SAF had RVP taking corners, always seemed a bit of a waste. You might argue that Jones as a corner taker leaves us shy a defensive midfielder in a counter attack, and secondly that he is decent in the air, so corner taking wastes him. Maybe him having that role says something about LVG's priorities; is there a lesser emphasis on headed goals? Obviously corner taking demands excellent dead ball skills. Who would you pick? If you were making a poll (corners from the right only), who would be the contenders?
During Fergie's last year RVP took all the corner and I remember than in terms of stat we were very good on scoring from corner and free kick. So RVP was a clear answer. But we had top guys like Vidic and Evra opening spaces during set pieces helping us.
I think that the corner taker is not the answer. It’s more who is in the box and what the movements in there are. I guess that neither Smalling, Evans nor Jones are great at receiving offensive corners (or free kick).
So what, I would pick one of Di Maria or Mata taking the corners from the right side, with a better choice for Mata, and Rooney is the obvious choice from the left. But, personally I would rather have all my “strikers” in the box during offensive set pieces rather than one of them staying outside de box.
Playing with 3 center back, I would have all of them in the box, one cutting first post, one central and one second post, (this weekend Rojo, Jones, Smalling) with our 2 strikers (RVP, Falcao/Di Maria) slightly behind, meaning 5 players in the box and 1 other player outside the box (Rooney or Mata/Fellaini), and 3 on defensive duties (Blind, Valencia and Shaw)