Bruce speaking about set-pieces. We'll have to wait until the international friendlies are out of the way before we can make our plans for Liverpool," said the Black Cats boss, who is confident Kieran Richardson will be fit for the opening day despite tweaking his groin in Saturday's goalless draw with Hibernian. "I find that really disappointing - hugely, hugely disappointing. "You'd like all week to prepare your team but you can't do it. There you have it. It needs to be addressed." In particular, Bruce is annoyed at the lack of opportunity to rehearse Sunderland's set-piece drills in the build up to this weekend's game. Last season, the Black Cats struggled with free-kicks and corners, both in an offensive and a defensive capacity. Larsson's arrival should help them pose more of a threat going forward, as the Sweden international is a renowned technician from set-pieces. At the other end of the field, the capture of John O'Shea and Wes Brown should improve Sunderland's defending when the opposition deliver the ball into the box. The precise details of who marks who are still to be ironed out though, and the time available for running through a series of practice drills will be limited. "Set pieces were something we needed to improve," said Bruce. "And we've seen a marked improvement in that in pre-season. "We will be a threat going forward, although defensively, out of the 54 goals we conceded last season, about 20 were from set-pieces. That was wrong as well. "We're not the biggest, but we'll certainly be looking to improve on last season. You look to improve in all matters, that's your job. "Overall, I'm very pleased with what we've done. I'm also pleased pre-season's over and the real ball's about to come out so we can get that competitive edge back into it So we should be better at attacking and defending set-pieces this season... Can't be much worse, Larsson is gonna be vital here.
considering I cant remember us scoring from a corner at all last season, then improving on set pieces when attacking shouldnt be too hard.... We have been **** at defending corners ever since KJ left us for stoke. The one thing I miss about KJ was he ability to clear corners --> can we buy him back as a centre half?
The problem we had with defending corners is that Jordan Henderson must have taken all of our corners in training - so defensively we didn't know what to do when it cleared the first man!!
