In the not too distant past, I made a well-read blog post on set pieces,  which was pretty much by the book, standardised approaches to set pieces. I’m not knocking those approaches and I still stand by them, but part of me is always looking for room to improve on the setup I am using. Whilst I really do realise perfection is nigh impossible to achieve, chasing it relentlessly will improve the chances of being excellent. Just being good just won’t do.

This focus on improvement is easy for set pieces as set plays, by their premeditated nature, offer a relatively consistent level of defensive and attacking opportunity and by looking at the effectiveness of teams against a variety of different opponents, we may be able to further improve upon the setup I described earlier. In this blog post, I’m trying to think outside the box.

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Set piece plays are an essential aspect of the game. If you are unable to break down a particularly sturdy defence, a set piece may be all you need to pry open the defence. Hell, you can win games by making sure your offensive set pieces are good. Just look Read more…