Football's obsession with clean sheets

I've never understood the difference between winning whilst conceding zero goals as opposed to one being deemed so disproportionately commendable to the difference between winning and conceding one as opposed to two, etc.

There are no direct rewards for clean sheets. In the event that two teams finish on equal points and goal differences, high scoring wins count for more than one nils. The art of scoring goals is generally more valuable than that of not conceding.

So why is emphasis attached to the ability to keep clean sheets specifically, as opposed to minimising goal losses in general?

Personally, I have always found that quality teams start by being solid at the back. If you have a decent defence that you can rely on, it allows the midfield and forward line to get forward and express themselves. Over time, solid defensive partnerships are worth their weight in gold.

Liverpool had their heyday during the Hansen / Lawrenson period. United were the same with Rio / Vidic.

Well we practiced the "clean sheet first" mentality under big sam.

We practiced the oposite under Coyle.

make of that what you will.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Well we practiced the "clean sheet first" mentality under big sam.

We practiced the oposite under Coyle.

make of that what you will.

And Megson?

Reebok Trotter wrote:Personally, I have always found that quality teams start by being solid at the back. If you have a decent defence that you can rely on, it allows the midfield and forward line to get forward and express themselves. Over time, solid defensive partnerships are worth their weight in gold.

Liverpool had their heyday during the Hansen / Lawrenson period. United were the same with Rio / Vidic.

I agree.

But my question is...why is the difference between zero and one deemed greater than that of one and two?

doffcocker wrote:

Reebok Trotter wrote:Personally, I have always found that quality teams start by being solid at the back. If you have a decent defence that you can rely on, it allows the midfield and forward line to get forward and express themselves. Over time, solid defensive partnerships are worth their weight in gold.

Liverpool had their heyday during the Hansen / Lawrenson period. United were the same with Rio / Vidic.

I agree.

But my question is...why is the difference between zero and one deemed greater than that of one and two?

because you haven't conceded?

clean sheets means you have a good team, loads of goal means you just have a good attack, then they are sold/injured, and your screwed

were a perfect case study

Hipster_Nebula wrote:

because you haven't conceded?

The difference remains a single goal.

Yeah but, just me i guess, the defence should take pride in keeping the ball out of the net. After all, that is their job.

But there is a definite correlation with the amount of clean sheets a team gets and how good the team is (league standing).

A clean sheet win usually means your strong in both attack and defense, wich can only help throughout the season.

Obvious isn't it? A clean sheet means you've defended well, win 4-0 and both the defence and attack have had a good performance. Won 4-3 and your attacks still been good but defence has mote than likely been shit. I think first priority should always be defending well and building from there.

In a singular games it might not matter, like a cup run, when you don't really have to worry about losing. But a team getting regular clean sheets will always do well in the league and usually the ones who don't do badly - so its important there, I can't image there's even one example of a team keeping a lot of clean sheets and being relegated.

I am pretty sure that defenders and goalkeepers get a bonus for keeping a clean sheet. Remember Arsenal under Terry Neill and George Graham ? 1-0 to the Arsenal ?

Newcastle under Kevin Keegan were great at going forward and scoring goals but they conceded an awful lot of goals in the process hence the reason they lost the league to United.

Really great teams have solid defenders. Arsenals best period of success was when they had Lee Dixon, Tony Adams, Steve Bould and Martin Keown.

If you look at any top team over the years they were always rock solid at the back. Notts Forest had Larry Lloyd / Kenny Burns / David Needham.

Wanderers had Big Sam and Paul Jones.

It's great having attacking players who can score goals but you need a solid defensive base to start from. Just look at United over the years, Martin Buchan, Gordon McQueen, Jaap Stam, Laurent Blanc, etc etc.

At the moment i'd settle for a clean sheet.Concerning Bolton

For entertainment value It's Goals i want to see.

Two Examples for me are Italy and Brazil.

Italy's teams of the past were always hard to score against and played for a clean sheet.imo.

Where as Brazil played the game, imo, how it should be played, long as you score more goals than your opponents it does not matter long as you win

I agree with Doffy.

As usual most folk seem not to have grasped his point. He didn't wonder why 4-0 is better than 4-3. He asks why 1-0 is considered to be a greater success than 2-1 or 3-2. I would much rather have the confidence that my team could outscore the opposition. If you drew every match 0-0 in the prem you might have 38 clean sheets but you would still go down. And be bored in the process.

jayjay23 wrote:I agree with Doffy.

As usual most folk seem not to have grasped his point. He didn't wonder why 4-0 is better than 4-3. He asks why 1-0 is considered to be a greater success than 2-1 or 3-2. I would much rather have the confidence that my team could outscore the opposition. If you drew every match 0-0 in the prem you might have 38 clean sheets but you would still go down. And be bored in the process.

I don't think anyone is arguing that a high scoring game isn't more entertaining, but a team that keeps clean sheets on a regular basis is always a good one, a team that scores goals isn't always a good one, it could just be down to 1 or 2 players and when they are injured or off form your done for, posted it earlier but I doubt there has been one team relegated that has kept a lot of clean sheets. Your own example shows this perfectly since 38 points would be enough to keep a team up most seasons.


The logic of saying that keeping a clean sheet is of no relevance because you get the same points is the same as saying that winning by 1,2,3,4 or 5 goals is of no relevance, because in the end you still get 3 points - but clearly that isn't true.

We had half a season of 'out scoring the opponent' but when the goals stop your defense is piss poor and you can't catch up anymore.

I could understand Dougie going defensive if we had some good defenders but I don't think anyone on here thinks Knight, Mears, Mills & Ream will ever be "good".

I would much rather just go out there and play to win, let our creative players do their stuff and see what happens. We've had 4 draws on the trot, but if we'd won 2 and lost 2 we'd be higher up the table.

If you can keep a clean sheet you're not going to lose the game. It's a good starting point when building a team. Pretty obvious really.

Bernard Dennis Park wrote:If you can keep a clean sheet you're not going to lose the game. It's a good starting point when building a team. Pretty obvious really.

So is you need to score more than the opposition to win a game.

You can score and lose the game. If you keep a clean sheet you're not going to lose. Ever.