Baleforce
Les Bennett
If it was me, defending a corner, Eriksen lurking on the edge of the box, I’d go and mark him.
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Set Pieces
- Thread starter DHSF
- Start date
If it was me, defending a corner, Eriksen lurking on the edge of the box, I’d go and mark him.
glasgowspur
Andy Thompson
Wiley fox
As much as Eriksen does his bit defensively and runs forever, he's not the person I'd want chasing down a winger or trying to stop Benteke rolling him.
glasgowspur
Andy Thompson
I' not saying he should be last man or anything, but his corners are poor, he won't win many headers in the box so put him where his skill set would be most effective.
Pirate55
The Last Man Standing 17/18
This. It seems like common sense to me too.
Spur of the moment
Frederic Kanoute
OMG! This article in today's i urges poorer clubs to focus on set-pieces as a cheap and easy short-cut to success:
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/set-pieces-football-fc-midtjylland-efficiency/
Time for football clubs to end their ‘romance and flimflam’ obsession and embrace set pieces
“Could you imagine a company that spends 10 per cent of their time on where 35 per cent of their revenue comes from? That’s what happens in football.” Rasmus Ankersen, Brentford‘s co-director of football and the chairman at FC Midtjylland, believes he has identified one of the sport’s great inefficiencies: the lack of time and care paid to set pieces.
Ankersen knows what investing properly in set pieces can achieve. In 2014/15, FC Midtjylland won the Danish league for the first time in their history. They scored three goals every four games from set pieces. Set pieces – goals from corners and free-kicks, but excluding penalties – accounted for 45 per cent of Midtjylland’s total goals; across the professional game as a whole, they only account for 30 per cent. Set piece prowess won Midtjylland the title.
The same was true for Chelsea in the Premier League last year. Chelsea scored 15 more goals from set pieces than they conceded; Emirates Marketing Project, who came third, only scored two more than they conceded, as Ted Knutson from Stats Bomb has shown. The net difference between the two clubs was greater than Chelsea’s overall superior goal difference, of 11.
Inefficiencies
The puzzle is that more teams do not recognise the worth of set pieces. There is a certain snobbery about goals from set pieces, Ankersen said recently: “People in football tend to feel that a set piece goal is not worth as much as a normal goal, which is obviously romance and flimflam.” More deeply ingrained, perhaps, is the sense that success in set pieces owes more to the vicissitudes of luck rather than skill, and so isn’t worth practising much: a similar belief to England’s traditional approach to penalties.
Set pieces are “up there with the biggest on-field inefficiencies,” says Omar Chaudhuri, head of football intelligence at 21st Club. His research has found that the difference between an elite and average team at set pieces – both when attacking and defending – is typically six to seven points a year. Knutson has found that, as FC Midtjylland show, clubs can improve their output from 0.3 goals per game from set pieces to 0.75: a boost of over 15 extra goals per season.
Set-piece piece proficiency has long been a hallmark of many clubs who have over-performed their budget: Bolton Wanderers under Sam Allardyce, Stoke under Tony Pulis and – at a higher level – Atlético Madrid under Diego Simeone. Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang beat Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final with a header from a free kick.
Opportunity
In an age of financial determinism, set pieces are one area cash does not always get better results. “There’s no real relationship between open play goal difference and set piece conversion,” Chaudhuri explains. As such, set pieces represent a huge opportunity for poorer teams. “Poor quality teams can still be elite set piece teams.”
This is a seminal finding. It suggests that, rather than upgrading your striker, a more cost-effective way to score more goals is to train the entire team to be better at set pieces. FC Midtjylland’s proficiency in set pieces did not owe to luck; it owed to relentless training.
Most teams maybe spend a maximum 10 minutes training set pieces every week,” Ankersen has said. “It doesn’t make sense.” Midtjylland use analytics to work out the most effective set piece routines, and have a ‘set piece lounge’ where players analyse video clips and stats. Brentford, following a similar emphasis on exploiting the game’s inefficiencies, employ a specialist set piece coach.
