On Sunday night, as Lyon and Lorient played out a goalless draw at Gerland, one first-half incident caused some debate among team FFW.

With fifteen minutes played, Fekir crashed one off the post, the rebound reaching Lacazette, whose shot was blocked by Benjamin Lecomte, the ball looping back out to the striker, who launched a flying header; cue a diving save, off the other post, and finally into the grateful arms of the goalkeeper.

le foot en folie pic.twitter.com/aRNeTYGDbr

— philippe (@philousports) August 9, 2015

It was, we all agreed, a good goalmouth scramble. But what makes it so?

The basics – there should be at least two attempts (preferably more) to get the ball in the net, and at least four people in the goalmouth area. In a DSS (defensively successful scramble) at least two saves / blocks by the defending team; in an SAS (successful attacking scramble), at least two attempted saves / blocks.

The Lyon / Lorient scramble involved three attempts and two saves, so we’ll forgive that it stayed mostly outside the 6-yard box until the end, and per Bobeto, it also gained points for both posts being involved. The panel marked it down slightly for a) no defenders crashing into each other because they were watching the ball and b) nobody ending up tangled upside down in the back of the net. But it was, we agreed, a solid 8/10.

There are several other factors that can increase a scramble score, some of which were also on display over the weekend. Bonus points for an individual attacker having at least two attempts, as we saw from Lacazette, and also Ligue 1 alumnus Andre Ayew, opening his account for Swansea against Chelsea with a fine fall-over-get-back-up-dragback-and-shoot finish.

@AyewAndre goal v Chelseahttps://t.co/yUiitaRjh1

— SwanseaCity. (@swanseaVines) August 9, 2015

Extra points are awarded for a goal-line clearance from a defender, with a bonus, usually in a DSS situation, if one of the blocks comes from the ball hitting another attacker who is just trying to get out of the way. Connected with this, in an SAS, if it is unclear as to who has actually scored the goal, leading to confused celebrations from the attacking team, and the listed scorer not having really known anything about it.

Finally, it is greatly appreciated if the eventual goal goes in off a body part falling into the category ‘other’ in the stats record (stomach, arse, etc) as in Nicolas de Preville’s goal for Reims at Bordeaux. Not a full scramble, this, as there were insufficient bodies involved, but pleasingly he did score by being smacked in the face by a rebound while in an unstoppable slide goalwards while tangled up with a defender.

We will be hoping for many more scrambles throughout the season, and in anticipation of that, please do let us know your benchmarks for “a good scramble” in the comments.