Liverpool have conceded 12 times from set-piece situations this season – it’s a worrying trend that needs to change, writes Paul Gorst
Those fortunate to have spent any time in the company of Arne Slot this season will have noticed the Liverpool head coach has developed a bugbear for set-pieces. Rarely has a press conference passed without the Reds boss donating a portion of his time to discussing what has become a wider trend at the cutting edge of the English game.
With Arsenal’s expertise helping them to the top of the Premier League as the New Year draws in and so many other teams fixating on becoming proficient in corners and long throws, it’s no surprise to hear Slot, a tactical obsessive, speaking so consistently about the latest developments.
Liverpool themselves attempted to join the increasing number of teams who are looking to gain an advantage from long throws by spending time working on it during the summer months.
On their pre-season training camp in Japan, the likes of Ryan Gravenberch, Conor Bradley and Milos Kerkez all gave it a try as Slot and his backroom staff sought to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to improve. In the searing heat of Tokyo’s JFA Dreamfield complex, the mosquitoes swarmed as the players floundered.
The long-throw plan was eventually shelved when it became apparent Joe Gomez, who was back home on Merseyside treating an injury, was the only player who came close to excelling at long throws.
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Slot spoke in May about needing “more weapons” for Liverpool’s attempts to defend the title and while many assumed, at the time, that the Dutchman was talking about the summer transfer window – and what ultimately proved to be an ambitious, historic outlay of around £440m – the coach was also speaking about adding more parts to the team’s all-round game.
Liverpool initially advertised for a set-piece coach over the summer, saying the successful applicant would be “a tactical specialist responsible for maximising the team’s performance in all set-piece situations”.
The job specification, which was published on networking and recruitment site Linkedin, called for someone with a “substantial knowledge of the technical and tactical understanding of football” and an applicant who was across the latest advancements of both the Premier League and European football as a whole.
Tasks included analysying upcoming opponents and their approach to defending and attacking set-pieces, designing an effective defence to them and offering specialised coaching on positions and man-marking assignments.
Eventually, Liverpool opted to hand the role internally to Aaron Briggs, who had arrived the previous summer as part of Slot’s newly-formed back-room team as a first-team individual development coach before giving the set-piece duties exclusively in September.
The fact that Liverpool’s ability to defend set-pieces has got considerably worse at a time when Briggs’s sole focus is now on that area of the game speaks to how much the preparatory work is hostage to the variables on the pitch on the day itself, but there can be no denying it simply hasn’t been good enough so far for the Premier League champions, regardless of where you apportion the blame.
If modern football, however, is now a space that celebrates its set-piece coaches, like Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover – who has had mural of his likeness painted outside the Emirates, without irony – is it only fair to criticise those whose teams are under-performing in those same metrics? If that is true, then upturn from Briggs is needed.
“Negative set-piece balance” has become a phrase Slot has consistently coined in recent months and not without good reason. Liverpool, excluding penalties, have scored three and conceded 12, which gives them a balance of a startling minus-nine. It’s already their worst ratio of a Premier League season and you have to trawl back to the dark days to the 1992-93 term to find figures anywhere near as poor, which was minus-eight back then.
“If you look at our set-piece balance, there is not one team in the world that is minus eight in set pieces and is still joint-fourth in the league,” Slot said before the Wolves game. “If you find that team please come to me. That we are from open play the number one team in the league for chance creation, I don’t think anyone sees it because I think in general we are criticised a lot. “That is true if you simply look at the results, but if you were to exclude the set pieces then the world would look completely different and we would probably be five or six points higher. People say: ‘What are you talking about? Set pieces are part of the game.’ It is a part of the game that is definitely fundamental or crucial. There is football and there are set-pieces. “Of course it is part of football and the minutes you play but it is a different element within the game you could say. I would love to do better. The fundamental is the football itself and set pieces are an add-on. Set pieces can make such a massive difference because if you score from a set piece and it is 1-0 then all the chances you created before are accepted and people say: ‘Wow, what a great game. Look at how well they played.’“But we played probably the best half an hour of our season against Nottingham Forest and then we conceded a set piece and no one talks about that half-hour any more. Which is correct because you lose 3-0 but set pieces have such an immense impact on a football game if you score from a set piece or concede from a set piece. And also on the league table because with a little bit better balance on set pieces I think it is fair to say we would have four, five, six points extra.”
Speaking after his side shipped their 12th set-piece goal of the term on Saturday, Slot added: “In the last two games we conceded a set-piece but we were able to win and that hasn’t happened that many times this season. That’s, again, progress for me, but it’s obvious there are more things for us to improve and this is definitely one of them.
“Although, we had a great set-piece – the first one after half-time. It was completely told to the players at half-time – not by me, by someone else – and it was an open chance for Florian but unfortunately it went the wrong side of the post.
“I think we have been unlucky in multiple situations in our set-pieces; it is 18 games now and we need to improve.”
So how exactly does a team improve? It’s difficult to recreate the specific game situations in training sessions, particularly when the time available is scant. For example, players tasked with attacking set-pieces in drills designed at improving the defensive output are unlikely to be as motivated as opposition teams during actual Premier League fixtures.
For club captain Virgil van Dijk, though, repetition in training is the only way to iron out the kinks. He says: “It’s something we have to improve. It’s about training and using our experiences to get better at dealing with situations like today.
“We will analyse and speak about it. I know it sounds easy but it’s a difficult thing to do. It’s a process and we have to keep trying to do it. If it was easy then we would have sorted it already.“There have been plenty of games when we have defended them very well. But the fact is we’ve conceded too many set-piece goals and we don’t concede enough. It’s about repetition, training, analysing, it’s something we have to improve. I’d say at least 75% of the time or even more, it’s not even about the first contact, it’s the second phase that is the killer. “I hope (it’s not a mental issue). If that’s in your head then it’s an issue. Personally, it’s not in my head. We have defended so many set-pieces very well. But the fact is we’ve conceded too many goals like that and it hurts. We have to improve that. Training is the only way to get better at it.
“Each and every one of us has to take responsibility. It’s always going to be on the players. We can speak about how we defend and how we attack, but at the end of the day it’s about what the players put in. It’s not been good enough. We all realise that. We have spoken about that. We need to turn it around. That’s why we work on it almost every training session.”
Some of the issues have stemmed from the makeup of the Liverpool team during certain points of the game when they have conceded. For example, the last-gasp Crystal Palace winner, via Eddie Nketiah in September, was slammed home when Slot had taken off Ibrahima Konate for Jeremie Frimpong and forward-thinking players like Cody Gakpo, Federico Chiesa and 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha had been drafted in to secure another late winner.
Against Manchester United, which was another defeat via a late set-piece situation, the head coach had sent on Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz alongside Chiesa in an attempt to seal another important victory late on. Once more, the structure of the team suffered and the knock-on effect was the ability to properly defend dead-balls.
“If you look at the Spurs goal, it was ridiculous from Liverpool’s perspective,” wrote ECHO columnist and Reds legend John Aldridge last week. “Whoever is coaching these set-pieces needs to spend some more time on it with these players because they look so scared at the moment. Why the panic? Just go and attack the ball.”
Whether you feel the issue has been exacerbated by Briggs’s deployment, that the problem is down to the players or if the buck ultimately stops at Slot, it is a troubling trend that will hold Liverpool back as long as it persists.
