Set pieces issue, who's to blame? the manager, coaching staff or the players?

[kettledrumhamster]

I know I sound like a relic from the 90s, but I can't for the lift of me understand why we never just have men on the post from corners. I understand the arguments against it, but I honestly think half of the goals we conceded from corners last year would've been prevented had we put men on the post like the good old days. I

'm hugely #olein, but I am concerned at our vulnerability from set pieces, and even if Ole himself isn't responsible, he picks and manages his coaching staff, so he bears ultimate responsibility. The players sometimes make mistakes, but I think a really strong tactical setup would minimise the impact of players messing up.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Yeah AWB is awful in the air, nowhere near as good as Laporte or Stones. So we can see how those stats are limited.

For me I find it hard to believe managers and coaches at the top level, along with highly experienced top level defenders/goalkeepers, can't organise a backline. It almost seems impossible. How can they not know how to do it?

So it seems much more likely to me that we have a bunch of players who know the theory, know exactly what they should be doing but just lack that physicality, concentration and aggression to put it into practice.

We've seen Pogba and Matic, numerous times, fail to track their man(former) or be weak in the air(latter). Do you think those two, two of our most experienced, don't know in theory what they should be doing?

Look at Klopps early Liverpool team. Rubbish at set pieces. Did they get better because Klopp suddenly discovered how to organise a back line or was it because they signed a strong centre back and goalkeeper? If not the latter that would be some coincidence.

Of course Virgil helped Liverpool at defending, but they werent rubish at set pieces. They were actually quite good at scoring from them, even before Virgil.

15/16. 15 scored, 15 conceded. 0
16/17. 13 scored, 12 conceded. +2
17/18. (Virgils first half season) 11 scored, 8 conceded. +3
18/19. 20 scored, 8 conceded. +12
19/20. 17 scored, 7 conceded +10
20/21. 12 scored, 10 conceded. +2

Saying players because theyre experienced know what to do its way to simplistic, as I've mentioned before in another post if this was just an issue about "player know what to do" there wouldnt even be coaching at set pieces at all. More importantly this being such a balant problem in our team, why hasnt it been solved?

I mean the same logic could be argued to anything performance wise, they dont create chances? we have players like Pogba, Cavani who are really experienced they should know how to do it. It doesnt work like that, patterns and tactics take a big part of the game besides talent.

I do think is not just about specific individual errors, looking at the goals in most of them many players seem lost or only "ball watching" as if they were just thrown there. In attacking and defending set pieces there are a bunch of tactics implied, many replicated from basketball, obstrucking a players trajectory is key, movement in the area, first post flicks, I mean we dont see any of that. As if the players were just in the box and the cross delivered just hoping for the best.

A clear example has been mentioned with Chelsea, how they vastly improved this season after changing one coach who is really good at it.

 

[SAFMUTD]

If De Gea was willing to come for crosses with confidence (punch, catch, challenger the attacker), he'd allow the defence to hold a higher line, which would make all free kicks less dangerous.

But he doesn't, so crosses come into the box and are always dangerous, hence we conceded a lot from them.

I agree De Gea being rooted to his line doesnt help but eve with Henderson we've look weak at them. So changing keepers doesnt solve the problem entirely.

 

[SAFMUTD]

For me there are too many variables to try to link average aerials won across the whole pitch in different scenarios to specifically linking it to goals on set pieces.

On understat for corners we have an expected goals conceded of 5.29 but actually conceded 9. That could easily be put down to bad luck / unusually clinical finishing from the opposition rather than stretching it to being a coaching problem.

Thats a good stat, please share the link were to look at it, it would be interesting to look at the offensive side of it.

 

[SAFMUTD]

You only need to watch an actual game or two to get a sense of who’s good in the air or not.

All right so its just your opinion against a bunch of stats and you want me to take that as the truth? sorry mate I think we wont agree on this one.

 

[Leftback99]

Thats a good stat, please share the link were to look at it, it would be interesting to look at the offensive side of it.

https://understat.com/team/Manchester_United/2020

 

[VivaRonaldo85]

The saddest indictment on set pieces is I don’t know what we are worse at. Defending or attacking them. I’ll probably just go for defending but it’s a close run thing. A shambles all season at both ends of the pitch.

 

[Zen86]

All right so its just your opinion against a bunch of stats and you want me to take that as the truth? sorry mate I think we wont agree on this one.

It’s using your eyes instead of some irrelevant table you plucked off the internet.

