Arne Slot welcomed Liverpool’s set-piece effectivity of their 1-0 win over Sunderland on the Stadium of Mild. “Usually we concede one, but tonight we could score and that’s the difference for us in this game,” he stated in his press convention.
Virgil van Dijk’s aim, headed in from Mohamed Salah’s supply within the second half, was really Liverpool’s third from a nook of their final 4 Premier League video games. However their general whole of 4 this season stays the fifth-lowest within the Premier League.
Slot referenced the price of failing to capitalise on set-pieces in marginal video games earlier this season, citing their attracts with the opposite newly-promoted groups, Leeds and Burnley. So, what’s modified?
Embracing the inswinger
Their newfound effectiveness just isn’t a coincidence.
As an alternative, it’s a results of a drastic change of strategy.
Previous to final month’s defeat to Bournemouth, once they scored the primary of their three latest targets from corners, Liverpool had the bottom proportion of inswinging deliveries within the Premier League, at 49.4 per cent, properly beneath the common of roughly 70 per cent.
Within the 4 video games since, their proportion has shot as much as 82.5 per cent, with 28 of their 34 corners in opposition to Bournemouth, Newcastle, Manchester Metropolis and Sunderland having been inswingers.
The change of emphasis, which, coincidentally or not, follows the departure of set-piece coach Aaron Briggs on the finish of December, has clearly proved fruitful, with Liverpool scoring 3 times from 34 corners having solely scored as soon as from 117 beforehand this time period.
It’s value noting that even the one aim scored earlier than the change of emphasis, within the win over Brighton on December 13, resulted from an inswinging supply from Salah for Hugo Ekitike.
That aim from Ekitike, like those scored by Van Dijk in opposition to each Sunderland and Bournemouth, was scored from contained in the six-yard field and highlighted one of many principal benefits of the inswinging supply: that its trajectory facilitates closer-range pictures.
It’s not an actual science. There are in fact different components to think about. However usually, the nearer you’re to aim, the upper your likelihood of scoring. Through the use of extra inswingers, Liverpool have been in a position to goal the six-yard field way more continuously.
Liverpool’s corners have grow to be extra targeted on the centre of the six-yard field
A comparability between their nook places earlier than and because the recreation in opposition to Bournemouth exhibits the share enhance of deliveries into extra harmful areas, with a transparent concentrate on the centre of the six-yard field, proper on high of the goalkeeper.
The recognition and higher effectiveness of inswinging nook deliveries is obvious up and down the Premier League, with 5 per cent of all inswinging corners having led to targets this season, in comparison with solely 3.6 per cent of outswingers.
Packing the six-yard field
It’s not simply concerning the zones focused from corners.
How these zones are occupied is equally vital.
It has grow to be more and more widespread to see Premier League sides station a mass of gamers contained in the six-yard field from attacking corners, maximising their probabilities of successful the primary contact at shut vary whereas additionally making it tougher for the opposition goalkeeper to catch or punch the supply.
The strategy, coined the “meat wall” by analyst Michael Caley, has been used to good impact by Arsenal and has now been adopted by Liverpool too, with Van Dijk one in all 5 Liverpool gamers inside a crowded six-yard field when he headed in in opposition to Sunderland.
Sunderland’s six-yard field was a mass of our bodies for Liverpool’s aim
Within the crowded six-yard field, Robien Roefs was unable to achieve the nook earlier than Van Dijk
The aim got here from Liverpool’s tenth nook of the evening however the identical strategy had been evident earlier within the recreation too.
Ten of Liverpool’s 11 corners in whole have been inswingers, the one exception being a brief nook taken by Salah as they sought to wind the clock down in stoppage time.
For his or her first nook of the night, proven beneath, Liverpool’s gamers began their runs exterior the six-yard field. However after that supply from Salah was simply headed clear by unopposed Sunderland centre-back Dan Ballard, Liverpool modified tack.
Liverpool had no gamers in Sunderland’s six-yard field for his or her first nook of the evening
From then on, that they had a minimal of three gamers inside Sunderland’s six-yard field for each nook.
Their second nook signalled a change of strategy as Liverpool crammed the six-yard field
Liverpool continued to fill the six-yard field for Salah’s corners in addition to Gakpo’s
These deliveries proved far more durable for Sunderland to defend, with Van Dijk heading a Cody Gakpo supply over the bar and Ibrahima Konate practically getting on the top of one other Gakpo centre earlier than the strategy lastly paid off for the decisive aim.
The success of the strategy, exemplified by Van Dijk’s aim, helps to elucidate why Premier League groups are directing corners into the six-yard field with more and more regularity.
Actually, the variety of corners into the six-yard field has risen in every of the final 5 Premier League seasons, reaching a excessive of 4.72 per recreation this time period as a rising variety of groups, Liverpool included, attempt to maximise their probabilities of set-piece success.
For Slot, the result’s victory from a recreation his Liverpool facet may beforehand have drawn, and encouragement that an space of weak point may now have grow to be one in all energy.
