Newcastle United: 6 Key Questions Ahead of Everton Away

2. How Has Alan Pardew Shaken Up The Set-Piece Situation?

After a disappointing recent trend in terms of set-pieces, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew has promised that he has been actively looking to shake up the set-piece situation at the club, which will be music to the ears of the fans. Far too often free-kicks and corners have gone to waste, without so much as a resultant effort on goal, with the team looking a little out of ideas when it comes to varying the way corners in particular are taken. Some of that problem is down to simply bad delivery, and typically good deliverers like Yohan Cabaye have been guilty of hitting the first man, and some of the problem stems from not enough work on the training ground to create more options. The idea that Newcastle never manage to gift opportunities to either of their front-men, or even their centre-halves from corners and free-kicks from advanced positions is little more than an embarrassment. It is no surprise that the one time Newcastle tried something different, playing the ball short to Hatem Ben Arfa against Spurs, paid off with a penalty, but even that shouldn't become the norm the way the frustrating approach to Mike Williamson at the back post (which has NEVER paid off) did. The easiest way to provide a shot on target is to put the ball into the area with pace, but out of the reaches of the goalkeeper. Just ask Alan Shearer. Thankfully, Pardew spoke to the official club website to admit that the set-piece situation is just not good enough at the minute, especially against Villa:
"The set-plays were awful. The delivery - we hit the first man five times. That's why for a coach, it was frustrating. We were really frustrated that we weren't hitting the areas. We are not brilliant at corners - our record suggests we haven't got great assets to score from corners. (Mike) Williamson has never scored since he has been here; Steven (Taylor) has only got two or three; Colo (Fabricio Coloccini) hasn't got many goals. We are not proficient, and maybe we have to re-think about how we are going to score from set-plays."
Hopefully that will mean more focus on the training pitch, and more goals on the pitch.

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