Watch a game for once. You might see DDG as possibly one of the worst keepers in the league at collecting crosses, who is habitually targeted by the opposition, whose inclusion for most of the season has led to disorganisation at the back. You might see Lindelöf regularly bulled physically by the opposition and AWB ineffective at dealing with high balls. That alone is cause enough for shipping goals, all the more so during the many games this season we’ve been defending slender leads in the dying minutes whilst the opposition pack out the box.

On the offensive end, Maguire alone would substantially boost set piece output if he managed to get one of his many golden opportunities on target.

But yeah, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with you.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Personnel is obviously important.

We concede less from set pieces when Matic is on the pitch, for instance. Which makes sense - because a) he's a big fecker, b) he's actually decent in the air defensively and c) he's very experienced and knows what he's doing when called upon to defend on corners/set pieces.

But we obviously can't play Matic per default just because he's an asset on corners. And our record under Ole isn't just slightly below what it should be, ideally - it's actually genuinely shite.

Part of that has to be a coaching issue, surely.

 

[Marwood]

Of course Virgil helped Liverpool at defending, but they werent rubish at set pieces. They were actually quite good at scoring from them, even before Virgil.

15/16. 15 scored, 15 conceded. 0
16/17. 13 scored, 12 conceded. +2
17/18. (Virgils first half season) 11 scored, 8 conceded. +3
18/19. 20 scored, 8 conceded. +12
19/20. 17 scored, 7 conceded +10
20/21. 12 scored, 10 conceded. +2

Saying players because theyre experienced know what to do its way to simplistic, as I've mentioned before in another post if this was just an issue about "player know what to do" there wouldnt even be coaching at set pieces at all. More importantly this being such a balant problem in our team, why hasnt it been solved?

I mean the same logic could be argued to anything performance wise, they dont create chances? we have players like Pogba, Cavani who are really experienced they should know how to do it. It doesnt work like that, patterns and tactics take a big part of the game besides talent.

I do think is not just about specific individual errors, looking at the goals in most of them many players seem lost or only "ball watching" as if they were just thrown there. In attacking and defending set pieces there are a bunch of tactics implied, many replicated from basketball, obstrucking a players trajectory is key, movement in the area, first post flicks, I mean we dont see any of that. As if the players were just in the box and the cross delivered just hoping for the best.

A clear example has been mentioned with Chelsea, how they vastly improved this season after changing one coach who is really good at it.

Impressive how you keep pulling out all these stats.

But I'm not sure these help with your argument.

If anything they ciunter your opinion it's about coaching. The figures before and after Van Dyke are pretty stark. Defensively at least. You say they weren't rubbish at set pieces but they conceded 15 and 12 in Klopps first two seasons. We conceded 14 this year. So if they weren't rubbish defensively neither are we right.

I just think you're massively overcomplicating set pieces. Simply some players are good at them and some aren't.

Take Vidic and Rio. They've got the same coaches. So why was it Vidic was so much better in the opposition area? Were we only coaching Vidic, not bothering with Rio?

I'm not saying coaching has no role, course it does. Just like it does with attacking patterns.

But we all know how attacking works and top level managers know how to defend a set piece.

It's a case of getting the players in who are physically and mentally able to carry it out.

You have De Gea, AWB and Lindelof at the back. Pogba and Matic on the pitch. Set pieces will always be a problem. Doesn't matter who the manager is.

 

[SAFMUTD]

It’s using your eyes instead of some irrelevant table you plucked off the internet.

Watch a game for once. You might see DDG as possibly one of the worst keepers in the league at collecting crosses, who is habitually targeted by the opposition, whose inclusion for most of the season has led to disorganisation at the back. You might see Lindelöf regularly bulled physically by the opposition and AWB ineffective at dealing with high balls. That alone is cause enough for shipping goals, all the more so during the many games this season we’ve been defending slender leads in the dying minutes whilst the opposition pack out the box.

On the offensive end, Maguire alone would substantially boost set piece output if he managed to get one of his many golden opportunities on target.

But yeah, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with you.

Thing is we changed keepers to Henderson and it didnt solved the problem, but sure mate its clear youve made your mind up and no matter what evidence I present you wont change it so lets leave it there.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Impressive how you keep pulling out all these stats.

But I'm not sure these help with your argument.

If anything they ciunter your opinion it's about coaching. The figures before and after Van Dyke are pretty stark. Defensively at least. You say they weren't rubbish at set pieces but they conceded 15 and 12 in Klopps first two seasons. We conceded 14 this year. So if they weren't rubbish defensively neither are we right.

