Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca defended the increasing reliance of Premier League sides on set-pieces ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Tottenham.
The Italian has not so far been a proponent of using carefully planned dead-ball routines to outfox opponents and favours a positional style of play that builds attacks from the back.
Spurs, by contrast, scored twice directly from corners during Sunday’s 3-0 win at Everton, while Chelsea have on two occasions this season dropped points to teams that have hurt them with long throw-ins.
“Set-pieces are part of the game,” said Maresca, whose team are ninth after losing at home to Sunderland last weekend. “You need to learn how you can do better offensively and defensively.
“If you score from a corner, how do you get the corner? From open play. It’s not a divide – open play, offensive, defensive. It’s football. Set-pieces are part of football.
“If you have a free-kick on the edge or you have a corner, it’s because you created the situation to get corners or a free-kick. This is from open play.”
League-leaders Arsenal have built their success in the early weeks of the season on efficient use of corners and free-kicks, while Brentford under Keith Andrews and Regis Le Bris’ newly-promoted Black Cats have used long throws to decisive effect.
Maresca has said he is not about to become a disciple of the long throw-in. During last season and this, his Blues side have sought to dominate possession and attack teams using runs from wingers, to mixed success.
“I don’t know why people don’t like (set-pieces),” he said. “Everyone tries to use their own threat. If there are teams that think with long thrown-ins they can create more chances, why not? Everyone tries to use different weapons.”
Maresca said he began drilling his players for the Spurs game before they had even returned home from Wednesday’s 4-3 Carabao Cup win over Wolves.
The result at Molineux brought relief following the way in which Chelsea collapsed after taking an early lead against Sunderland, though the manner in which they allowed Wolves back into the game from 3-0 down was further cause for alarm.
“We were upset with the way we lost (against Sunderland) but we need to move on. We played against Wolves, we achieved the quarter-final.
“We need to move on, but we try to move on even when we win. We played Wolves Wednesday night and after the game on the way back we started watching Spurs, on the plane and on the bus.
“After tomorrow we start to watch Qarabag. You don’t stop. You have to be focused on the next one and you have to learn.”
With the youngest squad in the Premier League, Maresca again found himself fielding questions about the readiness of his team to challenge for the title in the wake of the Sunderland defeat and second half against Wolves.
“I think no one expected Chelsea to win the Club World Cup because of our age but we did it. The Premier League you need consistency but for the goal for us is to improve and be consistent over the season.”
