Aston Villa are one of the best in the Premier League at scoring from set-piece situations.
The brains behind it all is Austin MacPhee, a man brought in by Dean Smith, he worked under Steven Gerrard and then stayed on when Unai Emery arrived.
It needs to be noted that when Emery became Villa’s manager, he got rid of all of Gerrard’s coaching staff and even members of the medical team.
There was an overhaul, but the man who stayed and survived was MacPhee, with his ability to work wonders from dead-ball situations winning over the new Villa manager.
Fast forward to the present and it has played a key role in the Midlands side being so successful and dangerous, especially from dead-ball situations.
Already this season, Aston Villa have scored three goals from corners, including from a free-kick against Leicester and straight from a throw against Wolves at the weekend.
Amadou Onana has benefited from Villa’s set-piece prowess because he has two goals to his name from that situation.
Whilst Aston Villa’s first goal back in the Champions League came after a well-worked corner, which was slotted home by Youri Tielemans.
And now Rio Ferdinand has shared what MacPhee told him about the work the team go through to perfect all of this.
To nobody’s surprise, Ferdinand shared that MacPhee spends ‘two and a half hours’ a week on set pieces with the team, as he told Ferdinand Presents.
Aston Villa spend two-and-a-half hours on set-pieces
“I spoke to the fellow who does it at Aston Villa (Austin MacPhee),” said Ferdinand. “And they scored one the other day, Tielemans, I think, scored against Young Boys.
“And I think they spend about two, two and a half hours a week on set pieces.”
Aston Villa’s technical players
Emery is very blessed to have several players who are highly skilled from dead-ball situations that even Douglas Luiz isn’t a miss.
Luiz was Villa’s main guy at set-pieces, but his transfer to Juventus has just allowed Tielemans and McGinn to play more of a key role.
Plus, the summer arrival of Onana has made the team more dangerous because his ariel quality has made Villa far more dangerous.