I said you were right about Virgil helping them defensively thats why I showed the stats. I made a mistake mentioning "set pieces" as a whole I meant offensive set pieces. Meaning they did solved their defensive problem when Virgil arrived but they were always good at attacking set pieces.

I just think you're massively overcomplicating set pieces. Simply some players are good at them and some aren't.

Take Vidic and Rio. They've got the same coaches. So why was it Vidic was so much better in the opposition area? Were we only coaching Vidic, not bothering with Rio?

I'm not saying coaching has no role, course it does. Just like it does with attacking patterns.

But we all know how attacking works and top level managers know how to defend a set piece.

It's a case of getting the players in who are physically and mentally able to carry it out.

You have De Gea, AWB and Lindelof at the back. Pogba and Matic on the pitch. Set pieces will always be a problem. Doesn't matter who the manager is.

I disagree because those very same players, except AWB, played for Mourinho and while we werent great we werent as bad as today. So if anything it shows the same players under different managers can get different results.

 

[Zen86]

Thing is we changed keepers to Henderson and it didnt solved the problem, but sure mate its clear youve made your mind up and no matter what evidence I present you wont change it so lets leave it there.

You haven’t presented any evidence whatsoever.

 

[SAFMUTD]

You haven’t presented any evidence whatsoever.

None that you'd liked that for sure, but I presented a bunch of stats. Out of curiosity what would you say is valid evidence?

 

[Zen86]

None that you'd liked that for sure, but I presented a bunch of stats. Out of curiosity what would you say is valid evidence?

Evidence is insight, context, understanding. You haven’t presented anything of the sort, only nonsense.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Evidence is insight, context, understanding. You haven’t presented anything of the sort, only nonsense.

So basically stats but stats that you agree with. All right bud let's leave it there, nice chat.

 

[Zen86]

So basically stats but stats that you agree with. All right bud let's leave it there, nice chat.

It’s more the idiot that doesn’t understand how to use stats that I disagree with, bud.

 

[A-man]

It’s using your eyes instead of some irrelevant table you plucked off the internet.

Watch a game for once. You might see DDG as possibly one of the worst keepers in the league at collecting crosses, who is habitually targeted by the opposition, whose inclusion for most of the season has led to disorganisation at the back. You might see Lindelöf regularly bulled physically by the opposition and AWB ineffective at dealing with high balls. That alone is cause enough for shipping goals, all the more so during the many games this season we’ve been defending slender leads in the dying minutes whilst the opposition pack out the box.

On the offensive end, Maguire alone would substantially boost set piece output if he managed to get one of his many golden opportunities on target.

But yeah, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with you.

Watching games and drawing conclusions is number one, but with stats you can see if your hypothesis are supported with what actually happened or or not. We know DDG, Lindelof and AWB look passive when it comes to aerials but we don’t know how that translates to real output. By watching the goals, I cannot say that one or two individual players have been more at fault than other, with the exceptions of the goal keepers maybe.

1. Of the 14 conceded goals 1 was direct free kick and 2 quickly taken freekicks.
We have conceded 6 goals with DDG and 5 with Henderson.
That’s 0.4 setpiece goal per match for Henderson and 0. 23 per game for DDG. In reality we concede more setpiece goals with Henderson.
2. We have conceded 0.44 setpiece goals per match when Lindelof hasn’t played, and 0.3 when he has played. In reality we have been conceding less goals when he’s been playing.
3. I can only find one setpiece goal that we lost because of AWB losing an aerial.

Doesn’t mean these players are good at corners, just that we concede more with the alternatives players.

We would probably be better if our players were better in the air, but as discussed, being strong in the air in general may not be the most important at corners. Look at the goals conceded below. You can be pretty strong in the air but when an attacking players is allowed to come at you, it is hard even for Maguire.
1:33 in the first clip and 0:45in the second.

 

[elmo]

Personnel is obviously important.

We concede less from set pieces when Matic is on the pitch, for instance. Which makes sense - because a) he's a big fecker, b) he's actually decent in the air defensively and c) he's very experienced and knows what he's doing when called upon to defend on corners/set pieces.

But we obviously can't play Matic per default just because he's an asset on corners. And our record under Ole isn't just slightly below what it should be, ideally - it's actually genuinely shite.

Part of that has to be a coaching issue, surely.

