A persistent Leicester City concern is threatening to surface once more, with improvements needed to ensure it does not become an expensive setback.
While Oxford’s second goal last weekend was somewhat unlucky from a City standpoint, Ben Davies’ header bouncing off Boubakary Soumare to wrongfoot Jakub Stolarczyk highlighted the perils that can emerge from set-pieces. With so many players crowding the box, deflections are frequent.
To prevent such risks, City must get their head to the ball first, and that’s what they’re failing to do right now. After five matches, Opta data shows they’ve allowed 32 shots from set-pieces, the most in the Championship.
Defending corners and free-kicks has been a long-standing weakness for City. Back in 2021-22, it wrecked City’s campaign. It cost them a place in Europe and a berth in the Europa Conference League final.
It became such a dominant talking point that, late in the season, City’s own supporters cheered sarcastically whenever their team successfully cleared an opponent’s corner.
In the years since, City have had so many other problems or successes that it slipped under the radar.
They improved marginally in their first relegation season after the appointment of Lars Knudsen as set-piece coach, conceding six fewer goals in the Premier League from dead-ball situations but still ranking in the division’s bottom six.
In their last Championship campaign, City were so strong in attack that any defensive frailties didn’t cause major issues. But they still weren’t solid.
Thirteen set-piece goals were surrendered, with only seven teams allowing more from dead-ball situations. That’s despite City having to defend the second-fewest number of corners in the league.
Last season, the first under current set-piece coach Andrew Hughes, they weren’t terrible, at least in the grand picture. They conceded 11 set-piece goals, and while that was still below par as the eighth-worst total in the league, there were far bigger defensive problems.
But with the trend of this season so far, it appears to be a concern again. And with Coventry visiting this weekend, it should have been addressed at Seagrave this week. Only Oxford have registered more shots from set-pieces than the Sky Blues this term.
Even before the Oxford fixture, Marti Cifuentes should have recognised it was something to fix, with City giving away a series of opportunities from set-pieces at Charlton.
Asked if it was something to focus on after that clash at the Valley, Cifuentes said: “100 per cent. Even though our identity will be trying to have the ball and trying to play high up the pitch, we need to be good in all areas of the game. So that’s how we counter, how we defend low.
“Today we defended excellently in a low block but at set-pieces Charlton is a good team and they created more than what we should have allowed them.”