Tactics with Shaun (Ipswich v Preston)

Shaun Calvert explores Ipswich Town’s opening goal in the 4-2 win over Preston, a Conor Chaplin drive from a short corner routine.

The short corner routine for our opening goal against Preston certainly was a work of art, with a particular nuance that I’d like to point out. Both Managers spoke about the corner post match, I believe that Ryan Lowe said that they were aware of the routine but that certain players didn’t carry out their designated roles (as we’ll see in a minute).

Kieran McKenna then mentioned that they knew that they had identified that set pieces were a potential weakness and that Town had been specifically working on them on Friday.

As per the piece I put together at the end of last season, you can tell what Town’s likely corner routine is from the set up (which players are positioned where and their body shape such as the love train or just looking to hold or block) and then by observing the signal that the taker gives, determining whether it’s going to be played into the box, a short corner or a funky one.

So, onto the corner, I don’t think the TV coverage does the nuance justice but hopefully the following pictures will show the nuance and also who the Preston culprit was…

This is the setup for the corner and you can tell that Ipswich are going to try the one into the near post by the positioning and body shape of players, who are looking to just hold and block. The key is the positioning of the Preston player nearest to the ball (Ledson) but you can also see Davis gesturing to Luongo, asking him to move closer to him.

This is just as the kick is being taken and you can see where Luongo’s movement has moved Ledson to.

Now the ball is passing through the exact position that Ledson was originally standing in.

And finally, this is the set up for the very next Ipswich corner, with Ledson now standing in the way of the potential low ball into the area.