Select text to annotate, Click play in YouTube to begin
00:00:00
[Music] every Club wants to buy a proven goal scorer a top level Striker cuz top level Strikers get you goals and goals win games but goal scorers and Strikers cost a lot of money in fact the absolute
00:00:12
Elite who guaranteed 25 to 30 goals a season while they cost about 150 to2 200 million and so instead most clubs have to settle for a striker worth about 14 to 15 goals a season but even they cost
00:00:25
£70 million minimum now so if you're not a top level club with £70 million l around what on Earth are you supposed to do how do you compete but then I realized you don't need to spend 70
00:00:40
million on Ivan Tony or OE Watkins no what you can do instead is hire Newcastle assistant manager Jason Tindle let me explain so we know the absolute Elite Strikers cost far too much and you can't really get them you can't buy Hall
00:00:53
and Kane and Salah you can't get them and so there's a tier below that Which is far more expensive than it should be because of the scarcity of amazing striker now those players like Ivan Tony O Watkins that sort of player might guarantee you about 12 14 15 goals a
00:01:06
season but to get that many goals you've got to pay about 70 million now if you look at how many goals Liverpool scored last season from set pieces Why by golly gosh it's 17 goals which is more than You' pay for that striker in fact
00:01:18
brenford who might sell Tony for £70 million they scored 16 goals from set pieces last season Tony scored 20 and six of those were penalties and the underlying numbers show that he has a non penalty expected goals of 13.2 so
00:01:32
he's not in the elite tier next to those other players at the very top but he is good and so if he were to move to somewhere like Arsenal Chelsea Man United and they create a similar amount of chances for him and he converts at a similar rate they're buying for that
00:01:43
money about 14 15 goals a season assuming everything goes completely fine but it's not a coincidence that Arsenal signed a lot of big players in the summer to make them bigger set pieces in their own box and the other and Man City also have a lot of big players they play
00:01:57
Four center backs at times that gives you an advantage at at set pieces now Newcastle one of the teams who benefited most from set pieces the last couple of seasons and they've got big tall ads as well botman Sher Dan bur he's very tall
00:02:08
but you know the real secret to their success from free kicks it's Kieran trippier who created the second most chances of any player in the Premier League last season just below buo fernan now obviously that's pretty amazing for a fullback so he must be getting up and
00:02:21
down that Wing putting in loads and loads and loads of crosses but no because actually open Play crosses very rarely lead to goals it says it here l what you want to look at in this graph is the Blue Line the Blue Line tells you
00:02:34
that under 1% of open Play crosses in the Premier League result in goals and that's because almost all of Kieran trippier's chances created come from set pieces look at this almost all of them James W price is pretty good at them too
00:02:47
but Kieran trippier creates an awful lot of chances just from set plays they didn't just sign trippier for his excellent defensive skills and Leadership qualities it's because he's Elite at getting the ball into the box from set pieces same as James brous
00:03:00
Kevin De bruyne Alexander Arnold that's what you get from him so maybe instead of signing a70 million pound Striker what you should do instead is sign a very very good setpiece deliverer except you also have to find a player who's very good at the other stuff too that
00:03:12
you need and they're very rare which why Kier and trippier is so valuable sign him and maybe you also sign some more players who are big lad so you can utilize their strength and power and height but it's not all about the physical attributes of players to be good at set pieces no no no to be good
00:03:25
at set pieces what you must do is harness the power of the forest you need the cunning of the humble Fox the wisdom of the Majestic Owl and the power of a
00:03:39
weasel my point is you don't need a top level Striker what you need is an excellent set piece coach let's look at brenford they do not have the budget of their Rivals who they are not only competing with but also beating quite regularly because brenford have
00:03:52
harnessed the power of the forest and are amazing at set pieces in fact they scored 16 last season as well we know that's 27 % of the goals they scored all of last season according to optim
00:04:03
measured data ah but here's the thing because optim measur data doesn't tell you things like penalties one from set pieces and it also doesn't tell you penalties one or goals scored from short throwings long throwings maybe but not
00:04:16
short throwings and every single one of these is a set piece take for example brentford's second goal of the season this season now here they are playing against Fulham and they're lining up for a short throw but it's not a short throw
00:04:28
it's actually a long throw and just in doing this they make V's defensive shape change from one situation to another so they're in transition so the ball is launched towards his near post from the long throw and of course because it's basically a set piece they push the
00:04:40
center backs up for this little bit then the ball is knocked back from the center backs into the middle of the goal the six-yard box and very very close to being a goal but instead goes behind for a corner so they've won a corner from the throwi in which almost was a goal
00:04:53
and here's the corner and even more weaseling cuz they have a left footer and a right footer could be an inswinger or an outswinger and that will affect how Fulham set up defensively in the Box for the corner and Jensen takes an outswinging corner with his right foot
00:05:05
so it comes across the box it misses the first man in near post Zone goes all the way across to Aaron hicking the edge of the box and so it looks a bit like a Mis kick but I assure you this is not a Mis kick every single step you're about to see from now on is entirely planned and
00:05:18
all part of a devious cunning weasel plan because what you have here is Aaron hickey the man in space in the edge of the box and Rico Henry who's one of the best deliverers of the ball in the entire team the ball goes all the way across to Yensen and the here's Henry
00:05:30
here the last man on the pitch you can't really see the entire pitch on the screen grab and this is what it looks like look at all the space behind that last man this is Rico Henry the very last man here this what brenford do they push everyone forward so the opposition
