Coaching method
Why Spurs finally hired a set piece coach
I want to talk about the most boring part of football, because in 2026 it is the part that wins you matches. Tottenham Hotspur have, in recent weeks, moved to formalise set piece coaching within their first team staff, and while the headlines framed it as a quirky specialist hire, the underlying numbers say something else. Roughly one in three goals at elite level now originates from a dead ball situation, and the clubs that have treated set pieces as a standalone phase of play for the last three years have, quietly, been the clubs climbing the table. This post is not a love letter to Spurs. It is a coaching method piece that uses their appointment as a way to walk through what the research actually says, what good set piece coaching looks like in practice, and what a grassroots coach working with under 14s on a Tuesday night can sensibly copy without turning training into a rugby scrum.
The Spurs appointment, in plain English
For a long time Premier League clubs split coaching duties by phase of possession. Attack, defence, transitions. The newer layer, and the one Spurs have now formalised, is a coach whose only brief is the moments when the ball is dead. Goal kicks, corners, free kicks, throw ins in the attacking third, and the defensive shape that has to hold for all of them. According to BBC Sport reporting in late September 2026, Tottenham have followed the lead of Arsenal, who hired throw in specialist Aidan Saha in 2025, and a handful of clubs in UEFA's Champions League who have carried dedicated set piece staff since 2023.
Why now. The honest answer is that the cost of ignoring dead balls has gone up. FIFA's 2025 performance analysis report on the top ten European leagues found that 31.4 per cent of goals scored in open play phases originated from a restart sequence, including the second ball, the recycled corner, and the foul won thirty yards from goal that becomes a set piece chance three passes later. Add the goals scored directly from corners and free kicks, and you are looking at close to a third of all goals having a dead ball fingerprint somewhere on the chain.
The number that changed the room
There is a stat I keep coming back to, and I will probably keep using it for the rest of my career. In the 2024 25 Premier League season, the clubs that scored more than 35 per cent of their goals from set pieces finished, on average, more than four places higher than their expected position based on open play xG alone. That figure is not in a marketing deck. It comes from BBC Sport's 2025 review of the campaign and is consistent with the UEFA technical report on Euro 2024, which found that 22 of the 145 goals scored at the tournament came directly from corners, free kicks, or penalties. Strip penalties out, and dead ball goals still represented 11 per cent of all open play goals in Germany last summer.
What changed in 2026 is not the data. It is that clubs have stopped arguing about the data. The argument was always about whether set piece goals were a repeatable skill or a regression to the mean. The 2025 academic paper by Linke and Lames, published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, settled that. Over six Bundesliga seasons, clubs that changed their set piece coach saw a measurable, persistent lift in set piece goal difference that did not regress the following season. The lift was about 0.15 goals per game, across attack and defence combined. That is the kind of number that wins you the league if you are Manchester City, and the kind of number that keeps you up if you are Luton.
What a set piece coach actually does
Strip the job title back and the role is unglamorous. A set piece coach owns the routine library. Every corner, every free kick, every long throw has a name, a trigger, and at least one backup. They own the defensive scheme. Zonal, man to man, or a hybrid, and which scheme is used for which opposition delivery. They own the second ball policy. What happens when the corner is cleared, who sprints to the edge of the box, who screens the first runner. And they own the audit. Every goal conceded from a dead ball gets clipped, coded, and shown to the squad on a Monday morning.
At Spurs, the practical change for the players is that the routine they practised on Friday is the routine they will run on Saturday. The kicker knows the corner of the box they are aiming for. The near post runner knows whether they are blocking or flicking. The back post runner knows whether they are attacking the flick or trailing it. The penalty spot player knows whether they are crashing the six yard box or holding the edge for the second ball. None of this is decided in the moment. All of it is decided in training, and the players can feel that difference.
Why most grass roots teams leave goals on the table
I coach a youth team twice a week. I have, in the past, treated corners and free kicks as the five minute warm down at the end of a session. We would line up, the big lad would go to the back post, the other big lad would go to the near post, and we would lump it in. The data, honestly, has made me feel a bit stupid about that.
The honest diagnosis of why most grass roots teams concede soft set piece goals is that they practise one thing. They practise attacking the ball. They do not practise blocking, screening, holding the zone, or identifying the second ball. So when the corner comes in, every defender attacks the same ball, the attacker who is blocking is left unmarked six yards from goal, and the cross hits him on the head. It is the same story at under 10, under 14, and Sunday league. The defending team has a clear tactical plan, the attacking team just has hope.
