Champions League: Manchester City and Chelsea prove set pieces are too important to overlook

Chelsea, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Paris Saint Germain – Four titans of Europe came together in the Champions League semi-finals to battle it out for a place in the biggest final in club football.

With world class stars like Neymar, Mbappe, De Bruyne, as well as Benzema, Kante and co. we would have been forgiven for expecting intricate passing moves leading to easy-on-the-eye goals.

In reality, although both semi-finals first legs were entertaining, both were decided by set pieces. Both Chelsea and City head into the second leg with loads of confidence but both semis, are far from decided.

Out of the five goals in the Champions League semis, four of them came from dead-ball situations. This is just to highlight its importance and its impact in the Premier League cannot be overlooked.

Who are the best at set-pieces?

All English Premier League

Much has been made of the form of Craig Dawson and Tomas Soucek for West Ham this year and a great deal of their influence for the Hammers has come from dead-ball situations.

It will therefore come as no surprise that West Ham have scored the most set-piece goals in the Premier League this season with 12.

Chelsea, Everton and Manchester United are next, with 7 each. That means that the top four set-piece scorers in the Premier League this season are all in the top eight and have all had great seasons thus far.

But attacking set pieces are just half the story and interestingly on the defensive side of things Chelsea, Man City and West Ham have conceded the fewest goals from dead balls this season, with just five between all of them.

Who are the worst at set-pieces?

Given how successful the top set-piece performers have been this season, it’s easy to assume that the worst would be hanging around the bottom of the table. That’s actually not the case.

Although bottom half sides Leeds, Brighton and Sheffield United rank the lowest for set-piece goals conceded, they are closely followed by Leicester City, Man United and Tottenham.

Leicester and Sheffield United also rank among the worst sides for scoring from set-pieces, where they’re joined by Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United.

So are set pieces still important to the game that has evolved so much over the years?

It’s clear that the teams who are the best at set-pieces are doing better in the Premier League right now, but not every team near the top of the table focuses on them.

Liverpool, for example, rank pretty much slap bang in the middle with four goals conceded and four goals scored from dead balls. The Anfield side hasn’t had their best year so far, but they’re still a top Premier League team.

Leicester have proved that teams can actually be bad at set-pieces and still get success, having settled in third place in the league despite the fact they’re one of the worst at scoring from and conceding from dead balls. But just think where they could be if they sorted that out?

Nine of England’s twelve World Cup 2018 goals came from set-pieces and yet there remains an idea that they’re somewhat out of date and unfashionable. There’s almost a reluctance to focus too much on that side of the game.

The Champions League has proved they still have their place in football and we’ll be seeing their impact in the Premier League for a long time to come.