Chelsea have appointed Austin MacPhee as their new set-piece coach, with the Scot put straight to work by head coach Xabi Alonso just hours after the club confirmed his arrival during their pre-season tour of Hong Kong.
Chelsea triggered a release clause worth just under £1million to land MacPhee from Aston Villa, and he flew out at the weekend to join the Blues' squad in the city, where he led set-piece drills at the Kai Tak Stadium while Alonso worked separately with his forwards on attacking shape.
MacPhee strode around the packed penalty area with a notepad in one hand, pointing and gesturing while players crowded around him, a sign of the trust Alonso already appears to be placing in his new dead-ball coach.
Chelsea's set-piece problem
The move comes after a frustrating period for Chelsea at set-pieces, both in attack and defence, under previous set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva, who joined from Brentford two years ago. Alonso has since shunted Cueva to a new analyst role away from the training pitch.
Only West Ham United and Leeds United conceded more Premier League goals from corners than Chelsea last season. They repeatedly conceded the same type of goal, with a corner or free-kick flicked on at the near post and tapped in at the back stick by an unmarked player, a pattern that recurred in their most recent pre-season friendly against Western Sydney Wanderers.
Villa's numbers under MacPhee
Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur were the only two clubs to score more goals from corners than Villa last season. Since MacPhee took charge of Villa's set-pieces ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, they have scored 72 goals from dead-ball situations, excluding penalties, a tally bettered only by Liverpool and Arsenal. Chelsea scored 14 fewer over the same period.
Those 72 goals made up 25 per cent of Villa's total non-penalty goals, the highest proportion among ever-present Premier League clubs behind only Everton. In the 2023-24 season alone, only Bayer Leverkusen scored more set-piece goals, excluding penalties, across Europe's big five leagues. Last season, Villa's set-piece goal difference in the league was plus four, joint-fourth in the division, while Chelsea's was minus three.
An NFL playbook of set-pieces
What set Villa apart under MacPhee was the variety of their routines rather than a single repeated tactic, unlike England's "Love Train" method from the 2018 World Cup, when players stood in a line before darting off so Harry Maguire could head the ball. Villa's approach was closer to an NFL playbook, with a host of different moves tailored to the opposition and specific instructions for each player. MacPhee is said to be so thorough that he sends players home with animations of their individual movements after training.
One of the most memorable examples was Youri Tielemans' opener in the Europa League final. Lucas Digne played a short corner from the left to Morgan Rogers, who floated the ball into the box, and Tielemans, who had started the move alone 30 yards from goal, bent his run to meet it and volleyed home.
Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez did not join his team-mates' celebrations, instead making straight for MacPhee, who was mobbed by every player on the bench.
Rogers and McGinn moments
Rogers, the provider that night, scored a similar goal of his own in Villa's 4-2 win over Liverpool in May. Digne played a corner deep to John McGinn, roughly 40 yards from goal, who returned the ball to Digne out wide. That pass drew Liverpool defender Milos Kerkez across to close down Digne, leaving Rogers unmarked inside the box. Digne slipped the ball inside to Rogers, who turned and curled it into the top corner.
MacPhee's routines have also helped Villa's long-range shooting by getting their best strikers of the ball into good positions. Against Manchester United, McGinn scored a free-kick after MacPhee had positioned Leon Bailey behind goalkeeper Andre Onana. Bailey began singing to distract Onana before running away as McGinn struck the ball past the goalkeeper.
The Leicester masterclass
A video posted on YouTube shows MacPhee breaking down a free-kick routine Villa used to score against Leicester City, including the training-ground rehearsals, the players' roles and a graphic mapping out the intended move. In the routine, Tielemans feigned a dink into the box before instead slipping the ball to Jacob Ramsey, who ran from deep into the penalty area and squared it for Amadou Onana to tap in.
The presentation also showed a Villa player shoving a Leicester defender back in the goalmouth scrum, positioning so that Ezri Konsa would have been onside had Tielemans instead dinked the ball to the far post. In the end it was not needed, as Villa scored from their first option.
MacPhee's coaching journey
Before Villa, MacPhee worked at FC Midtjylland, a Danish club now renowned for its own set-piece work, and at Hearts, and had spells with the national teams of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Portugal.
It was under Michael O'Neill at Northern Ireland that MacPhee was first given responsibility for set-pieces. The team scored 11 goals from dead-ball situations in ten games to qualify for Euro 2016, where they went on to reach the last 16. Chelsea will hope MacPhee can have a similarly immediate impact at Stamford Bridge.
