The influence of set-piece coaches in the Premier League seems to have grown significantly in recent years, but how much of an impact have they had, and is it just a fad?
To many casual fans of English football, Brentford might seem unremarkable because they aren’t historically successful and the 2021-22 season was their first in the top flight since 1946-47.
But since Matthew Benham – a former banker and betting industry executive – gained full control of the club in 2012, Brentford have been at the forefront of modernisation and innovation in the English game.
Benham transformed the club partly thanks to a focus on data and analytics, their methods ultimately ending a 21-year absence from the Championship in 2014 before eventually getting them into the Premier League. There they remain, looking every inch a top-flight club.
One aspect of Benham’s blueprint centred on improvement specifically at set-pieces. While that may not sound particularly revolutionary or controversial in 2025, 10 years ago it was apparently one of the major sticking points that led to manager Mark Warburton leaving at the end of the 2014-15 season.
“Last year, we didn’t have one session on set-pieces and it showed on the pitch,” defender Harlee Dean said at the start of the 2015-16 campaign. “That was [Warburton]’s way. Perhaps that’s where we fell short?”
Set-piece specialist Gianni Vio began working with Brentford that season. Having seen only 1.7% of their corners lead to goals in 2014-15, that improved to 4.1% in 2015-16; it may not sound that significant, but it’s a year-on-year increase of 80%. From then until Brentford’s promotion at the end of the 2020-21 season, only once (1.8% in 2017-18) did fewer than 3.2% of their corners result in goals.
Vio didn’t stay for long, but ever since his arrival, the west London club has been something of a breeding ground for coaches and analysts with such a specialism.
Vio went on to form a part of Italy’s Euro 2020-winning coaching staff; Andreas Georgson has held similar positions at Arsenal and Manchester United since leaving Brentford; Bernardo Cueva last year reportedly cost Chelsea nearly £1 million; and Nicolas Jover is credited with transforming Arsenal into the set-piece machine they are today after working similar magic at Manchester City.
Jover has essentially become the face of the set-piece coaching boom. Initially hired by Brentford in 2016, he joined Pep Guardiola’s staff at Man City in 2019 on the recommendation of the Catalan’s then-assistant Mikel Arteta.
Jover’s arrival at City did coincide with an initial increase in productivity at attacking set-pieces. While it may not have been immediately stratospheric, one perception would be that he put the foundations in place for sustained effectiveness that could be seen even after he’d moved on.
“I didn’t work with Andreas [Georgson] or Nico [Jover], but I know for a fact we were building on what others had already done,” Marc Ortí Esteban, Brentford set-piece analyst until last month, tells Opta Analyst. “It wasn’t that whenever a new set-piece coach came in they scrapped everything and started from new, so there’s definitely a legacy.”
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Jover’s presence is still felt at City, then. For instance, he left for Arsenal in July 2021, but since he initially joined City two years earlier, their 76 Premier League goals from corners and indirect free-kicks is bettered only by Liverpool (81). There are lots of factors that feed into that, such as in-game superiority and individual player quality, but it’s evidence nonetheless of big clubs approaching set-plays seriously rather than it just being the province of the underdog as it might’ve been in the past.
From August 2014 to June 2019, the five years before Jover went to City, 2.8% of their corners led to goals and a league-low 12.6% of their overall Premier League goals total came via corners and indirect free-kicks. Since August 2019, those respective figures have improved to 3.7% and 14.6%.
But it’s at Arsenal where we can see Jover’s impact best, his stint highlighting the value a specialist coach can bring when the conditions are right.
Arsenal have become renowned for their effectiveness at set-pieces – or, more specifically, corners. Under Jover’s guidance, they’ve learnt to create havoc by combining several factors.
“I think a lot of people feel Arsenal have completed set-pieces, so they want to do the same,” Stuart Reid, a freelance set-piece analyst tells Opta Analyst. “But it doesn’t work like that because the players aren’t the same.”
Nevertheless, Gabriel has undoubtedly – apologies in advance – cornered the market here, becoming Arsenal’s chief threat and main beneficiary of their set-piece excellence.
The Brazilian’s general aerial prowess combined with his sheer physical presence has made him almost unplayable when Arsenal’s corner deliveries are perfect, regardless of whether he has a run on his marker or not.
This has contributed to him scoring 17 times in the Premier League since he joined from Lille in 2020, which is six more than any other defender. His 12 headed goals in the competition over the same period is also the most among defenders and bettered by only four players in total, all of whom are strikers (Harry Kane – 18; Chris Wood, Ollie Watkins and Erling Haaland – all 15).
There’s also evidence Arsenal have doubled down on this tactic of feeding Gabriel, because last season he had the first contact on 17.8% of their successful attacking corners, signalling an increase of just under 10 percentage points in 2024-25 (27.6%). Furthermore, his 13 shots (including goals) as the first contact is already only six off his total for 2023-24. Perhaps linked to this, their short corners have decreased from 16.6% to 11.7%, too, with Arteta’s side perhaps recognising direct deliveries serve them better.
