It’s not long ago that arguably the most widely despised football tactic was the short corner. In situations where supporters called for the ball to be launched into the box, teams regularly played it short, the move came to nothing, and the supporters groaned at another ‘wasted’ corner.
But this season, of course, has seen the traditional crossed corner dominate like never before. Some Premier League matches feel like little more than a competition to win corners, and then a game decided by set pieces. So, in that context, Manchester City’s tendency to play short corners against Chelsea in their 3-0 victory felt oddly refreshing. It eventually led to their second goal, too.
Here’s Manchester City’s first corner, after 15 minutes. Cherki and Doku work it short, play the ball back to Bernardo Silva, and his cross is blocked. Not much of interest here.
Their second corner is more interesting because it shows how City are constantly trying to trick Chelsea.
As Cherki shapes up to take the corner, Doku starts wandering towards the middle, which means Cole Palmer switches off momentarily. Doku then checks back towards Cherki and City surprise Palmer by taking it short. Granted, Palmer recovers to block Doku’s cross.
Just before half-time, City had a corner and crossed it into the box. It came to nothing. With their first corner of the second half, they again crossed it — and it was hacked behind by Palmer for another corner.
And this is where things get properly interesting.
Because Palmer sliced the corner just beforehand into the stands, and Cherki is able to retrieve another ball and take the corner before Chelsea are ready, this gives City a slight advantage. Cherki plays the ball to Doku, Palmer goes over to close down, and also checks over his shoulder and realises no one is backing him up.
Palmer is up against Doku. This is an unenviable situation — Doku has dribbled past more opponents than anyone else in the Premier League this season. Palmer stops him with a somewhat robust challenge, not attempting to play the ball, simply getting his body in the way. It’s not a penalty. But Palmer is nevertheless forced to appeal that the challenge was fine, and has a brief nervous moment while VAR confirms the on-field decision.
Four minutes after that, City won another corner and crossed it into the box. They’re keeping Chelsea guessing.
After another two minutes, City win the corner that led to their second goal. And even the way Cherki takes it is telling. First, he puts the ball down and pretends to play an immediate corner, before dummying the ball. Then he walks backwards as if to swing the ball into the box. And then he sprints to the ball and taps a short one. For all Cherki’s extravagance, much of his trickery has a purpose: to throw his opponents off balance, literally and metaphorically.
Then there’s the corner itself. There are two key elements here. The first is that, this time, Palmer does get support, from Jorrel Hato. Usually, the supporting player might focus more on shutting down the passing option. But Doku is Doku, and so Hato positioned himself as a second line of defence against him, leaving Cherki free for a pass.
The second issue is that Marc Guehi, at the far post, is being marked by Malo Gusto. But as the move develops, Gusto gets dragged towards the man on the far side, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and with Joao Pedro rushing out to close down Cherki, the passing lane opens for him to slip in Guehi to score.
This shows two key benefits of the short corner. The first is that by positioning one attacker to receive a short corner, the opposition have to respond with two, weakening them in the middle — and two is often not enough.
The second is that defenders have to change their focus. They’re largely content when they know which opponent they need to shut down. But when dragged elsewhere, they often leave their opponent free to score.
Indeed, teams have become so accustomed to defending inswinging corners that they are possibly leaving themselves exposed when corners are taken short.
Short corners have certainly become more of a factor in City’s play recently. Before February, they were taking 0.4 short corners per game. Since then, in the last eight matches, they’ve taken 1.5 short corners per game. Next weekend’s title clash against Arsenal, the inswinging corner specialists, might see two very different styles of set piece.