How to score from a rebound

Last summer, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain gave an interview with The Athletic where he talked about the skill of getting on the end of shot rebounds.

“I think you can train it, you just have to make yourself aware of where the best players find themselves,” he said. “Edinson Cavani, for example, his movement and where he knows or thinks the ball is going to drop. You probably don’t realise it, but he’s probably doing that 20 times a game for one to drop to him.”

Oxlade-Chamberlain stressed the importance of being proactive and “gambling” to get to where the ball might fall rather than reacting at the same time as defenders. “If it does go to you, you’ve got the advantage,” he explained. “You were ready for it and it’s a tap-in.”

We’ve all seen attackers materialise out of nowhere at the spot where a goalkeeper tips the ball away, and it’s easy to believe some players have developed a nose for it. But how important are shot rebounds, really? And if players are going to train for them, what exactly should they be practising?

To answer these questions, first we need a working definition of what exactly a rebound is. We could count touches after deflections, blocks, bad clearances, even squibbed shots that never reach the goal line. For simplicity’s sake, though, we’ll stick to a scenario that seems easier to anticipate: follow-up shots in the few seconds after a shot bounces off the goalkeeper or the woodwork.

These rebound shots are rarer than you might think. There have been 106 of them in 208 Premier League matches this season, in line with the overall average rate of one rebound shot every three games since 2013-14. Rebounds make up just 1.4 per cent of all shots in the Premier League. If Cavani really is chasing one 20 times a game, he’s a very patient man.

When a rebound does fall to an attacker’s feet, though, it’s worth it. One in four rebound shots scores, giving them a conversion rate better than 90 per cent of all non-penalty shots.

Even though shots off a rebound are infrequent, they make up 3.6 per cent of the Premier League’s non-penalty goals, roughly on par with the 4.1 per cent of non-penalty goals scored within two actions after a corner and the 2.9 per cent in the two actions after a free kick (though if you expand the window to capture short corners and second waves, those set-piece numbers rise sharply).

If it’s worth our time to train dead-ball routines, maybe we ought to be taking a closer look at rebounds, too. Are there skills or strategies for being a better rebound shooter, or is it down to instinct and luck?

The Athletic explored eight seasons of data and rewatched this season’s 34 rebound goals (plus the archives of some rebound greats) to pick up some tips…

Take the shot before the rebound close to goal, with the outside foot

Picture the kind of shot that tends to produce a rebound. Did you see a long-range curler heading for the top corner, tipped away by a flying goalkeeper?

Nope, that’s wrong, get that out of your head.

The truth is that rebounds come from shots taken an average of 15 yards from goal, or about 25 per cent closer than ordinary shots. That’s presumably because shots from distance are more likely to miss the target or allow the keeper time to catch the ball or knock it to someplace safe, while closer shots are more likely to be saved by any available body part, with less control over where the rebound falls.

Speaking of body parts, here’s a fun fact: shots from outside the width of the goalposts are 34 per cent more likely to produce a rebound if they’re taken with the shooter’s outside foot (meaning the right foot when shooting from the right side or the left foot from the left).

Even after controlling for shot distance, since shooters prefer their outside foot closer to goal and their inside one from long range, the rebound effect remains. One possible explanation is that outside-footed shots prioritise power over placement, which might make shots harder to control and rebounds more likely.

Arrive between the penalty spot and the six-yard box

It might sound obvious, but the best way to score off a rebound is to be in the right place at the right time, and the right place is most often between the penalty spot and the six-yard box.

It’s not hard to figure out why this is where you want to be: balls that the keeper successfully parries to the side or punches far from goal tend not to lead to rebound shots, but the accidental spills and bounces off stray body parts in the middle of the box are ripe for the picking.

Every once in a while the rebound shooter will get lucky on a long bounce, like Kevin De Bruyne against Brentford…

… but most rebounds are probably going to fall right around here…

And as Oxlade-Chamberlain said, if you’re ready for it there, it’s a tap-in. Take it from his team-mate Sadio Mane, whose seven rebound goals are tied with Harry Kane for second-most since 2013-14, even though he’s only ever collected one rebound from further out than the penalty spot.

Rebound from the right

The position that scores the most rebounds is centre-forward. No surprise there. But something interesting happens at the other positions: players on the right side of their team’s formation are a little more likely to earn chances from rebounds than those on the left.

That’s not how football usually works. In general, over the last eight seasons, Premier League left wingers score more than right wingers, left-sided attacking midfielders more than right-sided attacking midfielders, and left-backs more than right-backs.

On rebounds, things are reversed.

