Millwall not scoring as many set-piece goals – with boss Gary Rowett giving his verdict
Millwall are 18th in a Championship table for set-piece goals – but manager Gary Rowett reckons there have been no tweaks to their approach which has delivered so much success in the past.
The Lions have always been a huge threat from deadball situations but have only scored four times via that route in the 2020-21 season.
Cardiff lead the way with 13 – comfortably ahead of Reading and Luton (both eight).
“Adam [Barrett, assistant manager] would’ve done most of the work last year on that side and Adam is doing most of the work this year along with Joe [Carnall, technical coach],” said Rowett.
“They are doing similar things. We’ve never been overly intricate with our set-piece routine because we have got people like Coops and Hutch that usually attack the ball really, really well anyway.
“Certainly other teams have worked a lot harder to stop us and defending a lot better than they did last year. And I don’t think the delivery has been as consistent.
“It is something we need to continue to work on. But I can look back and remember Hutchy hitting the crossbar and three or four chances where we’ve had a header in the middle of the goal from set-piece chances.
“Coops had a few against Forest and there was one where he got his body shape wrong and the ball hit his shin.
“At the moment we haven’t been as clinical or confident in those areas and it’s something we need to get back to.
“If you look at last season then something like one in three of our goals were scored from set-pieces. In terms of chances from open play last season we were pretty much bottom three – this year we’ve been in the top six. So we have had a hell of a lot more chances from open play.
“The fact we haven’t scored as many set-piece goals is something we have to consider and keep working on. But I don’t think there is anything obvious, in terms of what we were doing last season and what we’re doing this season.
“I’ve always said we need goals from everywhere.”
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