Opinion Five headers conceded already in 2017/18

Once upon a time Atletico Madrid ruled the air, but that's no longer the case.

When Los Rojiblancos won the 2013/14 LaLiga title they conceded just four headed goals across the entire league campaign, but this season they have already matched that with just eight games played.

Including their Champions League defeat to Chelsea, Atleti have conceded a total of seven goals this season, all seven of which have come from crosses into the box and five of which have been put past Jan Oblak by an opponent's forehead.

First it was Christian Stuani, who netted a brace for Girona in the season opener, first heading home Aday Benitez's cross from the Catalans' left flank even though he was closely marked by Stefan Savic before he nodded in a second ball at a free-kick, with three of Diego Simeone's defenders on the goal-line, but also in no man's land.

At the time, this poor penalty-area defending was put down to post-summer rustiness, but Los Colchoneros have conceded several similar goals in the two months since.

Jonathan Calleri was able to head the ball past Oblak for Las Palmas after Diego Godin mistimed his jump, Alvaro Morata glanced a cross past the Slovenian for Chelsea in the Champions League and Luis Suarez came up with a headed equaliser for Barcelona in Saturday night's 1-1 draw at the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano.

In addition, Raul Garcia and Michy Batshuayi have also scored against the capital city side from crosses, even if they didn't use their heads.

So how is this happening?

Well, one of the reasons Atletico used to boast such impressive stats in this department had to do with the fact that they let so few crosses into the box in the first place.

With Godin, Miranda, Tiago and the aforementioned Raul Garcia in their team, they had expert headers of the ball, but they were also able to cut out many crosses before there was even any danger to worry about.

That's not happening this year, mostly because of the dip in performance at the right-back position, with Juanfran getting on in years and with Sime Vrsaljko struggling to shake off a series of injuries or to make his own mark.

Filipe Luis is still performing as well as ever at left-back and it is telling that Sergi Roberto's Saturday night assist for Suarez is the only one of the five headed goals conceded to have come from a cross originating on his flank - if the Catalan's deep ball into the box can even be considered to have been in the Brazilian's territory.

Then there is the fact that Atletico are being beaten once the ball is already in the air in a way they were not in the past - they won the eighth most aerial duels in LaLiga in the halcyon days of 2013/14, but are currently winning the third fewest.

Like Juanfran, Godin is aging and, now at 31 years of age, he cannot take flight like the defensive astronaut he once was, while Savic has always been more static than Miranda was before him, making every ball into the box a watch-through-your-fingers-moment for Atleticos.

Considering that Los Rojiblancos are also being outmuscled in the air at the other end, with just one headed goal scored so far in 2017/18, this is a serious problem and one which Simeone must work to solve before it seriously scuppers their chances of silverware.