00:05:43
has to bring everyone back so the ball is swung out an outswinger from here right foot to the cross it misses the first man goes over to Aaron hickey in space now here's the part of the plan because Rico Henry was here but what he does he'll run backwards into more space
00:05:56
and what will that will do when the ball goes over it gives gives um Fulham a chance to them push out so they all start pushing out their defensive shape into a transitional shape they're not going to be in their full defensive setup which is important cuz then when
00:06:08
hickey takes the ball and waits for the mole to come out he can play it back to Rico Henry who will now be in loads of space look at all the space he's got absolutely loads he can then hook the ball into the box towards the center backs who are now in the Box as part of
00:06:20
the play you got big tall Lads that's the ones you want at the back post or in the box for a set piece and so Rico Henry hits the ball into here my lovely line I've drawn and then you've got norgard I think is at the back post he then heads it back to Kevin Shad who is
00:06:34
on his own in space on the edge of the Box because as the ball's gone back F have then pushed back the other way they're going back forward left right they can't get into a set shape and everything bford are doing is entirely on purpose and because shad's in space
00:06:46
he's the danger man so of course then what happens is f players start to come towards him and that leaves vissa completely free outside Tim vissa gets on the ball Tim R brings him down it's a penalty it's not that they've planned to win a penalty but they put themselves in
00:06:58
a position where where Visa could have maybe scored got a chance on goal all from that throw into corner to penalty situation here's another example here's a throw in at almost exactly the same place as the last time now this time you got the striker who starts on The Blind
00:07:10
Side of kukara and makes a run into this space in front of him and in doing so drags kukara with him towards a throwi in player so the player can throw the ball to the striker and then because of the Gap that he's created in behind that means he can play the onew with him into
00:07:23
the space that that run has created because of the run from behind so that's all planned then of course the ball was hooked into the box and who's up there to score a header one of the center backs Ethan pinnick so to throw in in that situation how many times would you
00:07:36
see a center back up for that it's a set piece and they've got the center backs to the back post to slam the ball in the goal everything is planned you might think it's not but it is if you ever watch brenford live you'll notice they set up in one way then have another different setup and then another setup
00:07:49
for the same corner so the Defenders do not know where to go who to Mark what to do and all of it is a cunning Rose it's weaseling Forest power because once more we may have to change our perception of football we think of it as a free
00:08:01
flowing open game where everything happens all the time all at once but this gives a huge advantage to better individual players cuz if it's down to the players the manager can tell them what he wants but ultimately it's down to them but if it's a set piece then the
00:08:14
manager and the set piece coach and the analyst can make every single free kick Corner throw look exactly how they want each step of the way so they can control every aspect of it and that can help
00:08:26
them create chances because they're controlling how the opposition team and their own team are moving and that's why teams like brenford Newcastle and Spurs dedicate so much time in training and coaching to set pieces and why they're so good at them but here's my final
00:08:38
point a striker will get you lots of goals a really good free kick deliverer will get you lots of chances created but a setpiece coach will also help you not concede lots of goals and that's where our setpiece coach Heroes really come
00:08:51
into their own because did you know that since the start of last season no Club have a better expected goal difference per 100 set pieces than Newcastle their XG per 100 is third best in the league behind brenford and Everton and their
00:09:04
expected goals against per 100 is second best behind Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle qualified for the Champions League last season way ahead of schedule and a huge reason for this is because they were so good at set pieces they've
00:09:16
got big tall Lads assembled as part of their squad they've got Kieran trippier an elite level deliverer of set pieces and they also have a setpiece coach who's creating lots of movement off the ball and loads of weird setups that means they're very very good at
00:09:28
attacking set plays and excellent defensively 23% of newcastle's goals last season were just from set pieces but here's the thing that set piece data only tells you things like free kicks corners and long throws it doesn't
00:09:41
include short throws or if you have a corner and you take a few passes and goes into open play that becomes open play at certain points the data does not represent how good they are at set pieces because everything is very
00:09:53
devious and a few steps ahead it might be a 10 pass move is part of the set piece and that's not represent Ed in the paper so those teams Newcastle brenford they're actually much better set pieces than we even see on the paper so what
00:10:05
does this all mean well it means your teams need to buy a70 million Striker at all so here is my official fivepoint plan for success for professional football clubs one hire Bernardo qua
00:10:17
from brenford other setpiece coaches are available johanny VI is really good Jason Tindle two spend the appropriate amount of time on training set pieces if you score 25 to 33% of your goals to set pieces 25 to 33% of your training should
00:10:30
be on set pieces three recruit some tall strong physical aggressive players four recruit at least one very very good free kick taker a deliverer five keep on trucking if you
00:10:45
like this video please consider subscribing to the channel the athletic is home to some of the world's best sports journalists including David onstein Daniel Taylor Ole K Amy Lawrence and Rafa honstein with the latest transfer news and insight on every
00:10:57
Premier League Football story that matters the athletic.com puts you inside football and you can try it for free now for 30 days see the link in the description
End of transcript