I'm struggling to remember any Saints team of the last 25 years that is as bad at set pieces as this current side are. We're utterly appalling at them at both ends of the pitch. Don't think we've scored from any this season and must have conceded a fair chunk of our goals from them too. Defensively I'm hoping there'll be some improvement relatively soon as it was clearly a big weakness of Martin's. We're far too naive when defending them too and don't protect the goalkeeper enough. It's also so frustrating to watch corner after corner either fail to clear the first man or go over everybody with barely any in-between. The odd thing is we have some decent technical players and crossers in our squad but yet when it comes to delivering a set piece I'd say then over 95% of them are piss poor. As a struggling side it's something we really need to improve on as it can be worth a fair few points a season on its own. They can be a leveller of sorts when theres a big lack of quality so it's unforgivable that we're so useless in this regard. Why are we so bad at them and how could we improve it?
Kidnap JWP, bring him home,.then make him part time DoF, full time captain, joint assistant manager. Other scenarios, both serious and equally ridiculous are available. Need another mince pie, to raise my sugar levels.
They came out with a stat on my stream yesterday that summed this up perfectly. Saints have had 78 corners this season and haven’t scored from any of them. That’s the worst record since anyone began gathering these stats. It’s obvious that no one has been coaching the team in either taking or defending set pieces, the whole approach is completely random and chaotic.
I think we only have 1 player in the entire squad that can effectively shoot at this level (Archer). And he cannot even get on the pitch half the time
We have been **** at defending set pieces for a number of years now. The high defensive line for free kicks from deeper positions always gets exposed by a ball to the far post where the opponents often have two free players running at the ball. We also get undone in the same way at corners or when we are struggling to clear corners. The West Ham goal was a perfect example of this with Soucek (?) unmarked at the back post to head the ball back across goal. Set pieces going forward offer little hope for the fans as corners rarely beat the first defender or are easy collects for the keeper, who we give a free run at the ball. And the lack of a JWP means little hope of scoring from a direct free kick.
I would take Fernandes off set piece duty. His corners are awful and his free kicks are atrocious. Don't know who else to try but if you can't clear the first man on a corner, or if you do it goes straight into the keepers hands, then give up. Or push the keeper out of the way (as that is apparently allowed now).
Fernandes is suspended for our next game v Brentford, so someone else will be needed to mess up any set pieces we try
Free kicks near the area used to be a thunderbolt, ie Stuart Pierce, which could go straight in or ricochet off defenders. Old school, I know, but we’ve tried everything else. Maybe you need to borrow Che’s thighs to generate enough power. Bree seems to have a kick that might work.
I'm sure I read that Calderwood was the defensive set-piece coach under Martin and he's still here and we are still awful at defending them.
If u would have guessed then I would have said we’ve put no time whatsoever in to set pieces. It would be more embarrassing for the club if it turns out this whole time we have been working on them. We’re **** at everything at the moment but we’re particularly **** at set pieces.