Given the physiological limits on how much professional footballers can train, clubs have aeons of unused time when, rather than sending their players home to play on their Xboxes, they could be engaged in thinking about how to use set pieces more effectively.
How to improve at set pieces
There remains a huge amount of low-hanging fruit in set pieces. Perhaps most basic of all is ‘screening the keeper’: putting attacking players in the opposition’s defensive wall, so as to prevent the goalkeeper from getting a clear sight of the ball until the ball has passed the wall. And yet many clubs still consistently fail to even take this simple step. Knutson recounts consulting for a professional club, who had a poor output from set pieces and didn’t screen the keeper. A year later, the team still didn’t do so.
In recent years, Sheffield United have also shown what investing in set pieces can achieve. Rather than invariably curl the ball into the box, they have developed an elaborate array of routines from corners and free kicks, as the website Training Ground Guru have explained.
Via stealthy and surprise passes, often to players pulling away from the defensive wall at an opportune time, Sheffield United are regularly able to convert free kicks from outside the box into one-on-one chances against the goalkeeper. It is the sort of routine that too few professional teams seem to complete, let alone spend hours – on both the training ground and the video room – honing. And it works: Sheffield United won League One last season and are only a point off the Championship play-offs.
In the Premier League this season, just seven points separate 12th place from 18th. Over the course of a season, prioritising set pieces – through elite specialist coaches, video analysis and meticulous preparation in training – may be the cheapest way to get the extra points that could prevent relegation, and losing £60 million. If set pieces are the greatest inefficiency in football on the pitch, then they may also be the greatest opportunity, too.
“Could you imagine a company that spends 10 per cent of their time on where 35 per cent of their revenue comes from? That’s what happens in football.” Rasmus Ankersen, Brentford‘s co-director of football and the chairman at FC Midtjylland, believes he has identified one of the sport’s great inefficiencies: the lack of time and care paid to set pieces.
Ankersen knows what investing properly in set pieces can achieve. In 2014/15, FC Midtjylland won the Danish league for the first time in their history. They scored three goals every four games from set pieces. Set pieces – goals from corners and free-kicks, but excluding penalties – accounted for 45 per cent of Midtjylland’s total goals; across the professional game as a whole, they only account for 30 per cent. Set piece prowess won Midtjylland the title.
The same was true for Chelsea in the Premier League last year. Chelsea scored 15 more goals from set pieces than they conceded; Emirates Marketing Project, who came third, only scored two more than they conceded, as Ted Knutson from Stats Bomb has shown. The net difference between the two clubs was greater than Chelsea’s overall superior goal difference, of 11.
Inefficiencies
The puzzle is that more teams do not recognise the worth of set pieces. There is a certain snobbery about goals from set pieces, Ankersen said recently: “People in football tend to feel that a set piece goal is not worth as much as a normal goal, which is obviously romance and flimflam.” More deeply ingrained, perhaps, is the sense that success in set pieces owes more to the vicissitudes of luck rather than skill, and so isn’t worth practising much: a similar belief to England’s traditional approach to penalties.
Set pieces are “up there with the biggest on-field inefficiencies,” says Omar Chaudhuri, head of football intelligence at 21st Club. His research has found that the difference between an elite and average team at set pieces – both when attacking and defending – is typically six to seven points a year. Knutson has found that, as FC Midtjylland show, clubs can improve their output from 0.3 goals per game from set pieces to 0.75: a boost of over 15 extra goals per season.
Set-piece piece proficiency has long been a hallmark of many clubs who have over-performed their budget: Bolton Wanderers under Sam Allardyce, Stoke under Tony Pulis and – at a higher level – Atlético Madrid under Diego Simeone. Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang beat Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final with a header from a free kick.
Opportunity
In an age of financial determinism, set pieces are one area cash does not always get better results. “There’s no real relationship between open play goal difference and set piece conversion,” Chaudhuri explains. As such, set pieces represent a huge opportunity for poorer teams. “Poor quality teams can still be elite set piece teams.”
