11th Feb 2024 • Written by Haris Armstrong

Palace’s attacking set-pieces: why are they so fruitless?

Crystal Palace have found goals hard to come by this season. In twenty-three Premier League matches, they have found the net just twenty-six times. In eighteen of those matches, they have failed to score more than once. The reasons for this are abundantly clear to all onlookers; the squad lacks the necessary creativity to unlock defences on a regular basis and lacks the firepower to convert opportunities that are conjured.

Therefore, it is no surprise that only four teams have scored fewer goals than the Eagles. They rank sixteenth in terms of ‘Expected Goals’ (xG) and seventeenth for ‘Big Chances Created’ (twenty-seven), with only Sheffield United, Burnley, and Fulham having created fewer.

The remedy to Palace’s scoring woes can be provided by sound recruitment. The solution is obvious. The over-reliance on the attacking output of Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze needs to stop, and further attacking talent must be brought in.

What remains harder to decipher, however, is the squad’s unrelenting struggle to score from set pieces.

On the surface, the problem appears bizarre. Palace have players in Eze and Olise who are technically capable of providing good deliveries. They possess the fifth-tallest squad in the league and have not, until recently, struggled when it comes to defending set pieces and crosses.

Yet, Roy Hodgson’s men remain the only Premier League side yet to score from a corner this season. In fact, aside from Joachim Andersen’s outstanding volley at Old Trafford following an Eze free-kick, Palace have failed to score from a set-piece.

With Palace’s Premier League status well and truly in the balance, answers to this particular problem need to be found quickly.

Are Palace physical enough? 

Given the size of Palace’s squad, it would be reasonable, on first glance, to expect a significantly higher output from attacking set pieces. Of the five tallest teams in the League, three (Newcastle, Tottenham, and Everton) also rank in the top five for set-piece goals. The trend is clear.

However, Palace being statistically classified as one of the Premier League’s tallest squads is deceptive. Aside from Joachim Andersen and Chris Richards, all of Palace’s players who are over 6ft are either not regular starters or not known for their heading prowess.

Two of the squad’s tallest exponents are goalkeepers Sam Johnstone (6'4 inches) and Dean Henderson (6'2 inches). Aside from Andersen and Richards, the only players in receipt of regular minutes that are over 6ft are Odsonne Edouard and Jean-Phillipe Mateta, both of whom cannot be classified as commanding in aerial situations.

Of the Eagles’ outfield players that have made ten or more appearances, the average height is in fact only 5’11. This bears a more realistic portrayal of Palace’s aerial potential.

Height is not everything. Aerial ability and physicality are also significant factors when it comes to providing a goalscoring threat from balls into the box. Palace do not seem to possess these qualities either.

Jordan Ayew’s uncontested header against Brighton and Mateta’s consolation goal against the same opponents in the reverse fixture represent Palace’s only two successful headed efforts to date in the 2023–24 season. That is extremely alarming, especially considering the fact that Palace rank tenth for crosses into the box and the fact that, despite only featuring together on four occasions, either one of Eze or Olise has featured in eighteen of Palace’s twenty-three league matches.

It is hard to recall opportunities in which Palace have even come close to changing this. Both Edouard (33%) and Mateta (47%) have won less than half of their aerial duels. This, perhaps not uncommon for solitary strikers often isolated at the top of the pitch, is amplified by the fact that Palace players with a positive aerial dual success rate, such as Joachim Andersen (65%), Jefferson Lerma (62%), Chris Richards (56%), and Marc Guehi (54%), have not capitalised in an attacking sense.

Physicality is a metric that is extremely hard to measure. The fact that Palace cut lonely figures at the bottom of both set-piece and headed goal charts leads to negative conclusions being drawn regarding their personnel-based aerial ability as well as their vertically-based aerial potential.

Why doesn't Eze and Olise's ability extend to Palace's set-pieces?

The outstanding technical quality consistently shown by both Eze and Olise is impossible to ignore. They seem to possess almost everything.

With Olise in particular, the quality, timing, and weight of his deliveries from the right-hand side are immediately noteworthy. This was perfectly exemplified by his pinpoint cross for Eze’s acrobatic first goal against Sheffield United.

He seems to know exactly when to cut in and deliver in order to create often-unmissable chances for his teammates. His ability to put deliveries on a sixpence is unquestionable.

