Leeds United are set to hand Daniel Farke the difference-maker he wanted all summer
Set-pieces are becoming an increasingly important focus for Premier League teams including Leeds United.
Daniel Farke never got his difference-maker in the transfer window’s final days but could see Leeds United’s attacking threat improve significantly with the arrival of a set-piece coach.
Leeds eventually fell short in their attempts to sign a creative winger/No.10 after a deadline-day move for Fulham’s Harry Wilson collapsed due to a change of heart at Craven Cottage. In reality, it never should have been left so late but earlier pursuits of Igor Paixão and Facundo Buonanotte were also unsuccessful. A bad end to a good window, as those inside the club put it.
Farke’s calls for attacking quality were regular throughout the summer and intensified as August arrived. Following Saturday’s 0-0 draw he insisted it would be ‘difficult’ to survive with the current crop but the current crop is what he has until at least January, with Leeds left to weigh up how else to find goals.
With that in mind, the appointment of a set-piece coach makes sense and the YEP understands Leeds are in the process of doing exactly that. A dead-ball specialist never arrived via the transfer market but one in the dugout can at least squeeze every ounce out of an increasingly giant playing squad from free-kicks, corners and long throws.
Heading into the 2025/26 campaign, Leeds were one of just four Premier League teams without a set-piece coach alongside Everton, West Ham and Wolves - at least two of which look set to be relegation rivals. Sunderland and Burnley both have specialists in place, while Bournemouth have separate individuals to lead attacking and defending.
Set-pieces an increasingly important focus for Premier League teams
And there is good reason for such heavy focus. Last season, 215 of a total 1,115 Premier League goals were scored from set-pieces (excluding penalties) according to WhoScored, which is equivalent to 19.3%. During the 2023/24 campaign that share was 19.8% (247 of 1,246) while in 2022/23 it was at 20% (217 of 1,087).
Roughly speaking, one in every five Premier League goals comes from a dead ball and with goals so hard to come by for relegation strugglers, that is a huge portion of their attacking threat which can be focused on. While it is not an exact science, those who finish in the bottom three tend to be among the worst at attacking set-pieces and the worst at defending them.
Last season, only Fulham (four) scored fewer goals from set-pieces than the bottom three of Ipswich Town (six) Southampton and Leicester City (seven each), while all three were also in the bottom half for goals conceded via dead-ball situations. In 2023/24, Luton scored an impressive 15 goals from set-pieces but Sheffield United got just six and no one scored fewer than Burnley’s five, with Nottingham Forest the only side to concede more than any of the eventually relegated trio.
And in a relegation fight, each and every goal could be the difference between 17th and 18th. Leeds dropped points in 31 of their 38 Premier League games during the 2022/23 relegation campaign, with 21 either ending level or being decided by a single goal - a 1-0 or 2-1 defeat, for example. Put simply, a set-piece goal in just four or five of those tight affairs could have bridged the five-point gap to Everton.
A good set-piece coach could be Leeds United’s difference-maker
But will the introduction of a set-piece coach bring those added goals? It certainly has for two of the teams most feared for their dead-ball threat. In preparing for a relegation fight, Leeds are in a similar position to that of Brentford four years ago, with the Bees far inferior in terms of squad quality and financial clout - but with a trick up their sleeve in set-piece coach Andreas Georgson.
Brentford finished 13th in their first ever Premier League campaign and followed it up with a ninth-placed finish the following season. In both, they found goals through dead-ball scenarios with the fourth-most across 2021/22 (15) and the joint-second most a year later (16) - those tallies also equated to around 31% and 28%, respectively, of their total goals scored, a significant increase from the average of around 20%.
Further up the table, Arsenal have arguably become Europe’s most dangerous team from set-pieces and much of it is down to the appointment of specialist Nicolas Jover in 2021. The prior season, Mikel Arteta’s side scored just six goals from dead-ball situations but in the four years since Jover’s arrival, they have averaged 16.5 set-piece goals per campaign.
Of course, for each of those success stories there are examples of appointments that have made little impact, but even the most controlled aspect of a football match cannot produce guaranteed results. The point is about assigning genuine resources to an element of attacking and defending that essentially makes up one-fifth of all goals.
Leeds’ summer squad building was focused on size and physicality to the point it became a joke among fans that someone in recruitment forgot to untick the ‘6ft-plus’ filter. The likes of Jaka Bijol, Anton Stach and Dominic Calvert-Lewin were meant to be complemented by a set-piece specialist, one that never came.
But while Leeds can no longer add a set-piece specialist on the pitch, they can hire one off it. And in what is likely to be a tight relegation battle, a handful of extra goals could be the difference between survival and relegation.