A set piece specialist?

Di Maria's angel

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Should our next purchase be someone who can cross, take corners and free kicks?

This has nothing to do with Mourinho or yesterdays performance, alone. But, I've been thinking about how wasteful we are on set pieces and how a specialist could help us in that regard. Is this something we should look into? Having seen City play numerous times this season, I've seen how threatening a quality set piece can be - almost forgotten how important they are given how wasteful we've been for years.
 

SER19

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Our corners have been downright dreadful all season. Even good ones rarely lead to anything but it seems no matter who we send out to take one sends in the same horrific bounce right before the first man disaster every time. I think if I have to watch one more I will self combust
 

Ljungster

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Should our next purchase be someone who can cross, take corners and free kicks?

This has nothing to do with Mourinho or yesterdays performance, alone. But, I've been thinking about how wasteful we are on set pieces and how a specialist could help us in that regard. Is this something we should look into? Having seen City play numerous times this season, I've seen how threatening a quality set piece can be - almost forgotten how important they are given how wasteful we've been for years.
We already have on on our books, Andreas Pereira.
 

Big Andy

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Get Rashford off free kicks first off...that one against Celta Vigo was a complete fluke...
 

horsechoker

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Mata is the best free kick taker at the club I think, but he doesn't always play.

Nobody except Daley Blind seems to be able to take a corner, and he doesn't play that much these days.
 

harms

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There's something in the air. I mean Mata was brilliant at set pieces, one of the best in the world, actually, when he was at Chelsea — free kicks, corners, you name it. We've signed lots of people with good set piece pedigree but it doesn't really work for us — so it's probably more to do with the training (or the lack of it, in this particular component)
 

witchtrials

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I wish that any mention of corners would be automatically URLed to this article. Key stat from Opta being that fewer than 1 in 30 corners leads to a goal. I think we only won 5 last night and 1 against Liverpool so on that (limited) sample you'd expect a goal from a corner about once every 10 games.

Not having a swipe at the OP by the way. I personally get disproportionately wound up by Valencia's apparent inability to take a non-foul throw in.
 

Zoo

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De Boer won't like it if Mourinho takes Rashford off set pieces.
 

littlepeasoup

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Genuine question: how big an effect do you think the pitch set up at Old Trafford has on our corners? Obviously there's this big slope, and it never seems like our corner takers can ever actually put a proper motion on the ball to send it in.

It always seems like they're digging the ball from under their feet, so the ball either sails to the near post or is too high and powerless to cause any real damage.
 

horsechoker

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Genuine question: how big an effect do you think the pitch set up at Old Trafford has on our corners? Obviously there's this big slope, and it never seems like our corner takers can ever actually put a proper motion on the ball to send it in.

It always seems like they're digging the ball from under their feet, so the ball either sails to the near post or is too high and powerless to cause any real damage.
Our corners are also shit away from home
 
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I've never understood why we don't have a player, maybe even two, whose job it is to attack the front post every single time. The ball seems to end up hitting their first defender all the time, especially when Rashford is taking corners, so at least try and turn a crappy delivery into something useful. Even if all they can do is try and flick it on, or control it and pass it back out to corner taker, it has to be better than a simple free header for the defender every time.

The goal we scored last night was a good example. Crap ball in, our player still managed to get on the end of it and confused everyone. Missed it completely. Lukaku scores.
 

rpitchfo

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I wish that any mention of corners would be automatically URLed to this article. Key stat from Opta being that fewer than 1 in 30 corners leads to a goal. I think we only won 5 last night and 1 against Liverpool so on that (limited) sample you'd expect a goal from a corner about once every 10 games.

Not having a swipe at the OP by the way. I personally get disproportionately wound up by Valencia's apparent inability to take a non-foul throw in.
Exactly....NO ONE SCORES FROM CORNERS...NO ONE SCORES FROM CORNERS...NO ONE SCORES FROM CORNERS.
 
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Well in that case maybe I should credit you with the great sense of calm I felt during the last few minutes versus Liverpool. We conceded a few corners but was soothed by the knowledge that statistically it was pretty unlikely to lead to anything.
haha, I bet the statistic would rise significantly if corners were defended like the one we conceded from last night.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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Christian Eriksen.

But he plays for Spurs, so he will cost half a billion plus a full reimbursement for the costs of their new ground. The lad can whip a ball though.

I've never understood why we don't have a player, maybe even two, whose job it is to attack the front post every single time. The ball seems to end up hitting their first defender all the time, especially when Rashford is taking corners, so at least try and turn a crappy delivery into something useful. Even if all they can do is try and flick it on, or control it and pass it back out to corner taker, it has to be better than a simple free header for the defender every time.

