Scottish Premiership 2023/24: Dundee’s dominance at attacking corners – set-piece analysis

Dundee sit in seventh place in the Scottish Premiership with 21 points from 16 matches, scoring 20 goals which puts them in fifth place in that department while conceding 23 goals ??? meaning they also have the fifth-best defence, knowing that they played only 16 matches at the time of writing with others playing 19 or 18 matches.

Despite these average level numbers, Dundee showed a sweeping superiority over their rivals in attacking set pieces, as they are the top scorers from set pieces in the Scottish Premiership with 11 goals from the highest expected goals in the league, which is estimated at 8.64, knowing that their closest competitor is Heart of Midlothian scoring only six goals from XG equal to 5.59.

One of the most distinctive things about Dundee is the offensive corner kicks, as they are the highest goalscorers from corner kicks in the league with six goals out of a total of 20 goals, meaning that their percentage of goals from corners is 30 % of their total goals, which is a considerable number.

In this tactical analysis, we will discuss Dundees different tactics in the offensive corner kicks, showing how diverse they are using several tactics that achieve the principle of variation to surprise the opponent.

The area after the far post

The first tactic we will explain is targeting the area after the far post. Firstly, we need to know two things: why and how they target this area.

They target this far area to be far away from the zonal players, against zonal or hybrid systems, and also to easily win the first contact against man markers, against man-marking and hybrid systems, by causing an orientation problem to the markers because it is difficult to keep tracking the ball and the attacker at the same time over this long distance the ball takes, especially when they use outswinging and floated crosses.

This outswinging floated cross below takes a long time to land while the ball moves from out to in, so lets track the targeted player and his marker, highlighted below, to know exactly what the problem is.

In the first photo below, the defender takes a look at the attacker he marks as the taker touches the ball.

When the taker touches the ball, the attacker moves towards the ball, so the defender goes in this direction, which is good for him because he can take a look at the ball while raising his hands to prevent him from going to the near post.

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