Austin MacPhee was already bossing the Chelsea players about. Xabi Alonso’s new set-piece coach, just hours after the club confirmed his arrival, strode around the packed penalty area at one end of the Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong, notepad in one hand, the other pointing and gesturing, as the huddle of players crowded around him and hung on his every word.Alonso clearly has so much faith in his new, long-haired Scottish dead-ball guru that while he worked on the attacking shape with his forwards, he let MacPhee lead the set-piece drills and just get on with the job.While it’s been the £117million arrival of British-record signing Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa that’s caught most of the headlines this summer, Chelsea will hope the other man they’ve poached from the Midlands club will have just as big an impact.So important have set-piece coaches become in elite football that even they have release clauses in their contracts these days. Chelsea coughed up short of £1million to trigger it and MacPhee flew over at the weekend to join up with the Blues on their pre-season tour.No time to waste. It’s an area in which Chelsea have floundered (while Villa flourished) and must improve if they are to stand any chance of mounting a title charge. So little progress was made under previous set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva since joining from Brentford two years ago, both in attack and defence, that Alonso shunted him to a new analyst role behind the scenes and away from the training pitch.Chelsea had a frustrating habit last season of conceding the same type of goal from set-pieces, where a corner or free-kick would get flicked on at the near post and tapped in at the back stick by someone left unmarked. They conceded that exact goal again in their most recent pre-season friendly against Western Sydney Wanderers. Austin MacPhee is already getting to work in his new role as Chelsea set-piece coach on their pre-season tour of Hong Kong MacPhee (second left) alongside the rest of Xabi Alonso’s backroom team The Scot has forged a reputation as one of the best set-piece coaches in world football thanks to his work under Unai Emery at Aston VillaOnly West Ham and Leeds conceded more Premier League goals from corners than Chelsea last season while MacPhee continued to turn Aston Villa into one of the best set-piece teams in Europe.Arsenal and Tottenham were the only two clubs to score more goals from corners than Villa last season. Since MacPhee took over as Villa’s set-piece specialist ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, they have scored 72 goals from dead-ball situations, not including penalties, behind only Liverpool and Arsenal. Chelsea, over the same period, scored 14 fewer.Those 72 strikes made up 25 per cent of Villa’s total non-penalty goals, behind only Everton as the highest percentage among ever-present Premier League sides. In 2023-24 alone, only Bayer Leverkusen scored more set-piece goals, excluding penalties, across Europe’s big five leagues.Last season alone, Villa boasted a set-piece goal difference in the league of +four, joint-fourth in the division, while Chelsea managed a dismal -three.MacPhee’s numbers on their own are impressive enough but what set Villa apart under the Scot was the variety and creativity with which they scored their goals. It wasn’t just the same unplayable tactic over and over again, like England’s ‘Love Train’ from the 2018 World Cup when everyone just stood in a line before darting in different directions so Harry Maguire could head it.Villa’s repertoire was much more akin to an NFL playbook. A host of unique moves, tailored to the opposition, and with each player given a specific set of instructions. So drilled does MacPhee want his players to be that even after the long hours honing the moves on the training pitch, he sends his charges home with animations of the individual movements sent to their phones.Few of them will endure quite so iconically as Youri Tielemans’ opener in the Europa League final, which set Villa on their way to lifting the trophy.Lucas Digne played a corner from the left short to Rogers, who floated the ball into the box. Tielemans, who started the move stood alone 30 yards from goal, bent his run to meet it and then thundered a volley into the net. Villa’s opening goal in the Europa League final, scored by Youri Tielemans, was a fine example of MacPhee’s quirky set-piece routinesEmi Martinez, the Villa goalkeeper, didn’t even bother running over to celebrate with his team-mates and made a beeline for MacPhee, who was busy receiving the embrace of every single player on the bench.Rogers, the provider that night, scored a beauty of his own in Villa’s 4-2 victory over Liverpool in May. Digne played the corner deep to John McGinn, a good 40 yards from goal, who then returned the ball to Digne out wide. That pass drew out Liverpool defender Milos Kerkez, who closed down Digne to stop the cross but inadvertently left Rogers unmarked inside the penalty area.Digne slipped the ball inside to Rogers, who turned and curled it into the top corner. Villa’s set-piece trickery proved too challenging for Liverpool to handle in their 4-2 loss at Villa Park in MayAll of this was part of the plan. Villa became renowned last season for scoring belters from long range but, again, much of that was due to MacPhee orchestrating routines to get their best ball-strikers in the best positions to shoot from distance.And few Villa fans will forget the free-kick McGinn scored against Manchester United a couple of seasons ago when MacPhee ordered Leon Bailey to stand behind goalkeeper Andre Onana. Bailey then took it upon himself to start singing at his opponent, distracting him, and then ran away as McGinn ran up to the ball and sent it zipping past the bewildered Onana and into the net.Every single part of it, bar the impromptu singing perhaps, is planned. There’s a video on YouTube of MacPhee giving a short masterclass into Villa’s set-piece exploits, breaking down every part of a free-kick routine they used to score against Leicester.His presentation shows the team practising the runs they needed to make on the training ground, the players who needed to make them, as well as a graphic covered in arrows of how MacPhee wanted the move to play out before cutting to a replay of Villa putting it into action.Tielemans puts his hands up, looking as though he’ll dink the ball into the box, only to slip in Jacob Ramsey, who ran from deep into the penalty area, and then squared the ball for Amadou Onana to tap in from close range.MacPhee even highlights how a Villa player pushes a Leicester defender in the scrum on the edge of the box, shoving him back far enough so that if Tielemans decides to dink it to the far post after all, Ezri Konsa would now be onside. In the end, it didn’t matter. Villa, as usual, scored from Plan A. Jacob Ramsey’s run caught Leicester defenders by surprise in Villa’s 2-1 win there back in August 2024, thanks in part to some helpful blocking by Pau Torres The experienced MacPhee (pictured giving instructions to Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo) has worked with several national teams
Your browser does not support iframes.
Before joining Villa, MacPhee worked for clubs like FC Midtjylland – a side now famed for their set-pieces, and one that pins their goal difference from dead-ball situations to the wall above the coffee machine at their training ground – and Hearts and had stints with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Portugal.It was under Michael O’Neill at Northern Ireland where he was first given responsibility for set-pieces. They scored 11 goals from set-plays in ten games to qualify for Euro 2016, where they reached the last 16.Chelsea can only hope MacPhee has the same instant impact.