The goal we scored last night was a good example. Crap ball in, our player still managed to get on the end of it and confused everyone. Missed it completely. Lukaku scores.
And it's also how they scored their 2nd. Knocking it on from the front post is the only consistent way to make a corner really dangerous, unless you've got someone who is unstoppable in the air.
 

Vilev

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It's not only about a delivery. Our set-piece just seem uncoached. Like the team in general in terms of attack. I've looked and i can' really see any patterns, any proper set-piece training or preparation.
Remember LVG's time, while lots of stuff was bad and worse back then you could actually see the guy drilled set pieces, even with some dubious stuff like Jones taking corners we still had some pretty good set-piece plays.

Right now all our goals from set pieces are more of a result of coincidence. Surely that goal against Sevilla did not come from training ground.
 

Infra-red

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I think a similar thread was around last summer. Anyway, it's always the same names for creating chances from crosses/corners/free kicks.

Alex Telles and Philipp Max top the charts pretty much across the board (and are both leftbacks - Jose take note!). Apart from them, it's who you'd expect - Lemar, Forsberg, James, De Bruyne, Coutinho, Payet, Fekir, Kroos, Bourigeaud, Banega, Groß, Candreva, and a few you might not - Seri, Parejo, Lima, Oczipka.
 

Minimalist

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Mata's the only quality set-piece taker we have. He doesn't play every match and doesn't even get to take the kicks every time when he does.
 

Andy_Cole

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Don’t need a specialist as the issue is we don’t seem to practice it in training. The ones in the box don’t seem to look for the cross. Mata and Young are/ we’re both fantastic at free kicks before comin here.
 

Web of Bissaka

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We are not privy to their trainings session.

The only reason I can see why Rashford kept on taking free kicks is his performance in trainings. In games, it's still not consistent enough. Yet we see the flashes of his capability in few games.
--Hell, even CRonaldo are allowed by SAF to kept on taking it, and we remember in his younger days, his skyhigh free kicks to the stands, rubbish, but gradually his free kicks grow more refined and sharpened to a point we reap the benefits of that unique style knuckle-ball swerving free kick of CRonaldo at United.
---Also, Rashford's corner deliveries last game are not so bad, the weight and direction/target of his deliveries are promising. Obviously still not up to top standard. Willing to bet on him and let his set-piece improves.
 

mitchmouse

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It's a joke that we think a 20-year-old with less than three seasons under his belt is it...
 

luke511

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Imagine spending £80 million on Maguire without a set piece specialist for the season, fecked if we don't get one sorted.
 

ParksLife81

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Imagine spending £80 million on Maguire without a set piece specialist for the season, fecked if we don't get one sorted.
Spot on. Eriksen's wand of a foot and Maguire's huge head are a match made in football heaven.
 

Class of 63

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Andreas is the best we've currently got, and by quite some distance as well. But if we're not going to use him maybe we should make a cheeky bid for James Ward-Prowse(Southampton) who is probably as good as anybody in the Country at the minute, or that's obtainable.
 

klayton88

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Pogba - Pens
Andreas/Mata - Corners
Mata/Pogba - FKs
Young - Waterboy.
 

Jules_T

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Mata has scored a bunch of free kicks for us. Numbers anyone?

Please don't let Rashford take any more free kicks
 

AgentP

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None of our set piece takers are consistent enough. Mata and Pereira are not even starters. Pogba is someone we need in the box as he can be a goal threat. That leaves us with very limited options for corners and indirect free kicks.

With Maguire, Pogba and McT in the box, we need someone who can deliver decent balls in to give them a chance of scoring a header. Either Bruno or Eriksen have to be signed in the next 2 days or we are setting ourselves up for another disappointing season.
 

MDFC Manager

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A bit of an out there kinda suggestion, can we groom Greenwood for this role? He's already on his way to be van Persie lite :lol:
 

simonhch

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A bit of an out there kinda suggestion, can we groom Greenwood for this role? He's already on his way to be van Persie lite :lol:
Doesn’t even need grooming. He and Gomes are both brilliant at free kicks. They’ll take over duties once they are established starters.
 

SadlerMUFC

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Pogba - Pens
Andreas/Mata - Corners
Mata/Pogba - FKs
Young - Waterboy.
I hope Pogba isn't on penalties. He's horrible at them. He only scores if the keeper guesses wrong. Constantly hits the ball about 4 feet off the ground, which is the easiest height for a keeper to save. And his whole routine just screams "hey, look at me, I'm awesome". Just take the damn penalty already and hit it low in the corner. Rarely does a keeper save a well struck penalty that's hit hard and low. Perfect example is James Milner. I hate praising Liverpool players, but there's no fuss about his penalties. Low and hard and scores 99% of the time...
 

Anustart89

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Andreas is pretty good at set pieces imo.
Ideally it’d be someone who’s good enough at football to warrant a starting spot.

Otherwise we might as well bring in Delap and play him instead of AWB for his throws.