Positioning is more important than aerial ability. Our players keep giving opposing players a free header and it's what's causing the problem.

All you have to do is just be in their space and disrupt their timing and their aerial threat is cut down by a lot. Look at us whenever we have a set piece and you'll see Maguire rarely getting a free header off.

City has a team with worse aerial ability than us and even they can score and concede less from set pieces and it's all down to the fact that they don't give opposing players a free run to head the ball. It's hilarious how a professional club can be as bad as us when defending set pieces.

 

[justsomebloke]

We were quite poor from set-pieces for a while under Mourhinho, i remember us conceding a lot of chances this way but perhaps we got a bit luckier than we have this season (or DDG made more saves!). We had improved this last season with Maguire coming in and he even spoke about working on this in training but there has been a big drop off this season.

As has been said, you can identify quite a few obvious and logical reasons for our poor performance: DDG is a big weakness (Henderson is better but some way off a keeper that can dominate aerially like Alisson), lack of time on the training pitch due to the compressed schedule, coaching / approach probably isn't suited to our players especially offensively, and most important a lack of strong aerial presence. Upgrading Lindelof will make a huge difference to us, Bailly and Tuanzabe are equally weak in the air so we need to go into the market, it is glaringly obvious.

As a counterpoint to this, Lindelof actually has pretty strong aerial stats. Better in fact than many of the players being talked about as upgrades. He wins nearly 70% of his aerial duels (although he has a relatively low number of aerial duels). Bailly is very similar, as you note. Tuanzebe though has considerably weaker stats. Maguire wins a whopping 3/4 of his aerial duels, and is in the 95 percentile for aerial duels won.

If you look only at the PL stats, it looks a little different. Maguire's win rate is even better (77%), Lindelof's a bit worse, but still very good (65,4%), Bailly's markedly worse but still fairly ok (61%), and Tuanzebe's even worse (46%).

All in all, and based on eye-test in addition to stats, I don't think we have a central defence that has a general aerial problem. In open play, it looks to me like we are generally very good in that part of the game. It's just on set pieces we aren't, and that goes also for other aspects of that than aerial duels. Which to me suggests the problem lies elsewhere.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Maguire wins a whopping 3/4 of his aerial duels, and is in the 95 percentile for aerial duels won.

Yeah, Maguire's presence in the team makes the phenomenon even odder - you could say.

He's statistically extremely effective in aerial duels - as in, absolutely world class, no questions asked.

And until this latest injury, he's been stacking up more minutes than any other defender in Europe over a long period.

 

[rotherham_red]

It's a coaching issue, for sure. But I do think it's one that can be rectified with time on the training ground which we haven't really had since 2019.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

The manager is ultimately responsible for all on pitch matters. Pretty unlikely ole coaches the set pieces but it sounds out so now he needs to do something about it. The only area he doesn't have enough control over is transfers, if we don't have the players then we don't have the players. I don't think we have good set piece defenders bar Maguire, but still should do better, which for me means ole needs to get coaching team to improve this area

 

[A-man]

While City can be proud of few conceded setpiece goals, they have conceded 8 penalty goals! What’s up with that?

 

[Kung Fu Cantona7]

It’s using your eyes instead of some irrelevant table you plucked off the internet.

Watch a game for once. You might see DDG as possibly one of the worst keepers in the league at collecting crosses, who is habitually targeted by the opposition, whose inclusion for most of the season has led to disorganisation at the back. You might see Lindelöf regularly bulled physically by the opposition and AWB ineffective at dealing with high balls. That alone is cause enough for shipping goals, all the more so during the many games this season we’ve been defending slender leads in the dying minutes whilst the opposition pack out the box.

On the offensive end, Maguire alone would substantially boost set piece output if he managed to get one of his many golden opportunities on target.

But yeah, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with you.

I agree with everything you say here.

De Gea's inability to claim any high balls in the box is a huge weakness and always has been. With any other team people would expect the keeper to dominate his 6 yard box, be strong and catch or punch any ball in that area.

I think everybody has become so used to De Gea not claiming crosses that they no longer view it as a mistake when he stands on his line, ball watching like a scared little boy.

Lindelof would probably be bullied by Bilbo Baggins and Wan Bissaka's poor aerial ability truly baffles me, considering his size.

Maguire sending free headers wide or over the bar pretty much every game, is frustrating to say the least.

Does anyone have any stats (sorry!) or a compilation video of all the chances he's missed this season? I'd be interested to know whether it's as many as my memory is telling me.

