United's Endless Set Piece Struggles - 22/23 Edition

bosnian_red

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Made note of it in the half season verdict thread, but figured it deserves it's own thread as it is genuinely terrible.
  • We are 17th in the league in completed dead ball passes that led to shot attempts (have less than half of the amount that the best teams do).
  • Defensively we have the third most completed dead ball passes against us that led to shots (so 18th).
Basically... both offensively and defensively we are bottom 4 in the league in set pieces, whether it's throw ins, corners, free kicks, etc. Arsenal for example are 7th offensively, 4th defensively. City are top defensively and 6th offensively. Liverpool are 2nd offensively and 3rd defensively. Newcastle are 1st offensively and 2nd defensively.

Whoscored has us bottom of the league in shots for from set pieces, with 2.1 per game. Newcastle is at 5.6. Liverpool at 4.8. Arsenal and City at 3.8 and 3.9.

This picture as well, focus on the set play shots for and set play shots against specifically:


That is 100% just something that can be improved upon without impacting anything else, and is something that will hold us back until we do. Most things in football you have a give and take. You take something away, and hopefully improve more in the balance because of a change. Set pieces? That's just statistically horrible past the point of bad luck, both for and against. Would be interested in seeing stats per set piece, maybe it's just a case of not getting enough set pieces and giving too many away... but given that we are literally relegation standard in both when in open play we are title challenging standard in both... then yeah, it's an issue.
 
So much for that Ramsay dude being the best set piece coach in the land.
 
Samid said:
So much for that Ramsay dude being the best set piece coach in the land.
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Technically he is just a coach now isn't specifically a set piece coach, so hard to say... but either way, whatever they are doing is not working in the slightest.
 
hobbers said:
Another vestige of Ole's incompetence that will be hard to shift.
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We were actually not bad at both in 20/21. 5th defensively, 8th offensively. Pretty shit last season though and just horrible this year. 19/20 had us horrible in attack, but very strong defensively at them.
 
A lot of margin for improvement. I somehow thought we had improved defending set pieces, guess not then.
 
Yes! It something that can be worked on for sure.

Offensively he who shall not be named was famous for hitting the wall/stands every time so that would be a factor in the stats.

Equally Rashford’s technique is very hit and miss.

Defensively DDG would be a negative factor in any stats as his style has never been pro active on crosses.
 
Note down the date. United actually quite threatening from set pieces today.
 
I've noticed in the last 2 games we've been hitting corners very close to the keeper. At first I thought it was just a tactic against Trafford but we did it again today at times (though not for Casrmiro's goal)
 
V.O. said:
Note down the date. United actually quite threatening from set pieces today.
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Yup, Mounts delivery was very good. Defending them has been an issue this season though so hopefully that improves moving forward
 
Dalot and Regulion as well have been hitting some good ones, and that Johnny Evans is quite a threat!
 
I think it is more down to the receiving end - our players (bar Casemiro and Varane) are not good at winning offensive headers - or put it this way, not determined and tough enough to win offensive headers.

Lindelof, Martinez, Rashford, Eriksen, Garnacho, Dalot, Antony, Shaw, Bruno awb are all players you can't expect to win headers in duels in opposition boxes.

Maguire is good at winning headers but poor at directing headers at the right direction.
 
I know Brunos captain but a good coach takes him off them. He takes every set piece, every single one.

We have Mount now too.
 
Made this thread a year ago. We're still pretty much the worst set piece team in the league, or relegation quality at best on pretty much every metric. That's pretty much the most directly linked to coaching aspect of football that exists too. When will we start putting some focus on this???
 
I was about to start a thread about this.
brutal on both ends of the pitch.
How many more times can we hit the 1st man from corners .
 
Our attacking corners are woeful and we can’t seem to defend them either.
 
It’s not even about the tactics and organisation from the attacking corners, it’s that the delivery is poor almost the majority of the time. Can we not just get a couple of the lads pinging corners in for an hour after training each day, so they know how to put a ball over. We can have the most elaborate set piece tactics in the world but it’s pointless if the corner taker can’t even beat the first man with his cross. It’s baffling how bad we are at this.
 
Dave Brailsford's mantra is "marginal gains", small improvements in every area. Improvement in United's set pieces, both attacking and defending, would surely be an obvious place to start. Which of us has any confidence any more when we get a corner or when Bruno stands behind the ball to take a free kick?
 
Mickeza said:
We’re a short, weak team with numerous players unable to win duels - why is it a surprise we’re shite at set pieces?
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Cas coming back will help as he is fantastic in the air.
 
Same old story. Get some players that are strong in the air and a player that can deliver a good dead ball. Simple.

Martinez coming back in will only make us worse in this regard though.
 
We’ve been shite from corners since the last Vidic bullet header 10+ years ago
 
In fairness, sometimes you just can't defend great delivery. The difference in quality delivery from Porro, to what Bruno and Eriksen were delivering is huge.

In general, apart from Garnacho on either wing, we don't have any decent crossers. Dalot is good at the odd cut back here and there, Shaw can deliver a decent ball as well but nothing near the quality that the likes of Porro, Trippier and pretty much every decent full back / wingers in the top half of the PL are capable of.

It's a toxic mix of not being able to defend and not being able to create. Without Maguire, we look very vulnerable.
 
Godfather said:
How this isn't coached properly I'll never understand
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Maybe it isn't, but in any case coaching can only take you so far. The lack of physicality, guts and fight in this team is why we are so unbelievably shite at set pieces. We're just steamrolled again and again.
 
DSG said:
Coaching. Pure and simple.
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Can you explain please. Because I am not entirely sure what we could've done to prevent those two shots from set pieces today. We are a small team, just look at that midfield. It's not like two tall CBs are going to challenge for every header.
 
I'd say Rashford standing next Bruno as he takes a corner that struggles to beat the first man is baffling, but because it's these two it makes perfect sense, pretty much sums them up and Ten Hag for that matter.
 
We have a goalkeeper that seems to lack confidence when they have a corner, surely we have a corner or goalkeeper coach, every opposition team just crowds the 6 yard box, they only need to be lucky a few times like today and they scored one and hit the bar once. Why don’t we put a quick shorty like Garnacho on the half way line, they then put 3 players back to cover him and it leads to a less crowded penalty area.
it would also help to have a 6’7” goalkeeper in the squad who might dominate the area.
 
HookedOnAPhelan said:
Maybe it isn't, but in any case coaching can only take you so far. The lack of physicality, guts and fight in this team is why we are so unbelievably shite at set pieces. We're just steamrolled again and again.
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Set pieces are pretty proven to be heavily coaching based. Hence why some smaller clubs put far more emphasis on set pieces to cover up for areas where they might not be able to compete with better clubs with.
 
That set piece coach is stealing a living. I wonder were the Glazers unprepared to allocate club funds to sacking and replacing him. Just about the only reason I can think he's still here. Bloke looks like he's on work experience.
 
Those stats show we are way too direct, and we don't pass enough.
 
Back when we used to be less shit at set pieces we actually relied on our strikers to make a lot of defensive headers from set pieces. RvP was a real specialist at this. Lukaku too. Fairly sure Ronaldo was as well. Obviously a big issue that all of our front three are complete garbage in the air, compounded by centre backs (and goalkeeper) who are below average at dealing with crosses.
 
bosnian_red said:
Set pieces are pretty proven to be heavily coaching based. Hence why some smaller clubs put far more emphasis on set pieces to cover up for areas where they might not be able to compete with better clubs with.
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Smaller clubs also put more emphasis on signing players who are good in the air. As set pieces are often their best chance to score.
 
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