Bruno Fernandes sent over the free-kick from which Joshua Zirkzee scored Manchester United’s equaliser in the 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace - Getty Images/Ash DonelonJames DuckerThu, December 4, 2025 at 6:32 AM UTC·6 min readBack in the summer, Ruben Amorim sat down with his staff, including his principal assistant and key lieutenant Carlos Fernandes, and together they spelt out the importance of Manchester United getting their act together at set-pieces.
Amorim’s introduction to Premier League football had been a baptism of fire in so many regards and nowhere did that feel truer than with set-pieces. “We struggled a lot when we arrived,” the United manager admitted ahead of Thursday’s game at home to West Ham United. “We suffered a lot from set-pieces in our first games here.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementDefensively and offensively, United were routinely found wanting. Not only did they struggle to defend their own penalty area from corners, free-kicks and long throw-ins, they often looked short of ideas about how best to attack the opposition box from set-plays.
Half of the 12 goals United conceded in Amorim’s first seven league games in charge derived from set-pieces, including both goals in a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, and by the end of a torturous season only relegated Southampton, Ipswich Town and Wolverhampton Wanderers had conceded more times from such routines.
Moreover, in 23 of Amorim’s 27 league games in charge, United failed to score from a set-piece, excluding penalties. In fact, they managed just seven goals all told from set-plays and five of those came in back-to-back games against Everton and Ipswich in February when, briefly, it felt like the penny might be dropping.
There was, it was clear, a lot of work to do. And work they have. Amorim revealed after Sunday’s 2-1 win away to Crystal Palace that they had been busy “stealing” ideas from opponents and months of espionage is obviously paying dividends.
Ruben Amorim believes United’s work on set-pieces is starting to pay off - PA/Ian WaltonArsenal may be widely regarded as Europe’s most effective exponents of set-pieces but United have scored as many goals (10) from set-plays as the Premier League leaders this season. Dig a little deeper, though, and United actually have the highest goals per 100 set-pieces rate (10.4) of any Premier League side – and high-quality chances on average with it. Their expected goals (xG) rate of 6.5 per 100 set-pieces is the best in the Premier League this season.
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The improvement is down to a combination of factors, including the extra time the absence of European football has given them on the training ground. But first you need ideas to be able to put into practice and for that Amorim credits the forensic, joined-up approach of Fernandes, first-team performance analyst Kaita Hasegawa and the data team now spearheaded by Michael Sansoni, whom the club recruited from Mercedes F1.
“It’s a group thing – we have improved a lot in that department and that’s nothing to do with me,” said Amorim, who joked he was “really upset” he could not take credit for the upturn.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“We have an analyst, Kaita, doing all the study. We have the data guys that he brought [in] that give us information and then Carlos is doing the research – watching all the opponents, all their movements, watching all our training [sessions], games, what we need to improve. And then we have to prepare specific exercises for him.
“It is not just Carlos, all the guys are doing a massive job. In this league, set-pieces can win you games – or you can lose if you don’t pay attention to them.
“So of course we pay a lot of attention, especially in pre-season but every week to prepare set-pieces for the game. You need to think not just about the way you are going to play but also about set-pieces. They’re massive – sometimes to open the game.”
Amorim would not be drawn on who specifically United have been watching, insisting they were “stealing” ideas from far and wide, although that is only part of the work. Tailoring them to the specific attributes of United’s players and then having the confidence and nous to execute them is much harder.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIndeed, if you take United’s opening goal at Selhurst Park on Sunday, when Joshua Zirkzee scored from Bruno Fernandes’s free-kick, it exposed Palace’s vulnerability towards the near post and bore striking similarities to a routine Sunderland had attempted without success against Oliver Glasner’s side in September. United themselves had even tried something similar in their 2-0 defeat at home to Palace last season – but their execution failed them.
“I’m not going to tell you who we are stealing ideas from,” Amorim said. “It’s from everybody, a lot of smart managers doing a lot of things, and specialists nowadays. So we try to steal from everybody.”
Amorim believes extra time on the training ground to practice cannot be underestimated, either. “Last year we trained without the real movements but you cannot put the same load on them because they are recovering,” he said. “It’s not the same thing. So we have more time to take corners, free-kicks and you can create real-game situations this year and that helps.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhereas United are making significant strides with offensive set-plays, Amorim admitted they still had a lot of improvements to make defending set-pieces. They certainly looked vulnerable at times from corners against Palace and, while the arrival of goalkeeper Senne Lammens, who is far more commanding in the air than André Onana or Altay Bayindir, has helped, they remain a work in progress. The current absence of two of his tallest and best headers in Harry Maguire and Benjamin Sesko also meant making certain adjustments, according to Amorim.
“We are attacking better than we are defending [set-pieces] but when you are defending you need to take the ball out,” he said. “When you are attacking nowadays in the Premier League you don’t need to touch the ball, just don’t allow the defender to take the ball because it is going to be there for the second ball.
“If you don’t have Casemiro or Sesko or Harry you have to make a balance sometimes thinking, ‘Yes, the idea for the game is this one but if you have set-pieces against, it cannot be this team’. We are learning with time.”
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