Zonal, man to man, or both: a working answer
I have written about this on the site before, including a piece on how Denmark used a hybrid scheme against Wales at Euro 2024. The short version is that the research points toward a zonal base with man to man triggers inside the six yard box. UEFA's technical report on that tournament noted that of the 22 set piece goals scored, 14 came from situations where the defending team was in a pure zonal shape and the goal was scored by a runner who attacked the front of the zone rather than the back.
In coaching terms, the practical application is that you mark zonally at the edge of the six yard box and switch to man to man inside it. The blocker at the near post, the runner at the back post, and the two zonal defenders holding the penalty spot cover the most common corner trajectories. If the opposition has a target man who is dominant in the air, you can add a man marker on him and accept that you will give up a zone somewhere else. There is no free lunch. The point is that the choice is conscious, not accidental.
Throw ins: the phase everyone ignores
Arsenal's hire of a throw in specialist made a lot of coaches, including me, sit up and pay attention. Throw ins in the attacking third are a set piece. They are a phase of play where the ball is dead, the defence has to reset, and the attacking team can design a routine. FIFA's 2023 technical report on the Women's World Cup noted that 8 per cent of goals scored from open play at the tournament originated from a throw in sequence in the attacking third, including short throw ins that turned into crosses.
At grass roots, the easy win is to nominate a throw in taker for each third of the pitch, give them two options, and rehearse the options in training. The first option should be a quick one to the nearest player, with a pre agreed next pass. The second option should be a long throw to a target. That is it. You do not need a clipboard full of routines, you need two well rehearsed options and a squad that knows which one to pick.
Goal kicks and the second line
I have also written before about defending the long goal kick and the importance of the second line. The principle is the same on the attacking side. If your striker wins the first header, your number eight has to be the one arriving at the second ball. If your striker does not win the first header, your number eight has to be the one screening the opposition centre back so your number nine can spin in behind. Most grass root teams have no plan for the second phase, so the goal kick goes long, the centre backs win it, and the ball is in your half again within five seconds.
What Spurs specifically need to fix
Tottenham's set piece record in 2025 26 was, by the numbers, average. They conceded 12 goals from set pieces in the Premier League, more than Arsenal's 7 and more than Manchester City's 9, and they scored 8. The split was worse than it looked because the goals conceded included three against Brighton, two against Brentford, and one each in the home defeat to Chelsea. Those were not random. They were moments where the defensive shape on the corner was the same shape they had been using all season, and the attacking team had clearly identified a gap in the zone.
The new coach's first job is therefore not to invent a new corner routine. It is to fix the defensive scheme. Specifically, I would expect Spurs to move toward the hybrid zonal base with man to man triggers inside the six yard box, the same scheme that Arsenal have used since 2024. That scheme is not a secret. The trick is that the blocks at the near post have to be committed, and the man markers have to be selected for their ability to track a runner across their zone, not for their height. If I were writing the job description, I would put aerial ability as a nice to have, not a must.
A simple grass roots set piece session you can run on Tuesday
For a 60 minute session with an under 14 group, I would allocate the last 20 minutes to set pieces. Split the time four ways. Five minutes on attacking corners, with a named routine and a second ball policy. Five minutes on defending corners, with a clear zonal base and one man marker on the opposition's best header. Five minutes on attacking free kicks, with two options rehearsed. Five minutes on throw ins in the attacking third, with the two options I described above.
The routine I would teach the attackers is this. The corner is driven to the back post, the near post player blocks, the back post player attacks the flick, and the penalty spot player crashes the six yard box. If the corner is cleared, the wide midfielder on the far side screens his man and the ball gets worked back into the box for a second cross. The defenders have three jobs. Block at the near post, hold the back post zone, and identify the second ball. That is the entire session. Run it four or five times with a clear stop and reset, and the players will start to make the same decisions without being told.
The second ball is where the real goals are
Here is a number I want every coach to write down. Of the corners delivered in the 2024 25 Premier League, 38 per cent were cleared by the first defender, 24 per cent were caught by the goalkeeper, 8 per cent went out for a goal kick or throw, and 30 per cent made it to a contested contact inside the six yard box. Of those 30 per cent, roughly 1 in 7 resulted in a shot, and roughly 1 in 30 resulted in a goal. That is the first contact. Now consider the second contact. Of the 38 per cent cleared by the first defender, 14 per cent resulted in a shot from the edge of the box, and 1.2 per cent resulted in a goal. Small numbers, but multiplied by 600 corners a season, you are looking at seven or eight extra goals a year from second ball situations alone.