The same can be said of Eze. Although struggling to replicate the consistency and volume of assists and chance creation as Olise, he possesses the ability and game awareness to play in tight spaces and find teammates in excellent positions at both long and short distances.

These open-play attributes point naturally to the fact that both of their set-piece outputs should be of the same high quality. They, despite both having injury-affected seasons, have taken up 70% of Palace’s corners between them. However, there remains a visible drop-off in the quality of open-play compared to set-piece delivery.

Palace, like fourteen other teams in the division, prefers in-swinging corner deliveries. This, in theory, allows Olise and Eze to generate pace and deliver the ball into areas that can be attacked by on-rushing teammates. In practice, however, far too many deliveries fail to be met by Palace players, and far too many fail to beat the first man.

The 3-2 victory over Sheffield United acts as a perfect case in point for Palace's set-piece woes. It was a game in which Palace dominated for large spells without creating many clear-cut opportunities. In these situations, set pieces become even more important. Being able to convert dead-ball situations into chances and goals would allow Palace to win games like this more comfortably and more often.

In the last nine minutes of the first half, Palace amassed six potentially dangerous attacking set-pieces (five corners and one deep free-kick). From these six set-pieces, Palace, aside from a wayward Ayew long-range strike, failed to generate any meaningful attempt on the Sheffield United goal.

The two corners that were taken by Eze from the left-hand side were taken short and culminated in an over-hit cross and a wayward strike from a distance.

Olise’s three corners and solitary free-kick were all inswinging and delivered at pace. One failed to beat the first man, while the others were short of the desired mark and consequently met by Sheffield United heads. This is despite Andersen, Guehi, and Mateta all freeing themselves from their respective markers and finding room in the box on at least one occasion in this spell.

This points to two issues. Firstly, when the corners are played into the box, they are not put into competitive areas often enough. While the flight and pace of Olise’s deliveries are almost always of high quality, he struggles with consistently placing the ball in line with the penalty spot and ultimately in line with the runs of the Palace players that do manage to break free.

What is also evident from this nine-minute flurry of failed set-pieces is the fact that Palace players in the box are often failing to time and tailor their runs to the oncoming delivery.

In one instance, in added time at the end of the first half, both Andersen and Mateta simultaneously managed to evade their respective markers and found themselves with considerable space in a congested penalty area.

The arc of the Danish centre-back’s run meant he was in an ideal position to latch onto the delivery and test the keeper. However, his own hesitation as well as a lack of movement from Mateta resulted in the Blades’ Vinicius Souza managing to get in between the Palace pair and head the ball clear from danger. Situations like this happen far too often.

Palace only have the crossbar to thank for their three points. Converting from one of their eleven corners would have eased the unwanted tension in a game that they ought to have been comfortable in. In the future, they may not be so lucky.

The options at Hodgson’s disposal are capable of producing more from set-piece situations. Players who have scored and looked a threat in previous seasons now look impotent.

The way that set pieces are being coached may also be a factor.

Set-piece coaching - are Palace missing a trick?

One of the latest footballing trends centres around the introduction of specialist set-piece coaches into Premier League dugouts. Last season, goals from set pieces accounted for almost 30% of all goals scored. Many clubs are now seeing this as an area to target in order to find the coveted marginal gains that can be the difference between success and failure.

Arsenal, among other Premier League clubs, are one of the key exponents of this, and they are reaping the rewards.

Since set-piece coach Nicholas Jover was appointed two seasons ago, Arsenal’s output from set pieces has drastically improved. They now average almost six goals per one hundred corners, compared to just over one in the season prior to his arrival (The Athletic).

Palace fans who were at the Emirates to watch their side be dismantled by Arteta’s men can testify to this improvement firsthand. The utilisation of Gabriel’s strength in the box and the targeting of Chris Richard’s appeared deliberate and, with the help of some poor Palace defending, put Arsenal two goals to the good before they had even started to create chances and stretch Palace.

It is this extra boost in attacking output that Palace is severely missing. With the club’s Premier League status looking more precarious by the game, it could be the difference between survival and relegation.

Modern pieces of coaching ingenuity feel incongruous with the current coaching set-up at Palace. Hodgson’s traditional and immalleable approach to backroom set-up means that Dean Kiely, the club’s goalkeeping coach, is currently in charge of set pieces.

Perhaps with a managerial change not too far away, a younger and more dynamic coach may very well try and implement changes in this department.

A problem very clearly exists. If and when it will change remains unclear.

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