Set-piece gurus are now all the rage — and rightly so
Friday was always setpiece day. Twenty-four hours before a match, working on our defensive shape and how we plan to attack at corners. it will be the same up and down the country now. around 22 per cent of all Premier League goals this season have come from dead balls, and that number does not include penalties. They remain as important as ever.
The final session, a day out from battle, gave you a feel for corners that could prove decisive. The starting Xi would be known by this point and we would line up for set-pieces against the substitutes and kids.
There is an unwritten rule among players that the reserves don’t really try that hard. you don’t really want a try-hard coming at you on a Friday. you don’t want elbows in the ribs. it’s just designed to get you in the zone for the situations to come. a bit of muscle memory.
Step forward, Philipp Wollscheid. Philipp was one of our German centre halves at Stoke City. He was named on the bench for the next day. This one Friday, he really — really — wanted to score against us. He kept barging through our defensive line, relentlessly, and constantly gravitated towards me. i was batting him off. again and again.
Enough of this. it had become too much. it got to the stage where i ended up elbowing him in the face. Philipp kicks out at me. i had my fist in his face and was so close to punching him. i pushed his face with my fist, and it looked like the worst punch of all time! a terrible scrap.
Philipp walked inside afterwards, not happy and asking ryan Shawcross and the manager, Tony Pulis, to fine me. a bizarre moment, actually one of the more bizarre i’ve been involved in. These things happen at set-pieces! it was quickly forgotten about.
That work on the training ground — silly scrapes aside — is crucial for every single one of those teams in the division, whether you’re Manchester City or Norwich. Manchester United’s new interim manager, ralf rangnick, has said in the past that he dedicates almost a third of his time to set-pieces. it is
fair to assume that rangnick knows what he is talking about.
a lot of it is around statistics. Look at how many times the ball goes out of play. Why would you not work on that? That is why the benefits of a throw-in coach are obvious. it’s a simple thing that doesn’t take long to perfect.
you know how much of a threat it was for us at Stoke with rory delap. Teams were booting balls out for corners so rory couldn’t get his hands on the ball. But even the short ones can be trained, the ideas with little movements to engineer advantages.
We’ve seen the rise of specific set-piece coaches in recent years, whereas back then, a lot of the time the manager would entrust a goalkeeping coach to set up how we defend them. The assistant manager would probably look at attacking.
it has become more specialised, although that almost went a step too far when i was at Southampton. Sir Clive Woodward was appointed technical director in 2005 and the local paper thought the best way to mark this occasion was to doodle a cartoon of yours Truly being hoisted by two team-mates from a corner as if i was rising at a lineout. Fair play to them, very amusing.
Clive — who allegedly believed we should be scoring from eight or nine corners out of 10 — has since said that he saw that cartoon and wondered if it was actually possible. i remember some chat that he had floated the idea around the club. He apparently asked if it was illegal. i’m guessing it isn’t. Presumably we’ll never know.
I’d have been a great draught excluder. I’d have covered the entire wall, probably sticking out both ends!
ICaNNoT believe i’m even discussing this, but the reason it wouldn’t work is that — as someone who has headed a few balls and scored from some of those — you need perfect trajectory. you have to adjust your body to the cross, it’s about the run and flexibility. you can’t move if somebody’s lifting you up! That ball has to literally land right on your head.
Look, it’s a ridiculous idea. But back then, if somebody said to you that players would be lying down behind a wall as draught excluders from free-kicks, you would walk off. i would not have fancied that job but, then again, i’d have covered the entire wall. Probably sticking out both ends. Watch your head, Peter.
While we’re on the topic of draught excluders, there is something i need to get off my chest. Lionel Messi being asked to assume that position at Paris Saint-Germain earlier in the season: it’s just not right. demeaning. Poor fella. Hopefully PSG didn’t have the great man practising those the day before.