Could anyone else who saw the match tell me if we actually looked dangerous from any one of our 8 corners? 8! Didn't look like it to me. Yet when Man United beat us 1-3, their first goal comes from a corner kick. We had 7 corners to their 3. 7-3!!! We can't even look dangerous with 7 corners? Really? It'd be refreshing to me if Harry actually admits in the post match interviews that we were wasteful with set pieces, rather than just saying. "WE BATTERED THEM, NON STOP. I COULDN'T ASK FOR MORE FROM THE TEAM." Love you Harry but, NO! You can and you should ask for more from the team. Publicly too. Don't cotton wool these players!! Don't even get me started on free kicks.....
Our set-pieces are dire. I could understand the lack of emphasis on it last season, as we had a lot of games and used a relatively small pool of players for them, but there's no excuse this time. We're actually more dangerous from thrown ins than we are from free-kicks and corners.
You would think a team with Bale, Van der Vaart, Modric etc etc could at least hit a decent dead ball. Apparently not. In terms of corners - Van der Vaart tries to put too much 'whip' on the ball and as a result tops the shot and it doesn't clear the first man 9 times out of 10. Bale isn't too bad at them but, due to his height, he should be in the box. Modric isn't great either. VdV should be sat on the edge of the penalty area sort of like Scholes as we've all seen videos of him scoring wonder goals (and he did it last season againt 'Pool). Freekicks - it just seems like they don't practice these at all.
Assou-Ekotto took a good one against Man Utd. He should've taken the one that Kaboul predictably hit into the Mersey yesterday, too.
I actually thought we'd improved our set pieces at the start of the season, we got 2 or 3 goals from them but we've slipped right back into the old ways. Bale put in some good deliveries yesterday in the corners but are players weren't attacking them well and always seemed to just get a bit underneath them. To be honest though, everything about our setpieces needs a lot of work and it's costing us a lot of points every season.
Players who have a proven ability at scoring goals should be in the penalty area when corners are taken, not taking the corners. Why VDV takes corners I just cannot see.
who remembers that "sheringham" corner? that worked so well! then we saw teams copy it, not used anymore, not from what i can remember, we need similar creative thoughts. I remember against man utd we had a free kick, kaboul and someone else standing over the ball, a player to his far left, we should have faked the shot, released the player on the left into space who then would have had clear space to deliver a cross. Someone in this squad needs to start taking control of set plays and using their brain!
I got a funny feeling in vdv contract he has to take all set pieces if on the pitch haha and they are terrible defo needs workin on!
what shocks me is that even VDV looks rubbish with dead balls in a Spurs shirt...call me naive but what do they do in training..we have been seeing this and ill be generous and say all season..even though it has been happening for a good few years..so how exactly does Harry tackle this during training..because there is no improvement...i bet Joe Jordan is sick of collecting the training balls at the end of training sessions please log in to view this image
It was a cracker, and the great thing about it was because it worked, when we never used it, the opposition prepared to defend it, which in turn opened up more space for an alternative set piece.
spot on Boss..its good to be creative..i dont mind losing..so long as we try and have a good attitude...we seem amazingly lacklustre unless things go our way..and that is what worries me...we have to be clever.
The Sheringham corner would work if Huddlestone was on the edge of the area ready to smash it into the back of the net.
Van der Vaart could probably pull it off too, King. Perhaps we should have Assou-Ekotto taking our corners? He seems to be the only player who can deliver a stationary ball with any confidence.
We might as well hand the ball back to the opposition every time it goes dead. I know we aren't a club that overcoaches it's sides but this is an issue that needs some serious thought.
Teams seem quite happy to break our play up by giving us a free kick as it offers no threat. Corners are a waste of time.
