QPR's set piece issues.
A quick look at some set piece patterns, from a defensive POV.
At the time of writing this I'm getting Deja-vu of our first season under Warburton. Getting labelled as an over attacking, expansive side who leak goals defensively in open play but most importantly from set pieces. This was true, as @AnalyticsQPR has highlighted, with our trend with set pieces under Warburton’s tenure.
Set pieces are a intriguing topic, you see the modern evolution of them, the addition of specific set piece coaches (to my knowledge I’m not sure we have one) and how big they are becoming to the game again. Take Huddersfield for example, have massively improved their set pieces from last season both in numbers and coaching wise. They have gone from just 11 scored last season to now 20 (currently, they score them weekly at the moment!). Carlos Corberan has openly admitted to increasing the set piece workload in training. Statistically set pieces are scored at around 30%-40%, therefore he spend that proportion of his training sessions per week, on them.
Set pieces, to me, are an indication of the quality of your coaching. They are fine margin influences, and with the chaos, competitiveness and tight score-lines in the championship, maximising these fine margins can only help improve you as a side.
The example isn’t a replica of what I’ll be analysing, our defensive set pieces, but it certainly indicates the importance of set pieces as margins in games, and we can certainly factor that in to the reasons for our collapse in form over the last few months.
In this piece I’ll specifically be analysing all our corner goals we’ve conceded from Hull on the 19th February until our most recent game, Stoke away. In that period we have conceded 5 goals from corners in 13 games, averaging a corner goal conceded every 2.6 games. To put that into context in that form we’d concede 18 goals a season from corners. Up first, Hull.
Hull (H)- 19/2/22
What is worth noting before analysing each one is that we generally always set up in a hybrid system (both man marking and zonal). It has it’s positives and negatives, but that is a structure of our defensive corners.
The main issue with this corner is the type of delivery and emphasis on the runners as ‘main threats’. It’s an out-swinging corner, so the delivery is going to be deeper than an in-swinging one, therefore the zonal markers have little influence until the 2nd phase of the set piece.
The zonal markers become active in the 2nd phase as Hendrick loses his duel. Movement of Forss is clever, and they score from their first shot of the game.
Nottingham Forest (A)- 16/3/22
This goal goes to change the perspective of the game/result. Similar set-up to the first, except Forest use an in-swinging delivery which suggests the delivery will be shorter or nearer to goal and they use Brennan Johnson as a short option. Chair is drawn to mark him but Johansen’s positioning is odd, to me. Neither him or Odubajo are covering the more important front post space, which foreshadows what is to come.
It’s a combination of both responsibility on the man markers tracking the runners and not covering important spaces, but the execution of delivery from Garner was superb.
Sheff Utd (A)- 5/4/22
This goal is unique out of all of them, in terms of starting setup, corner routine etc but was one where Warburton admitted to ‘planning for’ but the execution was not there.
In hindsight, Norwood’s shot should not be progressing through that amount of bodies, but there’s an aspect Westwood is short sighted due to the crowd of bodies but regardless the execution from this ‘training ground’ set piece was poor from a defensive standpoint.
Huddersfield (A)- 15/4/22
Found this setup strange, particularly the decision for Amos to drop out of the runners, as shown by the arm point of Jimmy Dunne to cover the back post zonally. We lose superiority 3v4 with the runners and the fact it is an in-swinging Toffolo corner, suggests that the delivery will be closer to goal and they have a spare runner to access.
The positioning of Thomas to cover Hogg’s run was also suspect, and the lack of engagement from the front post zonal markers to defend the space Hogg aims to enter is an issue.
You might have noticed or seen a pattern amongst all of the set pieces, if not most of them, which is quite damning to the drastic decline of our set pieces.
Stoke (A)- 23/4/22
Before I conclude my findings and views on the reasons behind our collapse in defending set pieces, I thought it would be best to discuss the role our ever changing GK and the loss of Seny Dieng as a direct correlation to our set piece decline. Personally, corner wise, I disagree. As shown above the GK’s have little role in our set piece 1st and even 2nd phases. I think Dieng has been a bigger miss generally overall, in terms of our stylistic preference, demands of his role from MW and the coaches and our overall build-up play when teams have isolated us through opposition presses’.
I think Dickie has a bigger impact on our set pieces to be honest. A 6’4 aerially dominant CB who can help provide height and win 1st contacts is something we’ve clearly lacked, but injuries have no doubt been a massive factor in our side in several ways. But back to set pieces…
To Conclude:
In EVERY set piece goal conceded they have used front post movement to attack the space and score/attacked the space to create separations elsewhere.
Covering the front post space in set positions have been non existent
Zonal markers struggle to engage against space (which is a massive part of their role)
Failure to track individual runners
Failed to do basics like win 1v1 duels in key areas.
Our defensive set pieces, as worrying as they are, are fixable. Are the issues apparent because of our structure? To a degree, yes but failure to do basics within setups make setups meaningless if they cant execute the basics. It’s like a generic formation. The formation means nothing or cannot function if the basics are not done to help bring to life the game plan. We need to deal with teams exploiting the front post spaces better as teams seem to be targeting that.
They definitely are a fairly heavily weighted factor for our big collapse in form alongside injuries, but if we can nullify conceding fine margins in games, we will be a much better side overall.