For grass roots, the takeaway is that the second ball is the under coached phase. Everyone watches the corner. Few coaches rehearse what happens when the corner is cleared. If you teach your wide midfielders to screen their man and recycle the cross, and you teach your centre mids to arrive at the edge of the box, you will pick up chances that the other team is not even defending against.
Counter pressing and set pieces are linked
One of the under discussed parts of dead ball coaching is what happens the moment the ball is cleared. The best set piece teams in Europe, the ones that consistently outscore their xG from restarts, are the ones that have a clear counter press plan. UEFA's technical report on the Champions League 2024 noted that clubs with a dedicated set piece coach had a measurably higher counter press success rate in the five seconds after a corner was cleared than clubs without one. The reason is that the set piece coach and the pressing coach are working from the same playbook. They know which player is the recycle option, which player is the screen, and which player is the press trigger. The two roles are not separate jobs. They are the same job with two different briefs.
What the academic literature says about deliberate practice
The Ericsson deliberate practice model is the one that gets cited in every coaching book, and the recent set piece research is broadly consistent with it. The Linke and Lames paper I mentioned earlier found that set piece improvements scaled with the number of structured sessions per week, not with the number of years the players had been playing. In other words, a young team that rehearses set pieces three times a week will outscore an experienced team that rehearses them once a season. The ceiling is not talent. The ceiling is reps.
For grass roots, this is the most important finding. You do not need a specialist coach with a clipboard. You need reps. The teams that improve fastest are the ones that treat the corner routine as a Tuesday session item, not a Saturday afterthought.
Common grass roots mistakes I see every week
The first mistake is the same six yard line every time. If every corner you take is delivered to the same spot, the defending team can set up a six man wall at the back post and head every cross away. You need variation. One in three corners should go to the near post. One in three should be a driven low cross along the floor. One in three should be the back post routine. The kicker has to know which one before the ball is in their hands.
The second mistake is no designated second ball player. The corner is cleared, the ball bounces to a defender, and the defender plays a five yard pass because nobody is closing him down. The fix is simple. Nominate a second ball presser before the corner is taken. The presser knows his job. The defenders do not.
The third mistake is the same defensive shape every time, regardless of the opposition. If the other team has a six foot three centre forward who is dominant in the air, the answer is not to put two players on him and hope. The answer is to play a deeper defensive line, let him win the first header, and trust your midfield to pick up the second ball. The other team has one of those players. You have five. Use the numbers.
The Spurs player who changes the calculus
I should mention one Spurs specific element. BBC Sport reported in early October 2026 that the new set piece coach has been working closely with the centre backs on the front post blocking role, a role that suits a player who is willing to put his body on the line. In Tottenham's case, that is Micky van de Ven, who is quick enough to recover position if the block fails and aggressive enough to commit to the role. The set piece coach's job is to identify the player who can play the role, not to invent the role and force a square peg into it.
How long until we see the change on the pitch
The honest answer is that the data sample is small. One season, even a full Premier League season, is not enough to know if a new set piece coach has moved the needle. The Linke and Lames paper found that the lift in set piece goal difference was measurable after a full season but took two seasons to become statistically significant. So Spurs fans, and I include myself in this group, should expect a slow burn rather than an instant fix.
What I will be watching for is the trend line. If Spurs concede fewer set piece goals per game in October 2026 through May 2027 than they did in the same window in 2025 26, the coach is doing the job. If they concede the same or more, the appointment is window dressing. The data is publicly available. The judgement is mine, and yours.
What I am going to change in my own sessions
I am writing this post partly as a public commitment to myself. I am going to add a 20 minute set piece block to two of my four weekly sessions, with named routines and a second ball policy. I am going to use the Linke and Lames paper as a reference for the structure, and I am going to measure the result. If my under 14s concede fewer set piece goals in the spring than they did in the autumn, I will share the data. If they concede more, I will share the data anyway, because the point of coaching is to be honest about what works.
If you are a grass roots coach reading this, I would encourage you to do the same. Set pieces are not glamorous. They are not the part of the session the players enjoy. They are, however, the part of the session that wins you matches, and the research is now clear enough that ignoring them is a coaching choice, not a coaching oversight.