Why are Swindon Town conceding from so many corners?

Swindon Town have conceded from four corners in four games to all but rule themselves out of the play-off picture, so what is going wrong? Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at why set pieces have become a sudden Achilles heel.

After conceding four goals in the space of three weeks and costing Swindon seven points and likely putting them out of the play-off chase, corners have become a major issue for Jody Morris.

The most puzzling thing about this recent spate of set piece goals is that prior to Town’s trip to Brisbane Road, defending set pieces had largely been a strength.

Swindon had conceded eight goals from set piece situations all season, giving them the joint-fifth best record in the division and on route to a 2-1 win against Northampton Town in December, Swindon withstood 15 corners without crumbling.

Now all of a sudden it is the hot button topic and Town’s zonal marking system has come in for a lot of criticism, Michael Cox hasn’t been able to show his face in Old Town for weeks.

This problem is not new to Jody Morris as it also plagued him at Chelsea and Derby County, Chelsea conceded the second most from such situations in Europe’s top five leagues in 2019/20, although Swindon have been using the same tactic all season and so it is not really a Morris issue.

To try and understand what is going wrong, first let us look into how Swindon look to defend corners.

Using this example from the Doncaster Rovers game, Swindon place six defenders along the edge of the six-yard box and three are committed to man mark the forwards (Jake Cain would normally be in the middle but is defending against the corner being taken short).

All season long, this system has essentially dared opposition teams to play a perfect cross into the six-yard box, which simultaneously evades the defenders and Sol Brynn, betting against League Two sides having James Ward-Prowse and being able to the land the ball on a butterfly’s back in the penalty box.

If the opposition looks to play the ball to the near post, they have to get the ball over Jonny Williams (who has fulfilled this role all season) and two others at the near post without it going too close to Brynn.

If the opposition look to play to the back post, then they risk giving Swindon’s keeper another easy catch, a back post defender heading the ball away or overhitting the delivery.

In essence, the margin for success for a League Two-level set piece taker is rather slim.

Whilst many have said that the zonal marking is the issue, marking zonally is a good way of mitigating against having a smaller team as you get rid of one-v-one matchups, which Town would have a big disadvantage in, and force teams to play into the small areas where you are vulnerable rather than expecting bigger players to win individual duals like a man marking system relies upon.

The safety blanket in this plan is Frazer Blake-Tracy at the back post, the 27-year-old wins 70.44% of his aerial duals which is 9th in League Two (and it is not relevant but just for fun Ronan Darcy ranks second last with 5.26%).

It is not a coincidence that these goals started going in after he got injured, but looking at the goals conceded they cannot all be put down to his absence.

When looking at where he lines up for corners, Leyton Orient definitely targeted this as Blake-Tracy lines up in line with the back post and the corner is delivered almost exactly where he would have been standing and then Dylan Kadji simply does not track Omar Beckles to compound this, as the other two defenders at the far post are being physically occupied by forwards.

Although in this game Leyton Orient had 12 corners, over double the average number Swindon concede, and this only happening once seems like good defending when you consider what came afterwards.

The Carlisle United winner is also a scenario where Blake-Tracy likely helps matters, but it is also exceptionally well worked from the Cumbrians, who are the second best in League Two at scoring from set pieces.

Morgan Feeney and Jon Mellish both run from outside the far post as the corner is about to be taken to block Tom Brewitt and force Tom Clayton and Luke Jephcott to follow their runs, thinking they had all gone inside, whilst this happens Ryan Edmondson, who was stood inside Feeney and Mellish, peels off behind them and has an easy finish.

Gutting, but in the cold light of day, very well drawn up and executed.

The other two corners are both delivered to the near post, so Blake-Tracy, try as he probably would, is not stopping them from going in and both should have been dealt with on the field without him.

The opener against Carlisle should have been meat and drink as Charlie Austin gets a free header on an under hit ball to the near post, but his confused header against his own crossbar exposes the main flaw of this tactic.

On almost every corner, Swindon will end up with ten players around their own six-yard box and one further forward waiting for a counter attack, this means that if the ball breaks suddenly, like it does in this instance, then it is tough for them to react quickly to the ball falling to the edge of the box, where Jack Armer hits a superb strike into the top corner. Fortuitous and fantastic in equal measure.

This was also a problem that went unpunished a few times against Rochdale as Swindon won the first contact, but Dale got it back on the edge of the area.

This is a flaw, but a fair compromise, as to stop this happening you would have one less defender defending the original cross and that would make it easier for teams in the first phase and most of the time Swindon can react to the ball falling to the edge of the box, the Carlisle goal is the first time this has been punished.

Against Rochdale, Town have altered the shape slightly and have moved the first defender closer to the goal, probably due to wanting to take fewer chances in stoppage time, but it gives Rochdale more room to deliver a ball in at the near post.

This passive mindset carries over when the ball comes in as no one at the front post attacks the ball, Austin is caught watching the ball for a split-second and allows Ian Henderson to use his body to block him off and then has a free head at goal from three yards out.

Typically, this means that there is no singular reason for the sudden inability to stop dead balls as you have four very different goals that were conceded and so there is a degree of things happening in quick succession making them look like a bigger problem than in reality.

Therefore there is no quick fix beyond the rather non-technical explanation of just do better as this zonal solution has proven to be a very effective way of dealing with set pieces.

It is natural to want to scrap everything when things go wrong, but man marking would be a largely suicidal approach with Swindon’s personnel as most teams will have bigger players and would thus have the advantage of winning the header on any given cross, whereas with the current set-up the cross has a much higher bar to clear and there should always be multiple defenders on hand to deal with dangerous balls.

It will have to be a case of putting extra work in on the training ground to get the players more prepared to step up when it counts and avoid these costly errors.