How much time do you spend on training set pieces (restarts)? The reason I ask is that there are numerous studies that quote anywhere up to 42% of all goals are as a result of a set piece. If that is true, then should we be spending more time training set pieces.
I guess we need to partition this and say that if you are coaching young players, then really little or no time should be spent on training set pieces...apart from some basic ideas for throw-ins and corners maybe. But as the players get older and competition becomes more of an important part of their development, then more emphasis could be put on training set pieces.
But college players and pro's where winning is more important might want to spend more time training set pieces.
So is it worth spending let's say 20% of the training time working on set pieces? Is that anywhere near the time you spend? Talking to coaches on a regular basis, most of them will spend time during the pre-season and maybe early on in the season putting some set pieces in place. But then barely practice them again apart from the occasional brush up.
When I asked a coach at an EPL team why he did this, his response was something like it didn't make sense practicing them constantly or until they got them right regularly (by scoring a goal), because it depended on how the other team defended it and most of all depended on how good the delivery of the cross/pass/shot was. In other words, they could practice a corner 20 times and the player taking the kick might only deliver the perfect cross 2 or 3 times. So as long as the players knew their roles in the set peices, that was the main thing.
So, how much time do you put into training set pieces? How often do you practice them? Do you do anything special to practice them?
