If you'll excuse a little self-promotion, I wrote a piece on Liverpool's set pieces yesterday for liverpool.com which you might like...
When it comes to set pieces, Liverpool have started the 2021/22 season on fire.
In their opening seven games in all competitions, the Reds have netted seven goals from dead ball situations. In 2020/21, they scored their eighth set piece goal in match number 23, then went 26 games without adding another. If Liverpool can score two at any point in their next 42 games, then they’ll be up on where they finished last season.
Five of the goals in question have been scored in the league. Mohamed Salah got one at Norwich, Fabinho bagged himself a rare goal when the Reds were at Elland Road, and all three strikes against Crystal Palace last weekend originated from corners. Look around the top five leagues in Europe and you’ll find that only Ligue 1 side Montpellier, with seven, have scored more set piece goals this term.
And history shows just how important they can be to Liverpool. Since 2009/10, there have been three league campaigns in which the Reds found the net at least 17 times from set plays: 2013/14 (their 26 goals that season remains a Premier League record for this period), 2018/19 and 2019/20. Any Kopite reading this won’t need reminding that these were the three seasons in the last 12 in which their team either made a serious tilt for the title or went all the way.
However, while Liverpool going at a dead ball goal per game is encouraging based on their record from years gone by, there has been one unusual aspect to the goals, in that very few of them have been assisted.
If you try to visualise a set piece in your mind’s eye, you invariably picture a corner coming into the box and somebody (most likely Virgil van Dijk) heading the ball into the back of the net.
Yet none of the Reds’ seven goals from corners in 2021/22 have been scored in this fashion, with only two having an assist — Salah against Crystal Palace after Van Dijk won the first ball, and Takumi Minamino at Norwich when Divock Origi did likewise.
What makes this worthy of closer investigation is that Liverpool have scored 29 set piece league goals across the last two seasons, but only one in each of those campaigns was unassisted (if we ignore direct free-kick goals).
The only one in their title winning campaign of 2019/20 was the decisive goal scored by Roberto Firmino at Selhurst Park. Fabinho’s goal at Leeds earlier this month was broadly similar, in that in both cases a Brazilian Red was on hand to prod home a loose ball from no more than six yards out following a corner.
It’s the unassisted set piece goal from 2020/21 which is more interesting, though, and we must look back to the glorious season which preceded it to discover the reason why.
In the summer of 2020, I conducted a review of the multiple unrewarded penalty claims which the Reds had endured on their way to Premier League glory, in an article for The Tomkins Times .
As a Liverpool supporter assessing potential Liverpool penalty awards, it was naturally hard to be objective. One thing which was very clear though was that far more should have been given in set piece situations.
Multiple opposing players were assigned to Van Dijk (and Joël Matip when he played), with the aim of ensuring the towering centre-back was unable to connect cleanly with the ball. That they often did so using unfair means didn’t seem to matter in the least, as the Reds were not awarded a single penalty for set piece infringement in 2019/20.
It’s reasonable to assume this won’t have gone unnoticed by the club. There was an excellent example of the issue in Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Norwich in February 2020. Though the corner delivery wouldn’t have reached Van Dijk, he was being held by one defender while Teemu Pukki also blocked his path towards goal.
Take a look at where Fabinho recovered the ball after it was cleared in the above situation.
Liverpool’s number three demonstrated his long-range shooting ability with fine strikes against Manchester City and Crystal Palace that season, but he was unlikely to be scoring from there with the majority of the home side between him and the goal.
Skip forward seven months and we get to the opening game of 2020/21. We also get the only unassisted set piece goal which the Reds scored in the whole league campaign. This time the ball is on its way to Van Dijk, but there are three players holding or blocking him. Fortunately, the ball breaks to Salah while everyone is preoccupied with the Dutchman, and he lashes home a fine goal.
Let’s take a look at the freeze-frame of the challenge on Van Dijk and compare it with the above example from Carrow Road. Salah is in broadly the same position but other players are far closer to the edge of the box for Leeds than they were against Norwich. This may be due to the former being a corner and the latter a set piece free-kick situation, but the difference is worth noting nonetheless.
Now let’s consider some of the set piece goals from this season. At Norwich, Kostas Tsimikas’ corner was aimed towards Van Dijk but the ball came out to Salah who did what he does best, and scored. In the Champions League win over Milan, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s corner was cleared by Ismaël Bennacer, only for Jordan Henderson to fire the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal from inside the ‘D’ on the edge of the area.
Sadio Mané’s set piece goal against Crystal Palace occurred when he reacted first following a save by Vicente Guaita, but Naby Keïta’s was a strike from distance after the Eagles’ goalkeeper had punched a corner clear.
Salah at Norwich, Henderson versus Milan and Keïta against Crystal Palace; set piece goals with no official assist which were struck from 17, 20 and 19 yards out respectively (per FBRef). And none of them a world away from Salah’s Anfield goal against Leeds last season (which was hit from 15 yards since you’re no doubt wondering).
Did Liverpool look at their lack of penalties from set pieces in 2019/20 and decide they needed to focus upon the second balls, only for Van Dijk to suffer a season ending injury before the plan had been put into regular use last season? This may be joining dots that don’t belong together, but neither does it seem an entirely fanciful notion. And only the staff at the club will know how deliberate it is, but this way of exploiting set pieces is certainly working for the Reds at the moment.
https://www.liverpool.com/liverpool-fc-news/features/virgil-van-dijk-liverpool-threat-21653599