 

[A-man]

I agree with everything you say here.

De Gea's inability to claim any high balls in the box is a huge weakness and always has been. With any other team people would expect the keeper to dominate his 6 yard box, be strong and catch or punch any ball in that area.

I think everybody has become so used to De Gea not claiming crosses that they no longer view it as a mistake when he stands on his line, ball watching like a scared little boy.

Lindelof would probably be bullied by Bilbo Baggins and Wan Bissaka's poor aerial ability truly baffles me, considering his size.

Maguire sending free headers wide or over the bar pretty much every game, is frustrating to say the least.

Does anyone have any stats (sorry!) or a compilation video of all the chances he's missed this season? I'd be interested to know whether it's as many as my memory is telling me.

I don’t have a compilation but Maguire has roughly been active in 70 offensive aerial duels in the PL, which is a huge number. Almost all from setpieces. I would guess he won about 60% of them so that would be about 40 headers.

 

[Foxbatt]

The goal Wales scored today? Near post corner wasn't it? Only a blind man cannot see the effectiveness of the near post.

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

The goal Wales scored today? Near post corner wasn't it? Only a blind man cannot see the effectiveness of the near post.

Eh sort of - was a short corner routine with the CF making a looping run just past the penalty spot. Wouldn't classify that as a near post corner personally.

 

[Foxbatt]

Eh sort of - was a short corner routine with the CF making a looping run just past the penalty spot. Wouldn't classify that as a near post corner personally.

He was nearer to the near post than the far post and what we do which is past the centre for Maguire.

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

He was nearer to the near post than the far post and what we do which is past the centre for Maguire.

Sure - and I agree with your broader point about the effectiveness of near post corners generally. Just would slightly quibble with that being called a near post corner when it was passed twice before being crossed in from deep (i.e. deeper than the 18 yard box). Near post corners are effective because they can be hit flat and then either headed towards goal or flicked on which leads to chaos - don't think that applies to Wales' goal today personally!

 

[Foxbatt]

Sure - and I agree with your broader point about the effectiveness of near post corners generally. Just would slightly quibble with that being called a near post corner when it was passed twice before being crossed in from deep (i.e. deeper than the 18 yard box). Near post corners are effective because they can be hit flat and then either headed towards goal or flicked on which leads to chaos - don't think that applies to Wales' goal today personally!

Yes in that aspect it's not a near post flick. But I mean general variety of a near post cross instead of trying to get it on the head of Maguire all the time.
It's the same that I want someone else to take a free kick instead of Bruno all the time. Pogba can take a decent free kick too.

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

Yes in that aspect it's not a near post flick. But I mean general variety of a near post cross instead of trying to get it on the head of Maguire all the time.
It's the same that I want someone else to take a free kick instead of Bruno all the time. Pogba can take a decent free kick too.

Gotcha, makes sense! Certainly I wouldn't argue that there isn't a massive dearth of creativity when it comes to your attacking set piece design.

 

[Leftback99]

The goal Wales scored today? Near post corner wasn't it? Only a blind man cannot see the effectiveness of the near post.

Are you suggesting you have found some near post corner cheat code for football?

 

[Foxbatt]

Are you suggesting you have found some near post corner cheat code for football?

Isn't everything in football trying to get better of the opposition? If you can't see that our corners are hopeless then I have nothing to say to you.

 

[A-man]

The goal Wales scored today? Near post corner wasn't it? Only a blind man cannot see the effectiveness of the near post.

Agree. And we have Cavani, master of the first post.

 

[Leftback99]

Isn't everything in football trying to get better of the opposition? If you can't see that our corners are hopeless then I have nothing to say to you.

Do you have anything to back up that a near post corner is super effective?

 

[Foxbatt]

Do you have anything to back up that a near post corner is super effective?

Absolutely. Just watch some games of top football teams. Look at some interviews of Rudd Gullit of the training they did at Milan.
Ole's winner in the CL. Van Basten's 2nd against England. Van Basten's winner in the Cup Winners Cup. You look at the best 10 headed goals from the Bundesliga and majority are scored from the near post headers. Look at the goals we conceded from headers. It's why all good teams bring variation to their heading. We don't. 9 times out of 10 we get to Maguire coming in from the centre or far post.
Ole would not have been the Manager of Manchester United if not for a near post flick from a corner.

 

[Garethw]

When the same issue happens over and over again then it’s 100% the blame of the manager.