Out of 19 outfield positions labelled in Stats Perform’s data, the most rebound-happy are right wingers, who earn 5.2 per cent of their expected goals (xG) from rebound shots. At the opposite extreme are left wingers, who earn just 2.7 per cent of their xG from rebounds — less than any other position.

The same holds true to a lesser degree almost everywhere on the pitch. Right midfielders earn slightly more xG from rebounds than left midfielders, right wing-backs more than left wing-backs, right-backs more than left-backs, and even right-sided centre-backs more than left-sided centre-backs. The only positions that don’t follow the pattern are left and right attacking midfielders, but even they’re pretty close at 3.7 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

It’s not obvious why this happens, since most rebound shots are taken in the middle of the box where neither side has easier access. It could be about footedness again, since rebound shots in wide areas are about twice as likely to be taken with the outside foot as the inside one and there are a lot more right-footed players on the right than left-footers on the left.

Anyway, you don’t have to know all the answers to get the takeaway: shoot from the left, rebound from the right.

Chase your own shots

One out of every four rebound goals is scored by the same player who took the shot that produced the rebound in the first place. Makes sense, right? He’s already close to goal and he’s got a line of sight to the keeper as he spills the ball. All the shooter has to do to become a rebounder is think fast.

The classic case of a player finishing his own rebound is a penalty-taker who misses but puts away the follow-up. Those shots make up 18 per cent of all own-rebound goals.

Raheem Sterling, whose eight rebound goals since 2013-14 are more than any player in the Premier League, has scored a couple of penalty rebounds, including one against Norwich in February. Notice how he takes one quick step forward after his penalty to wait right in the centre of the rebound hotspot, giving him the best chance to react…

Most of the time, though, a shooter who finishes his own rebound won’t have much time or space to plan for it. Rebounds off the keeper at close quarters tend to come down to a fortunate bounce. At best, a player can sometimes help his chances by reading his own shot and moving to get a better angle for a possible rebound, or by simply not giving up on the play after shooting, like John Stones against Leeds…

Start your run before the shot

Being in the right place for a rebound is so often out of a player’s control, like trying to wait in the perfect spot on the platform to get an open seat when the train pulls in. By the time you see it, it’s too late.

Instead, a lot of successful rebounds come from ordinary attacking runs before the shot that were meant to provide a passing target in the box. That’s arguably what happened on the Mohamed Salah run that Oxlade-Chamberlain singled out for praise in his interview. 

“I think Andy Robertson had a shot and just as he’s hit it, it’s clear the keeper’s going to save it,” Oxlade-Chamberlain said. “Mo’s following it in with the defender, but you can see Mo takes a step to his right.”

The suggestion is that Salah cuts to his right in anticipation of a rebound, but the cut happens before the shot. On video, it looks just as possible that Salah was trying to beat Tyrone Mings to the back post in case Robertson played a low cross instead — a much more likely outcome than a lucky rebound.

In cases like that, it’s hard to know whether a runner is anticipating a rebound or a pass, because the basic idea is the same either way: beat the centre-backs and arrive in front of goal at the same time as the ball. A well-timed run can put a player in position for either possibility.

Other times, a player’s run takes him into the box a little early and he’s standing around there when a rebound falls. Then it’s a scramble between the attacker and the defence to get to the ball first.

Here’s a Robin van Persie example from 2013-14, when he scored three out of his 10 non-penalty goals from rebounds. The run that puts him in position for the rebound comes well before the shot, as he jogs into the box to offer Ashley Young a target for a cross. Then there’s a second burst of movement when a headed shot bounces off the crossbar and Van Persie snaps into action to beat the defender to it.

The first run, the one that positions an attacker near the penalty spot before the shot, is tactical…

…but the second cut to the ball is only about reaction time.

The purest kind of rebound run comes from a player who’s already close to goal when a team-mate shapes up for a shot, so he darts behind the back line just in case the keeper spills it. That’s how Cristiano Ronaldo scored against Newcastle United…

Ronaldo has only taken three rebound shots this season but all three have been scored, giving him the highest single-season rebound goal tally (and xG total) by any Premier League player in the last eight years. He may make that tiny little run 20 times per game, like Oxlade-Chamberlain guessed of Cavani, but in the end, a few well-timed steps is all it takes.

Finish fast

Unlike set pieces, which benefit from second balls and second waves, rebound chances either find the net within the first couple of actions after the shot or else rarely score at all.

An attacker who collects a rebound has a rare opportunity to shoot while the keeper and defence are at their most disorganised. There’s a reason that Stats Perform’s new xG model includes an indicator of whether a shot followed a rebound. The longer the rebounder takes to find a shot, the more likely that opportunity is to be wasted.

(Top photo: Getty Images/Design: Sam Richardson)