Offensive Set-pieces

Kiko, for example, can surely whip in a ball well enough if the set piece is set up properly. Even this season he has 5 assists. The problem is, we have no set piece plan. Players just don't know what to do.

 

Not sure about anyone else, but I certainly find our set pieces extremely offensive.

 

I made that joke in the post starting the thread - it was even part of the reason why I gave the thread that title in the first place.

 

Too long ago for me to remember I’m afraid!

 

Possibly our hire and fire policy is having a negative effect on set pieces ?.
It is not rocket science and the wheel does not need to be reinvented however
every manager will have certain nuances and it only takes one player to switch off
and forget that Roy wants him to defend the first ball as opposed to Claudio who wanted
him to stay up and be the out ball player

 

This is why I've been advocating hiring a specialist member of staff for set-pieces for so long (I mean I would've done it if they offered better money!) - the set-piece output is then taken away from the mercy of the managerial staff and should remain a constant. Imagine us under Silva without his awful zonal marking set-up, imagine us in our first relegation season actually staying up due to not having the worst set-piece record in the league - there's so many pros and basically no cons.

 

They'd have only taken you on as an intern so they could have benefited from your work without paying you anything. More dosh left over to chuck at Mogi this way.

 

Would you agree that the best system is a mixture of zonal and man marking ?
And would you also agree that defending set pieces is easier to implement than attacking set pieces ?
And if so , then a permanent attacking set piece coach should be a given ?

 

And the more I think about it why wouldn't you pay someone to increase your goals scored and decrease the amount conceded ?

 

Every team will defend with at least one zonal marker these days but yeah that would be my preference - 3 zonal markers in the 6 yard area (1 front post area then 2 more central) but in my experience you have to tailor the defensive system to the players at your disposal.

I actually think attacking is easier - most opponents don't change their defensive setup from game to game which makes them predictable, but teams can easily change what they do in attack and do something you've never seen them do before which can take you by surprise!

Any half decent set-piece coach would do both attack and defence, if you know how to break an opponents defensive system that should give you the knowledge in how to better setup your own defence!

 

Not a clue!

 

It's Roy Hodgson.

 

The new set piece coach, something Duxbury.

 

Might be interesting for @reids - but probably knows this already. GT an early adopter of stat analysis
VHS tapes sent to the South Pacific - how football's data boom began - BBC Sport

 

That is an interesting read. I'd only heard Pollard's name in passing but the story of Charles Reep reaching out to GT in the early 1980s is well documented. The man who did most of Reep's analysis for Watford, certainly from about 83, 84 onwards was called Simon Hartley. During the interviewing process for Graham's book, I had the opportunity to look through pages and pages of typed reports using red and black ink for Watford and the opposition. I couldn't believe my eyes. They are extraordinary and very detailed – basically Opta stats long before computers could do the data analysis. They featured the types of passes, where moves broke down, where shots were taken from and what happened to each phase of play. There were all sorts of shorthand terms for types of passes – 'reachers', 'statics' – and the types of crosses (low, high, fast, floated). He even ended the reports with an early version of what we'd now think of as xG – what the score 'should' have been had all clear-cut chances been taken. Truly staggering stuff, and I know Reep and Hartley were certainly not the only people doing this type of work in the early 80s. Each match analysis report stretched to 10 or 11 A4 pages and at some point I did write a piece online about them, including some scans, but I can't remember where it is. There was also a man called Neil Lanham who did this sort of work around the same time, much of it for Dave Bassett at Wimbledon, but he knew GT well too.