Town boss Kieran McKenna admits his side have to get better at set plays and it’s an area which will be worked on intensively during pre-season training, however, he played down the likelihood of a dedicated set-piece coach being appointed, even if he is planning further additions to his staff in the summer.
Since McKenna took over in mid-December James Norwood’s winner in his first game against Wycombe came indirectly from a throw into the area but no other set pieces have resulted in goals.
"It’s definitely a massive area and you’re right to address it and it’s something that we’re very aware of,” McKenna said when asked about set plays at last night’s Fans’ Forum.
"I can’t go through the record before I arrived, but it’s 16 games since I’ve been here that we haven’t scored a set play and I would say it’s borderline impossible to get out of this division with that record on set plays.
"Normally across the course of football above 25 per cent of goals usually come from set plays and I believe in this division it’s even higher.
"It’s a massive area that we need to make improvements on. In a way I see that as a positive - what we’ve done so far we’ve done it without scoring set plays.
"So if we can add that to our artillery then I think we can be a different threat as a team. It’s something we need to work on.
"It’s all aspects for me, set plays. It can be a recruitment issue, it can be bringing in players who are good set-piece deliverers, who are set-piece threats. That can be one part of it.
"It’s definitely a coaching issue, it’s developing those skills within the players that we have to develop our set-piece takers to get a more consistent delivery and the type of deliveries that we want and also it’s an area that we need to develop in our players.
"We need to be more of a penalty box threat in general but certainly on set plays we need to carry more penalty box threat.
"It’s an area that we’re working on with the players ever more so at the moment and an area we’re going to invest a huge amount of time on going forward, and certainly into pre-season with the squad.
"In terms of a specialised set-piece coach. I think that is one avenue in football that is growing in the game. I don’t think it’s necessarily a unique skill point.
"I think the line between a set-piece coach and a football coach is very thin, it’s a similar skillset that you need in a lot of aspects.
"I feel that we have good experience in the staff in that area. Our defensive record from set plays, much as I say we haven’t scored one, I think we’ve conceded one, although it was a very wounding goal, but the goal at Oxford was the only set piece that we’ve conceded as well.
"It was a very good one, a good delivery and a good header, so it’s not by accident and they’ve done that over the course of the season and it’s part of the reason they’ve scored so many goals.
"It’s not by accident, it’s something that needs to be worked on. I feel like we have a lot of those skillsets in the staff at the moment.
"I am going to add to the coaching staff over the summer and development of set plays is something that I’m going to look at and work very hard on within the coaching staff to ensure that we can develop the players in that area and also it will be part of our recruitment thinking towards the summer, bringing in players who can help us become a more dangerous team on the attacking set plays and more solid on defensive set plays.
"You’re very right to address it. It’s an area of the team that is an immediate area we can improve and I take that as a positive challenge and I look at that and think if we can develop that area of the team, then our capabilities as a team is going to be much, much higher.”