West Ham United manager David Moyes admits he has not been pleased with the quality of corners his side have produced in the opening months of the season.
David Moyes said: “We have been looking for better deliveries. The one where Tomas gets pulled down, you can put that down as a goal. On [Sunday] the week before, Dawson had one too, so you can almost put those down as a tick. But we are getting blocked at the moment which is an issue. We don’t feel like the deliveries have been as good as they have been. The runs not quite as good, not attacked the ball. Nearly every Prem team now has a coach who takes set pieces, which means teams and players are getting a bit wiser and a bit better defensively and attacking.”
In the Premier League last season, West Ham ranked joint-fifth for most goals from set-pieces with 14. Only Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Brentford have netted more. This season, Aaron Cresswell (47.4%) has been West Ham’s most accurate corner taker by some way. The accuracy of Bowen (20.8%) and Pablo Fornals (20%) has been much lower. However, being able to work on corners has been tricky, with West Ham playing 13 times in the space of six weeks between October 1 and November 12, when the season is paused for next month’s World Cup in Qatar.
David Moyes added: “We are trying to get more time to practice. We had a day like yesterday but you are only just back from a game on Sunday and you are asking them to go back to practice taking 35 corners from each side. You are trying not to get them too tired. Lots come into your thinking and those coming to head it are not prepared or ready so it means your general practice time is down, but I would never use it as an excuse. It is our job to find a way to get better and we are trying to score more and hopefully we will do.”