This is a seminal finding. It suggests that, rather than upgrading your striker, a more cost-effective way to score more goals is to train the entire team to be better at set pieces. FC Midtjylland’s proficiency in set pieces did not owe to luck; it owed to relentless training.
Most teams maybe spend a maximum 10 minutes training set pieces every week,” Ankersen has said. “It doesn’t make sense.” Midtjylland use analytics to work out the most effective set piece routines, and have a ‘set piece lounge’ where players analyse video clips and stats. Brentford, following a similar emphasis on exploiting the game’s inefficiencies, employ a specialist set piece coach.
Given the physiological limits on how much professional footballers can train, clubs have aeons of unused time when, rather than sending their players home to play on their Xboxes, they could be engaged in thinking about how to use set pieces more effectively.
How to improve at set pieces
There remains a huge amount of low-hanging fruit in set pieces. Perhaps most basic of all is ‘screening the keeper’: putting attacking players in the opposition’s defensive wall, so as to prevent the goalkeeper from getting a clear sight of the ball until the ball has passed the wall. And yet many clubs still consistently fail to even take this simple step. Knutson recounts consulting for a professional club, who had a poor output from set pieces and didn’t screen the keeper. A year later, the team still didn’t do so.
In recent years, Sheffield United have also shown what investing in set pieces can achieve. Rather than invariably curl the ball into the box, they have developed an elaborate array of routines from corners and free kicks, as the website Training Ground Guru have explained.
Via stealthy and surprise passes, often to players pulling away from the defensive wall at an opportune time, Sheffield United are regularly able to convert free kicks from outside the box into one-on-one chances against the goalkeeper. It is the sort of routine that too few professional teams seem to complete, let alone spend hours – on both the training ground and the video room – honing. And it works: Sheffield United won League One last season and are only a point off the Championship play-offs.
In the Premier League this season, just seven points separate 12th place from 18th. Over the course of a season, prioritising set pieces – through elite specialist coaches, video analysis and meticulous preparation in training – may be the cheapest way to get the extra points that could prevent relegation, and losing £60 million. If set pieces are the greatest inefficiency in football on the pitch, then they may also be the greatest opportunity, too.
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/set-pieces-football-fc-midtjylland-efficiency/
ricky2tricky4city
Steffen Freund
100% agree with this...its a massively undeveloped part of the game.
milo
Jack L. Jones
Thanks for sharing @Spur of the moment . It is interesting that they cute Sheffield United, their set piece return is quite poor this year.
It's a bit heavy on opinion and light on evidence.
It's a bit heavy on opinion and light on evidence.
The egyptian
Carlo Cudicini
Yes, may be it is more applicable in lower quality leagues such in Danish league. But even in championship it will only make minimal effect if the quality of the players isn't better.
milo
Jack L. Jones
The article doesn't support its assertions. It is entirely possible that they have just picked teams with good returns and made the link afterwards, ignoring teams that do similar but with worse results.
My argument is primarily about corners here because teams' returns fluctuate greatly season to season. I have yet to see anyone demonstrate that a particular approach to coaching would increase the yield.
Lemonade Money
Les Medley
We're quite happy to pass the ball back to the goalkeeper from attacking positions in order to retain possession. I'm surprised we don't do the same from corners, rather than immediately giving it away in a dangerous position.
MKSpur
Christian Ziege
Perhaps the teams that do better at corners / set pieces spend so much time drilling on them that they are weaker in other areas, like possession and off the ball movement in free play. After all there is only a finite amount of time to train.
Plus they will probably have more 6ft plus who are better in the air, than say Son, Dembele, Trippier and Lamela who I can’t imagine ever scoring from a header.
It does seem that corner routines have changed little over the years, I guess with the ball starting level with the goal and potentially every opposing player in the box means that the defending team will always be expected to defend the cross, giving the poor goal return per corner.
Would love to see teams try something new, making the cross an inswinger but from closer the 18 yard line, with all the attacking players starting forward runs from much deeper perhaps.
