Set-piece forensics
The Dead Ball Lab
Set pieces are the sport’s cheapest xG — no press to beat, no block to unpick, just a rehearsed delivery into a crowded box. This page measures the whole economy from 16,721 corners and 12,375 attacking free-kick deliveries: which clubs manufacture it (at the extreme, over a third of a club’s non-penalty xG), which concede it, and who actually puts the ball on the money.
The set-piece economy
Every club’s dependency on the dead ball, both ways: the share of its non-penalty xG created from set pieces against the share it concedes. — lean hardest on set pieces (— of everything they create), while — concede the fattest slice (—). League averages run —. Penalties are excluded throughout.
Set-piece dependency — created vs conceded
% of non-penalty xG from set pieces · for (→) vs against (↑) · one crest per club
More set-piece economics
| Club | Lg | SP xG for | Share for | SP xG agst | Share agst | SP goals F | SP goals A | Corner xG | Indirect xG | Direct FK xG |
|---|
The takers
Who stands over the dead ball, and where they put it. Every qualifying taker (≥ 10 corners or attacking free-kick deliveries), ranked by corner volume — click a name to load their delivery maps. Corner deliveries are plotted by end point: filled marks arrived at a team-mate, hollow marks were lost, a ring means the delivery produced a shot, and the ink marks are goal assists.
| Taker | Team | Corners | Comp % | Left | Right | Att. FKs | SP shot assists | SP goal assists |
|---|
Corner deliveries
delivery end points on the attacking half · attack up · L/R = corner side taken from
Attacking free-kick deliveries
end points of free kicks taken from x ≥ 35 into x ≥ 60 · attack up
First contact
Where a club’s set-piece shots actually meet the goal mouth: every recorded placement, drawn against the calibrated goal frame. Filled marks went in; hollow marks didn’t. The frame itself is empirical — the posts and bar are the min/max goal-mouth coordinates of every on-target shot this season.
First contact — goal-mouth placement
goal-mouth width (→) × height (↑), WhoScored goal-mouth units · filled = goal, hollow = no goal
1 Shot→delivery linking is minute-window approximate: a team’s set-piece shot at minute m is linked to that team’s corner (or attacking free-kick delivery) at minute m or m−1, corners winning ties. Treat the corner/free-kick tag on each placement as indicative, not gospel.