One of the biggest concerns from Ange Postecoglou’s first campaign at Tottenham was how poor his team were at defending set pieces.
Last season, Postecoglou’s side had major problems when defending corners, with opposition teams starting to catch on to this weakness.
Guglielmo Vicario had shown few flaws in his game up until opponents started to discover how easy he was to bully at corners.
Spurs ended the season having conceded 16 times from set pieces in the Premier League, with Arsenal exposing this, netting twice from corners in the second North London derby.
The club’s supporters started to become frustrated at how relaxed their manager was about the issue and his reluctance to put plans in place to prevent it.
However, with the arrival of the 58-year-old’s new coaching staff, work has finally commenced to rectify their set-piece woes.
Ange Postecoglou’s coaching staff start work on set pieces
Over the summer, Postecoglou lost his Tottenham assistant Chris Davies to Birmingham City as he took over as their new head coach.
In his place, Nick Montgomery and Sergio Raimundo arrived and Spurs journalist Alasdair Gold has revealed that the duo have been quick to make an impact.
Montgomery, in particular, has been tasked with addressing set piece work at both ends of the pitch. Gold said on his YouTube channel: “From what I understand, Nick Montgomery has had quite a strong involvement in all the set piece work, at both ends of the pitch.
“I think it’s there to see, Cristian Romero headed home the first set-piece goal of the season for Tottenham, but I also think the defending from set-pieces has been much better.
“It’s like a hybrid zonal/man marking set up now, last season it felt like it was stuck in the zonal thing which wasn’t working for them.”
The Lilywhites’ new set-up at corners has already produced promising results this season with the team looking much better at both ends of the pitch.
“[Despite a few nervy moments] Either way it feels like progress is being made in something that was a problem.
“I have said in previous videos, second season at Celtic set pieces at both ends improved considerably and Postecoglou alluded to that last season and this feels part of that process,” Gold added.
Tottenham set piece work vindicated thus far, but work still to do
Tottenham have indeed made a good start to the season when it comes to set-piece routines, but after just two games, the sample size remains small.
Spurs have faced seven corners in their opening two fixtures and whilst they looked much better organised, they still have much work to do.
The Premier League setting new rules for officials to be more stringent in penalising attackers for impending goalkeepers at set pieces is certainly a big help to Vicario, with teams now having less chance to distract him.
Their new zonal vs man-marking hybrid approach has made them look more resolute thus far, however, tougher tests lie ahead.
The North London derby on September 15 will be a good chance for Tottenham to show how much they have truly changed with the Gunners being notoriously strong at corners.
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