Set-pieces do matter.
In the modern game, organisation and fitness are at peak levels. Opposition scouting is that meticulous everyone knows how each other plays. Then there’s regimented patterns of approach.
It often becomes a cancel out culture.
So you need something different. And that’s where set-pieces – corners, free-kicks, throws – come into it.
It’s often said that you need to be strong in both boxes to be successful in football, at whatever level.
And the statistics from 2025/26 showed that the teams topping the four divisions in England were all the most productive at corners.
Champions Coventry City tallied 29 set-piece goals alongside Southampton and ranked joint top for fewest conceded with 12.
In the Premier League, 30 per cent of the goals came from set-pieces, with corners specifically accounting for 19 per cent – the highest mark ever recorded.
Blues were not as bad as were often made out last season at corners and free-kicks. Their routines were varied and once they had tightened up and sorted out the zonal approach at defensive corners that malfunctioned early on, their return was decent.
Blues scored 16 goals from set-pieces – the league average – and conceded 17, and in terms of XG, they ranked fourth in the Championship for defensive corners and chance quality allowed was joint best.
So it wasn’t all that bad.
Yet the club and Chris Davies want more.
Step in Scott Fry, who was appointed as Blues first ever set-piece coach.
Fry, 33, joined from Rangers but it was at Lincoln City where he made his mark, turning the Imps into masters of the air.
In their last two seasons Lincoln scored 30 goals from set-pieces and the former Wolves head of academy goalkeeping was instrumental in that.
They marched to the League One title last season, amassing 103 points, and claimed to have recorded the best differential between set-piece goals scored and conceded across Europe’s top domestic divisions.
In many respects it was the ideal scenario for a set-piece coach at Lincoln. The club, knowing they can’t compete budget-wise for the best quality players, construct their squad around those who have prowess at dead ball situations and tactically arrange themselves so that set-piece is king.
They invested £10,000 on Insight Sport, an AI tool that analyses thousands of set-pieces from around the world, and use the results accordingly to devise routines and influence team selection and training.
Fry originally joined Lincoln in 2022 as goalkeeper coach, before making the transition to set-piece coach.
Danny Rohl took him to Ranger last November and Fry made an immediate impact. They registered more set-piece goals than any other team in the Scottish Premiership over the period to the season’s end.
Responsibility for Blues set-pieces had been with assistant manager Ben Petty and Jonathan Grounds, who became first team development coach in October 2024.
Grounds had been assisting Steve Spooner at under-21 level and then performed a hybrid development role designed at helping younger players bridge the gap to first team football at the beginning of 2024/25 before joining Davies’ staff, with an eventual brief for set-pieces.
Blues, as a team, have got bigger and that should be music to Fry’s ears.
And they also have players with good dead ball delivery, like Paik Seung-ho, Kai Wagner, Demarai Gray and Patrick Roberts.
The ability to place a ball into the desired area is important.
So much so that in years gone by, Blues went through a stage that saw full-backs Martin Grainger and Gary Rowett whip in vicious inswingers as a tactic from corners, they were that good at it.
But another key to successful set-piece returns is understanding your opposition strengths and weaknesses, and preparing accordingly, as much as it is designing novel routines.
And, now, with a designated specialist in place, you would imagine Blues effectiveness should improve on the back of Fry sharpening up the scouting report analytics and interpretation of the data to fit specific needs.
