessness of the original save: an empty gesture, a putrid belch, a selfish act of wanton destruction. Stop the beautiful goal, allow the boring one. What kind of a man. What kind of monster.
Later in the game, Adrián was sent off, and while the record states that he was dismissed for crimes against foot height and Jamie Vardy's rib cage, we know better. Crimes against Art, a far more serious transgression. Crimes against Truth and Beauty. Lock him up, seal the door with a circle of blood and salt and cold iron, then melt down the key.
1. Romelu Lukaku vs. Southampton
There are few things as fundamentally thrilling as a counterattack. The attacking side charges forward, led by the ball, and the pitch yawns open before them; the defenders try desperately to fill those spaces while simultaneously running as fast as they can (sometimes backwards), keeping one eye on the ball and keeping the other eye on as many of the runners as possible. One end of the pitch to the other in just a few seconds with just a few touches. Order carved from chaos. When one comes off, it’s almost worth the time we spend watching footballers roll around on the floor, or take throw-ins.
Seriously. Throw-ins are rubbish.
Everton opened the scoring on Saturday with an absolute peach of a counter, the kind of goal Manchester United used to score back when they were exciting to watch. Ross Barkley picks up the loose ball from a Southampton corner, charges into space then slides the ball into Arouna Koné. Koné advances into yet more space and, as his teammates gallop with him, whips the ball across the box. Lukaku springs, nods and the move's done. A great arc slashed across the length pitch. One pass, one cross, one header. The kind of thing that managers dream about, when they're not having nightmares about throw-ins.
Also worthy of note is the finish. Some counters end quite simply: when the speed and the movement of the break manufactures space and an overlap, all the striker has to do is not get carried away and avoid wheeching the thing over the bar. Lukaku, though, is ever so slightly ahead of Koné‘s cross, which means he has to angle his neck around and down and force the ball back across the goal. It’s a quite remarkable feat of muscular manipulation, particularly for somebody six feet off the ground and traveling very fast indeed. Maybe, just maybe, he’s actually quite good?
See More:
