Chelsea have just wrapped up their first signing of the summer transfer window – but it’s not a player, it’s a coach. According to widespread reports, the Blues have reached an agreement with Brentford to appoint Bernardo Cueva as a set-piece coach. The report states that the 36-year-old will continue working alongside Thomas Frank at the G-Tech Community until the end of the season before working his magic at Stamford Bridge. The Telegraph add that the Bees will receive between £750,000 and £1million in compensation from Chelsea for Cueva. The Blues have been without a dead ball specialist coach since Anthony Barry followed Thomas Tuchel to Bayern Munich in April 2023. So, with that being said, football.london has taken a look at what all the fuss about Cueva is and why Chelsea were so keen to secure his signature.
Incredibly, seven of which were scored by Ivan Toney. Tottenham Hotspur recorded 16, while Arsenal trailed with 15. For reference, the Blues netted just eight from set-pieces last term and they’ve only managed seven so far this season.
What has been said about Cueva?
In January 2023, Frank leapt to Cueva’s defence when Jurgen Klopp claimed that Brentford ‘stretch the rules’ with their aggressive set-piece tactics. The Bees boss told Sky Sports: “I guess we have some very, very good refs, I think there are four on the pitch, and then we have a VAR room.
“It has never been more difficult to score a goal. Two of our goals were disallowed today, I think neither of them were flagged as offside so in a game [without VAR] we probably would have got them. But I’m of course happy that he praised us and it’s a credit to the good work we do about our offensive set-pieces.”
Klopp wasn’t so complimentary of Cueva’s work. The Liverpool manager said: “I’m not sure you can really control it all the time because each corner is a massive threat. They stretch the rules in these moments with full body contact.
“There was only one offensive foul on a set-piece tonight which was whistled and that was against us, which is really funny. Holding is holding, and pushing is pushing. It was more the game they wanted than the one we wanted. They could dictate it because of how it got whistled.
“The two corners they scored with, one was offside and the other one, of course we don’t behave perfectly, but they stretch rules. They are really pushing, they are really holding. That’s obviously what you can do.”
“The third goal I can really not respect. The ref thought it wasn’t a foul and then VAR hides behind the phrase ‘clear and obvious’. The referee has to explain that, if anybody could ask him.”
What has Pochettino said?
Interestingly, earlier this year, Pochettino suggested that he would like Chelsea to sign a set-piece specialist in the summer. The Blues boss said: “We work a lot on set-pieces. We have specialists. We are a coaching staff in charge of everything. We have a group of analysts for set-pieces
“After that, it is about the quality of the player. It is about the takers. We don’t have a specialist. Maybe Chilly [Ben Chilwell] is good in the delivery, but we don’t have a specialist after that.
“If you want to be good in set-pieces, we work a lot. But then you need good takers. When you have good takers, and of course, Wolves have good takers, and like Manchester City have, or other clubs.
“It is not down to the work. We work similarly, but the problem is to have good takers. Look before at West Ham, and after. What changed? After and before? It’s not the same. The taker is [James] Ward-Prowse.
“For sure, you can work, like West Ham were working. But now, you add a player like him, you increase the percentage. That is football. Football belongs to the players. Not to the specialists.”
Lampard offers transfer advice…
You could appoint every set-piece specialist in the world and still not score very many goals from corners. In July 2020, Frank Lampard suggested Chelsea needed to sign taller players to reap the rewards of their hard work on the training ground.
“We’ve looked at set pieces this season,” said the former Chelsea manager. “When we came into the club we looked at the stats from last season. Last season we were bottom of the league defending set plays, in terms of teams getting big chances against us, and second bottom in attacking.
“We haven’t improved much this year. I really don’t like to talk about my own playing days but we didn’t work much at all on set pieces and there were a few reasons, mainly John Terry, Gary Cahill, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and [Branislav] Ivanovic.
“You’d stick it in an area and they would defend it or score goals. With Liverpool, I remember a lot of talk about them and set pieces a few seasons ago. They were zonal and conceding a lot. They signed Virgil van Dijk and he heads out everything.
“There’s a huge relation to personnel and if you don’t have that size, the main thing is trying to compete as hard as you can and making it difficult for other teams to score.
“But I’m not making excuses because we haven’t done that well enough and that has to improve. When you look at who you might bring in with the balance of the squad it is certainly something to take into account.”
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