Plus they will probably have more 6ft plus who are better in the air, than say Son, Dembele, Trippier and Lamela who I can’t imagine ever scoring from a header.
It does seem that corner routines have changed little over the years, I guess with the ball starting level with the goal and potentially every opposing player in the box means that the defending team will always be expected to defend the cross, giving the poor goal return per corner.
Would love to see teams try something new, making the cross an inswinger but from closer the 18 yard line, with all the attacking players starting forward runs from much deeper perhaps.
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Spur of the moment
Frederic Kanoute
Surprised at the writer's assertion that many clubs 'still consistently fail to even take the simple step' of screening the keeper. I have the impression it happens routinely.
Pirate55
The Last Man Standing 17/18
Timely to bump this thread. The WC firmly brought this issue back into sharp focus. FIFA crown England the "Kings of the corner kick" after we scored 9 ( yes nine) set piece goals in Russia. That was out of a TOTAL of 12 goals - with only Lingard, Dele and a fluke from Kane's heel being our return from open play in 7 games). This begs the question, what would we have achieved in Russia without them?
Former Scotland coach, Andy Roxburgh, part of FIFA's technical study group, alongside Dutch legend, Marco van Bastón, and former Brazil boss, Carlos Alberto, hailed Gareth Southgate's side for their dead ball mastery. Roxburgh said " At this World Cup, the attention to detail has stood out. In the last Euros, and even in this season's Chamions League, a goal was scored every 45 corner kicks. Here in Russia, it has been one goal every 30 corners.
As Sir Alex Ferguson once said " Delivery is everything". Roxburgh said here " We have seen high quality delivery, movement and finishing ability ". While I don't entirely disagree with SAF, I do wholeheartedly agree with Roxburgh that movement and finishing ability are also key elements along with delivery.
In relation to Spurs, we only scored 5 goals from corners in the PL last season. Only Everton(3), Burnley(3), Huddersfield(3) and Brighton (2) scored fewer. And our 5 included the goal Kane scored against Everton out wide from a cross cum shot, which due to the frankly ludicrous definition of "goals from corners" counts as being from "that phase of play following a corner" !
According to whoscored.com, Spurs were 8th in the table for combined set piece and penalties with a measly total of 14 ( 12 set pieces and 2 pens). Emirates Marketing Project had 21 (15 set pieces and 6 pens) Man United had 15 (14 set pieces and unbelievably only one pen) while even Arsenal had 19 (15 set pieces and 4 pens). If we want to continue to improve and catch our main rivals, this is simply an area where we must do better.
We have all seen Trippier's effectiveness at crossing from corners at the WC ( and even one spectacular freekick!). He hardly ever hit the first defender and almost always played it into a dangerous area inviting it to be attacked. In addition, We have players like Sanchez, Toby, Verts, Dier, Kane, Dele, Dembele and Wanyama, who aren't exactly physically challenged and should provide a substantial aerial threat from dead balls - particularly if we adopted England's "Love Train" strategy with players actually attacking the ball from numerous different angles rather than our current wholly ineffective and frustrating strategy of lining up all our players in and around the six yard box.
It ain't rocket science. Let's sincerely hope this is an area we can significantly improve this coming season. Maybe our first signing should be a set piece coach. COYS.
Context is everything.
If Spurs were only training together for 4 weeks in a year and so were our opponents I'd expect to see a good return. Under normal league conditions all of the evidence points to it being very low return.
I'd love to know the stats on set-piece goals deciding finals, or knockout games in the latter stages of cup tournaments. It always seems like, in the highest pressure games, set-pieces are more decisive. I don't have any stats to support that though, it's just a gut-feeling based on watching football over the years. Could be a load of b0ll0cks.
Pirate55
The Last Man Standing 17/18
Quire the opposite imo. The more time a team has together, the more opportunity there is to work on matters such as set pieces.
Jurgen the German
Willie Hall
Gotta be Trips taking corners and free kicks from now on then eh?
Pirate55
The Last Man Standing 17/18
Plus the Luuuurve Train.