But it wouldn’t be fair to give Gabriel all the glory. One Premier League set-piece coach, who asked to remain anonymous, insisted to Opta Analyst that the taker was the most important aspect of the entire set-piece strategy.
Luckily for Arsenal, their takers have the technical quality to routinely produce deliveries that fit in with their strategy. With Saka and Rice capable of such remarkable consistency when crossing, the Gunners are effectively exploiting a glitch in the matrix.
“I think there’s something in the consistency of doing very similar things all the time,” adds Esteban, who was last month appointed set-piece coach at MLS side New England Revolution. “It gets your players used to what they’re doing. They know like the back of their hands what they have to do.”
Of course, there are also factors at play for Arsenal (and other teams), as Esteban notes: “I take some weight away from the takers because it’s easy to say the delivery wasn’t right. It’s still very, very important, but you need to find ways to make sure that even if the delivery isn’t perfect, you get to that ball.”
Some of this comes down to elements that are rather more intangible from a data perspective and require the eye test – “there are always solutions,” as Reid says to stoke intrigue. For example, the use of blockers and unorthodox movement patterns. The former refers players to strategically disrupting defenders, while the latter can be exemplified by how Arteta’s players often begin their runs beyond the back post and move laterally towards the goal as opposed to from the edge of the box or penalty spot.
Although such movement patterns aren’t necessarily easy to identify in the data itself, they do go some way to explaining Arsenal’s targeting of the back post.
Then you have the fact they crowd the six-yard box to a greater extent than any other Premier League team. This term their average of 3.9 players in the six-yard box for a corner is the highest in the division (Aston Villa are second – 3.2). They also crowded the six-yard box the most last season (3.5), the season before that (3.1), and 2021-22 (2.7). In 2020-21, the season before Jover joined, they averaged 2.1 attackers in the six-yard box at attacking corners, the fourth most.
But what about the bigger picture? We know the coverage of – and interest in – set-pieces is greater than ever, but is it just a case of people buying into the cult of personality with respect to Jover and co., or are we actually witnessing something of a revolution?
Well, there’s a few ways of looking at it.
Firstly, ahead of 2024-25, the past 10 seasons saw an average of 13.5% of all English top-flight goals come from corners; the average for the 10 seasons before that was 12%, while it drops slightly to 11.9% across the first 12 campaigns of the Premier League era.
Similarly, there has been a broad increase in the total goals from corners over the past 16 years. For instance, the record over the first 14 38-game seasons was 126; since 2009-10, only once has there been fewer than 126 (123 in 2013-14). Then, the average over the past five seasons was 146.8, and last term’s 171 set a new record (including 42-game seasons).
Of course, this is generally in keeping with the league seeing more goals anyway, but the trends are comparable when looking at the proportion of corners that yield a goal as well. Opta has this data since 2003-04, so 21 seasons – across the first seven, 2.7% of corners on average led to a goal; that went up to 3.3% across the next seven seasons; it was 3.7% over the most recent seven prior to 2024-25.
The 2024-25 season is trending slightly behind with respect to the proportion of goals from corners (11.5%) and proportion of corners yielding goals (3.3%). Even accounting for this, it would appear to be something of a golden era, which does reflect the increased emphasis on coaching.
The aforementioned Premier League set-piece coach speaking anonymously insists the coverage slightly exaggerates the coaches’ impact. Esteban doesn’t entirely disagree but maintains those behind the scenes at clubs like Brentford have played a “massive part” in maximising the strengths of a team “with one of the lowest budgets in the league”.
“I think [the coverage is] pretty fair. Jover’s been integral to Arsenal’s title hopes [in recent years],” adds Reid. The figures for indirect free-kicks have had a significant impact on the wider set-piece numbers, though.
Having accounted for 9.3% of all goals in 2010-11, an all-time low proportion of 4.6% came from indirect free-kicks in 2023-24, which continued a steady decline. As a result, 18.3% of goals came from set-pieces (specifically corners and indirect free-kicks) last term, the third-lowest proportion since 2010-11 set a record high of 23.5%.
So, although set-piece effectiveness is something of a hot topic, we’re only really seeing greater attacking efficiency at corners. Esteban acknowledges the difficulties around indirect free-kicks, considering them “much more complex” because they aren’t played from set locations.
But at the same time, this highlights how this “cat and mouse” coaching discipline – as Reid refers to it – still has room to grow.
Perhaps further development will ultimately lead to a plateau, with set-piece coaches cancelling each other out to the extent that attacking efficiency decreases. The cream always rises to the top, however.
“Managers have always existed and they cancel each other out,” Esteban points out. “When someone starts playing 4-3-3 very successfully, then the opposition eventually adapts and they need to find a new way of doing things. The game constantly evolves. I don’t see a big problem because it’s a matter of adapting, finding new ways to hurt the opposition.”
That’s exactly how we got to this point in the first place. So, while the interest around set-piece coaching will probably die down in the not-too-distant future, those roles are here to stay and will likely lead to even more innovation.
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