If there's one thing, beyond his general godliness, that speaks to Nigel Adkins' impact with the team, it's the fact that this club -- which, beyond Rickie, isn't blessed with the biggest or strongest players -- has turned into a pretty fearsome bunch from set-pieces. In the last seven PL games, we have scored: - Two goals against QPR from corners, one from a scramble, one played short. - One against Tottenham, from a scramble. - Two against Fulham, both Fonte headers, one from a corner and one from a free kick. - One against Everton, from a corner. During that time, despite being rather leaky overall and pretty appalling when defending corners in the early part of the season, we have (to the best of my recollection) surrendered only once from a set-piece...that being Kevin Nolan's bizarre free kick. It's a relatively small sample size, but it still speaks to the organization of the team that what should be one of the weakest aspects of this squad has turned into a considerable net positive.
Saw a stat yesterday actually. If only goals from corners counted, Saints would be 2nd in the Premier League.
For me, it's our biggest improvement this season compared to recent seasons. In L1, I hardly ever got excited when we won a corner. In the Championship, things improved slightly once we got Fox on board, but it was still hard to get too excited. But now, this season, I actually have some levels of hope and expectation when we win a corner. Unfortunately, both of Utd's late goals were from corners - albeit the first was initially cleared, before being put back into the box again.
I generally don't prefer goals to be likened to have come from set pieces. It means they've been rehearsed over and over, and although that's great, the greatest satisfaction I get is goals from open play. Last week, against QPR, there was a move in the 1st half where Lallana picked the ball up and the ball was popped back and forth very quickly, ending with him slipping the ball to Ramirez who provided a perfect flicked return at thigh height. Adam volleyed it with his left foot, in his stride, [Gaston's return was so precise he didn't have to check his movement one bit] and it zoomed a yard over the bar. Had that gone in it would have been the goal of the season, i.e. don't bother to put up any contenders for the remaining months. It was superb stuff. That was hands down the best move of the game.
I much prefer a sublime bit of passing leading to a tap-in myself, but they all still count; we're hardly Stoke of the South Coast, and no doubt we'd rather not be in any instance, but having the ability to bundle one home in addition to scoring from open play makes us a fairly dangerous unit.
Nigel himself has given credit for the team's ingenuity and variation at setpieces to Andy Crosby...It's great that we have so many different types of corners and freekicks and it helps if we can force a lot of corners as we managed against QPR as the odds are that we will score from at least one of them.
Worth pointing out that the set-pieces are in addition to the slick, one-touch football, not an alternative. When you get both, then that's just peachy!
Open play, set piece, damn I'd take a deflected one off an arse-cheek if it gets us a couple places up the table. Then once there, only perfect goals will do.
its a shame we are not winning more free kicks in dangerous areas, both Ramirez and Rickie are pretty lethal but the last game Ramirez blasted one into the wall
Partially because we end up with quite a bit of congestion around the box, which limits the number of times that one of our players are moving toward goal at pace. Ramirez could win quite a few, though, given his ability to pick up the ball in the hole and start charging.
Set pieces are very important, especially in the PL where chances may be few. All goals are equally valuable.
It's all down to the Bloody Hard Work that Nigel, the coaches and the players put in on the training ground. In this division if you're not scoring corners and free kicks at the right end and letting them in at the wrong end, it's gonna cost you points and places. Part of the art is not giving away dangerous free kicks and corners, that means defending as a unit and holding on to possession, and then having organised defending when you do face them. Oh and if you don't have a reliable penalty taker then you really are missing a trick.
I am touching wood and crossing my fingers as I type this (clever, eh?) but I have the impression that we are a bit better at defending corners than we were at the start of the season. I'm thinking particularly of the City and United games when Fonte in particular lost his man at set pieces.
I liked against Swansea when we got a free kick and we had both Ramirez and Lambert behind the ball and Swansea didn't know what to expect! IIRC, Lambert crossed the ball in and it narowly missed everyone. If someone got a touch on the end of it then we would have scored.
There was the one Ramirez dinked to the back post for Fonte also, unless that was this one. Struggled to get it out of his feet though. Shame.