 

[Leftback99]

Absolutely. Just watch some games of top football teams. Look at some interviews of Rudd Gullit of the training they did at Milan.
Ole's winner in the CL. Van Basten's 2nd against England. Van Basten's winner in the Cup Winners Cup. You look at the best 10 headed goals from the Bundesliga and majority are scored from the near post headers. Look at the goals we conceded from headers. It's why all good teams bring variation to their heading. We don't. 9 times out of 10 we get to Maguire coming in from the centre or far post.
Ole would not have been the Manager of Manchester United if not for a near post flick from a corner.

That's just a list of the best goals. It's not saying that a near post corner is any better than anything else. Thousands of other near post corners resulted in nothing.

 

[JB7]

I saw in the Carrick and McKenna thread some people mentioning that the set pieces problems was due to the coaching staff others repplied it was to Ole because under Mourinho the same staff was around (they were not) and we werent as bad, others said its the players lack of aerial ability. So I did some research from the last 5 seasons.

*Starting players are taken from the defenders with most minuted played on the league.

Personel:

Season	Manager	Starting Defense	Coaching staff
2016/17	Mourinho	DDG - Rojo - Bailly - Blind - Valencia	Rui Faria, Silvino Louro, Ricardo Formosinho
2017/18	Mourinho	DDG - Young - Smalling - Jones - Valencia	Rui Faria, Silvino Louro, Ricardo Formosinho
2018/19	Mourinho/Ole	DDG - Shaw - Smalling - Lindelof - Young	Silvino Louro, Ricardo Formosinho/Carrick, McKenna, Phelan, Mark Dempsey
2019/20	Ole	DDG - Shaw - Maguire - Lindelof - AWB	Carrick, McKenna, Phelan, Mark Dempsey
2020/21	Ole	DDG - Shaw - Maguire - Lindelof - AWB	Carrick, McKenna, Phelan, Martyn Pert

2016/17

Rank	Team	Scored	Against	Difference
1​	Chelsea	22	7	15
12​	Manchester United	7	7	0
20​	Southampton	7	17	-10

2017/18

Rank	Team	Scored	Against	Difference
1​	Manchester City	15	3	12
6​	Manchester United	14	10	4
20​	Brighton	5	21	-16

2018/19

Rank	Team	Scored	Against	Difference
1​	Liverpool	20	8	12
10​	Manchester United	12	12	0
20​	Fulham	5	11	-6

2019/20

Rank	Team	Scored	Against	Difference
1​	Liverpool	17	7	10
17​	Manchester United	8	11	-3
20​	Norwich	3	17	-14

2020/21

Rank	Team	Scored	Against	Difference
1​	Southampton	15	6	9
19​	Manchester United	7	14	-7
20​	Sheffield United	4	11	-7

While we werent great from 2016 to 2018 I think the pattern is clear, the decline of our production on set pieces is really concerning. We've regressed offensively and deffensively up to the point that we are ridiculously bad. Bottom table productivity.

What do you think the problem is? were the players from 2016-2017 better than todays? is it Ole and his managment? is it the coaching staff? who's to blame? and how do we solve it?

It is no surprise that there is one common denominator across those 5 back 5s and that as that individual has regressed, our numbers have got worse and worse.

We have a goalkeeper who is terrified of leaving his goal line in any situation, most of all set pieces. This has caused us problems for many years but in years gone by his reflexes have been at such a level that he's managed to make a great save and we have cleared the ball. As his abilities have regressed the number of goals conceded was always going to increase.

We have a defence that often looks to it's goalkeeper for leadership in both defensive situations in play and during set pieces, now whether that is right or not is up for debate but unfortunately we have a goalkeeper that barely talks telling their defenders where to be and ultimately never deals with the problem himself either.

There is a reason that our defensive record with Henderson is far better, despite him not necessarily being the better goalkeeper. It is because of the type of goalkeeper he is, he compliments the defenders much better and as such they are clearly far more comfortable in front of him. Now, whether he is the long term answer or not remains to be seen, but we must continue with him next season for this exact reason.

In terms of individuals across the defensive line, Lindelof is clearly the player who struggles most at set pieces and as such gets targeted by opposing strikers. I would like to think he is the player most likely to be replaced this summer and if we can bring in a more mobile centre half willing to attack the ball, this will no doubt improve us no end. AWB loses players running behind him and needs to work on that badly but I do think that affects us more in-play than from set pieces.