Ian Wright has hailed Arsenal for their decision to hire a set-piece coach at the start of this season after watching David Luiz score from a well-worked free-kick against Leicester City.
The Gunners brought in Andreas Georgson in the summer and his position isn’t a popular one.
However, the smartest of teams do whatever they can to gain an advantage over their opponents.
His appointment has now proven to hand an advantage to the Gunners.
Arsenal went behind early against Leicester and needed to respond. The response came when David Luiz scored a header before half time from a well-worked free-kick.
Wright could tell that the goal came straight from a training ground routine and says it shows why Mikel Arteta was right to have brought in Georgson.
“It’s no secret Arsenal have a set piece coach. When you look at how that [Luiz’s goal] was worked, it was worked brilliantly,” he told Premier League Productions as quoted by Football London.
“You can see that Lacazette was there to clear out the space and pin their best header of the ball which is Jonny Evans.
‘And that is the space where you see David Luiz definitely waiting for the space to be cleared. The ball has to be pinpoint and it’s fantastic. That’s why you get a set piece coach, to get those things working on the training pitch.”
The Gunners now have another weapon in their arsenal and they will hope to employ it to their advantage in as many games as possible.
I’m not yet convinced we need a separate coach for set pieces. Just one goal so far this season from our investment in the new set-piece coach. Not so sure if this is a good investment or waste of money. And what will be next – a corner kick coach, a penalty kick coach, back kick, goal kick, throw in coach…get the idea?
yes corner-kick coach needed first….
corner kicks, penalty kicks are set-pieces, defending corners, attacking corners, etc all fall under set pieces. Free-kicks all fall under set pieces. So the coach might decide to run a play when the ball is in a stationary position, i.e. free-kick,
Dodgy one. So far there has been little return from set pieces. Mostly our corners have been terrible with nether William nor Saka being anywhere near as good as Ozil. Also success from free kicks has been few and far between. I guess a set pieces coach is also there to prepare against opposition set pieces so what happened when Holding got caught napping for the Man City goal. My report card this season on the set piece coach would read ” important job but must do better”.
Apart from thins one time, our set pieces have been awful to say the least. Most of the times they have been so bad that it wasn’t even worth taking them.