Town have found their set-piece solution
HUDDERSFIELD Town have now scored a set-piece goal in each of their last three games.
Last season only Barnsley scored fewer from set-pieces in the Championship than the Terriers’ 10, but in racking up six goals from their 22 league games this campaign Carlos Corberan’s men have doubled their output from dead balls this season.
They rank joint-seventh, in amongst a load of physically robust sides such as Stoke, Birmingham, Preston, Rotherham and Luton.
After the latest goal against Blackburn, Corberan credited his assistant Narcis Pelach as the mastermind behind their routines, but there was nothing too extravagant about Naby Sarr’s.
Isaac Mbenza simply swung it in to just outside the six-yard box for the defender to head home, the centreback having got free through an advanced and mind-bendingly crafty attacking gambit which is known as ‘Walking Backwards Away From Your Marker’.
Having a 6’5” behemoth in your opponent’s penalty box is a useful weapon and will get you a few goals as long as you put in good deliveries.
But having a varied repertoire is surely helping Town keep the opposition guessing too. Mbenza and Carel Eiting stand together over every dead ball, at least during the set-up phase, leaving opponents unsure whether they’re going to have to face the kind of lovely corner routine that created Rarmani Edmonds-Green’s goal against Barnsley or a straightforward inswinger into the corridor of uncertainty like the one Sarr headed home against Rovers.