Newcastle United hoping to appoint new guru to maximise threat in key moments - Craig Hope
Newcastle United are finding it harder and harder to score goals these days, it seems.
It's truly baffling because we are creating chances, or should I say, getting into positions that would otherwise have led to us creating chances. This season we have all too often fluffed our lines in the final third.
Whether it be the wrong choice of ball, not having a shot when they should, or, worst of all, stopping on a dime and turning around and going backwards.
Whatever it is, there's a huge lack of confidence up at the business end of the pitch, so when Craig Hope wrote in his Newcastle Confidential column that the Magpies were bringing in a new guru, we thought maybe it's another attacking coach to help Graeme Jones. Nope.
Newcastle are hiring a new set-piece analyst
In the summer, Newcastle brought in Danish coach Martin Mark to help maximise effectiveness from set-pieces, and to be fair, he's been doing a good job. It took a while to see the results, but now Newcastle are in the top six in the Premier League for goals scored (11) from dead-ball situations, while they have conceded 11 times from set-pieces, which is mid-range in the table.
The club still feels they can do better, however, which is why they are hiring a new analyst to come in to improve set-piece output.
Given the height in our squad, we should be right up at the top for set-piece goals, and we should be at the top for defending them, too, so it's certainly an area that can do with further tweaking.
There's a lot that needs fixing, but becoming more prolific from set plays could get us through the rest of the season
We don't want to have to rely on set-pieces to get goals, though.
We totally understand that the team just haven't got the time to run drills on the training pitch right now, and that's been a huge detriment, but there are other teams playing as regularly as we are and they haven't folded in on themselves.
I guess when things are going right, it's fine, but when you're not firing on all cylinders, and you can't work on it on the training ground, it's hardly going to get better on its own.
