FPL: All you want to know about set pieces

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Today's topic

It's been a while since I properly looked at set pieces. So, I'm gonna fix that now.

Which teams are the most vulnerable?

Which are the most effective?

Who are the most frequent takers?

You know the drill.

Which teams are the most dangerous?

Let's begin with a timeless one.

The total xG from all set pieces:

Everton? Wow. The gap between them and the rest of the league is mindblowing. They create a huge volume of chances, and they convert them. James Tarkowski is already on 16 attempts solely from corners, meaning only two other players have recorded more.

West Ham are ranked 9th overall, but since December (sample size of 12-13 games, depending on the team), they have struggled to create much from them and scored just one set-piece goal.

On the other hand, Everton continue to shine with 8.54 xG created and 9 goals scored, comfortably the most in that period. Villa, Arsenal, Wolves, and Luton are joint second with 6 goals scored in the last three months.

Since they are 4th best (!) defence according to the non-penalty expected goals conceded metric, there are a lot of opportunities to play both Tarkowski and Branthwaite in the upcoming game weeks. Both WHU and mun are great match-ups.

Arsenal’s defence is perfect lately, plus they offer a huge aerial threat, so Gabriel is non-negotiable for the rest of the season. Even the defensive double-up is completely fine.

Which teams are the most vulnerable?

The total xG from all set pieces CONCEDED:

You can quite well expect that the defences, which generally allow a high volume of dangerous opportunities, will also concede many chances from set-pieces, which is the case for Burnley, Sheffield United, Luton Town, West Ham or Fulham. Nothing too fancy there, these are the defences to target in general.

What stands out is Villa being poor in defending set pieces, although it’s not entirely surprising given that they are ranked 2nd worst in success rate in the defensive aerial duels this season.

I touched on this topic in my FPL Blank Gameweek 26 preview on X/Twitter, where I labelled Villa's defence as “trappy”, and they indeed confirmed my thoughts by allowing 2.15 xG to Nottingham Forest. With Pau Torres (£4.6m) coming off at half-time…

Although it was more of a precaution, Boubacar Kamara is reportedly out for the season, and both Diego Carlos and Ezri Konsa are struggling with injuries lately. It doesn’t look very good.

Which teams are the most effective from corners?

Measured by xG per one corner:

From these, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Arsenal, and Fulham are teams with a high volume of corners.

Everton's volume is quite low in comparison with the best, but they are so damn effective it doesn't matter. They have already scored 10 goals from corners, just one less than Arsenal.

Which teams concede the most corners per game on average?

Sheffield United, Manchester United, Tottenham, Burnley, Nottingham Forest, Everton, West Ham, Wolves, Brentford, Bournemouth, in that order.

You see, there's a strong correlation with the total xG conceded from ALL set-pieces.

Standout corner kick takers

We are so deep into the season, so you're probably well aware of this, but to get a full picture:

Share of the total number of long corners taken:

• Kieran Trippier - 94.25%

• James Ward-Prowse - 89.22%

• Andreas Pereira - 75.45%

• Morgan Gibbs-White - 73.81%

• Alfie Doughty - 71.11%

• Pascal Groß - 70.64%

• Bruno Fernandes - 60.50%

• Gustavo Hamer - 60.49%

• Pedro Porro - 56.19%

• Julián Álvarez - 53.97%

• Bukayo Saka - 47.50%

• Douglas Luiz - 46.90%

And the bonus one.

Players with the highest number of attempts from long corner kicks. Do you own Virgil van Dijk against Nottingham Forest? Well, a fun game awaits you.

• Virgil van Dijk - 26

• Lewis Dunk - 19

• James Tarkowski - 16

• Gabriel - 13

• Christian Nørgaard - 13

• Dara O'Shea - 11

• Dominic Solanke - 10

• Carlton Morris - 10

• Ollie Watkins - 9

• Craig Dawson - 8

How can you use this information in FPL?

Essentially, every time you face a close decision.

This might be:

a) figuring out who to captain
b) deciding who to play/bench
c) sorting bench order

And, of course, when you assess fixture difficulty.