Barnsley 2019/2020: Their Set Pieces Under Gerhard Struber Tactics – Set Piece Analysis

Gerhard Struber arrived at Barnsley from Wolfsberger AC, having previously secured a third-placed finish for the Austrian side and gaining impressive results in the Europa League this season.

Despite this, he arrived as a virtual unknown at Barnsley, having previously analysed Struber and his Wolfsberger AC side in the November edition of the TFA magazine.

Among many of the tactics discussed in the article, one thing that did stand out when analysing his Wolfsberger AC side was their focus on set pieces and the number of goals that were scored from them.

This trait appears to have been passed on to Barnsley, who are starting to achieve success from set-pieces and have a number of routines and concepts that are utilised within their set-pieces.

Having watched every corner under Struber this season, this tactical analysis will examine some of the best set-piece routines used by Barnsley so far this season and analyse them.

Intelligent blocking and runs from deep

A common strategy in set pieces in order to lose man markers and create space is to block the path of an opponent.

This involves one player making a move into the path of an opponent in order to allow a teammate to have a clear path towards space.

This is a strategy that has been used often by Barnsley, particularly involving runners from deep positions.

However, for blocking to be effective, space must be created elsewhere, and it isnt as simple as just blocking opponents.

Several variables are evident, as illustrated in the example below.

Here, Barnsley (pictured in blue) position their players in a deep fairly central area.

With the opposition taking a man-marking approach, the shape of the opposition is effectively decided by the attacking team, and so when Barnsley start towards the edge of the box, the opposition push up higher with them.

With an inswinging corner, the two players highlighted make quick diversion runs inwards towards the goal.

Meanwhile, the player furthest left in the image stays still, for now, checking his shoulder for the players behind him who are the actual targets of the delivery.

When the ball is delivered, the player then moves behind, making a blocking run for the marker of the player in behind him.

With the blockers marker focused on the blocker still, the opposition can no longer mark this player at the back post, and so if the delivery is good there is space free at the back post.

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