Set-Piece Expected Goals

How the split works

Every shot already carries an expected goals value built from its distance, angle, body part and build-up type. Set-piece xG does not add a new model. It regroups those same shot values by where the move started.

• Open play. Everything that did not follow a restart.
• Corners. Shots following a corner delivery.
• Free kicks. Shots following a direct or indirect free kick.
• Throw-ins. Shots following a throw-in, usually into the box.

Penalties are excluded from this specific breakdown. A penalty carries a near-fixed value regardless of delivery, so it belongs with its own logic. See non-penalty expected goals for that distinction.

Delivery zone is where the real detail sits

Corners and free kicks get a further split by where the ball was aimed: near post, central, far post, and edge of the box. This is not decoration. Each zone demands a different kind of defending and suits a different kind of run.

• Near post. Rewards a sharp, early flick-on and attacks the space defenders find hardest to cover under pressure.
• Central and far post. Rewards height and timing against a set, organised backline.
• Edge of the box. Aimed past the crowd entirely, at a shooter rather than a header.

A team that only ever attacks one zone is predictable, and organised defences adjust to it within a few matches. A team varying its zones across a season is harder to set up against. That variety shows directly in the delivery split, not in the headline xG number.

The split also separates two teams that look identical on a single total. A side generating 4 xG from corners entirely through edge-of-the-box efforts is really running a shooting routine with a decoy in the box. A side generating the same 4 xG from a spread across all four zones is running a genuine crowd-the-box plan. Same number, two different routines, and only the zone breakdown tells them apart.

Three ways to read the numbers

Modest open play, strong set pieces. A side with an ordinary open-play xG total but a genuinely high set-piece total has built a real, repeatable route to goal through routines. That is worth tracking as a distinct source of threat, separate from how fluent they look in general play.

Goals well above set-piece xG. Treat this as a hot run, not a durable target-man advantage. A few well-directed headers from ordinary deliveries can look like a system working when it is really a short spell of good finishing. The same regression logic applies here as anywhere else in xG: check the underlying total before crediting the routine.

The taker and target breakdown. This shows who actually delivers a team's corners and free kicks, and which players consistently get on the end of them. It is a direct read on a team's dead-ball identity, useful beyond whatever the scoreline says on a given weekend.

Why this gets its own line instead of hiding in overall xG

Dead-ball routines are coached, rehearsed and repeatable in a way open play is not. A team's open-play xG reflects fluid, largely improvised attacking football. Its set-piece xG reflects a drilled plan with a fixed taker, fixed targets and a fixed intended zone.

Folding the two together hides that distinction. A team can be ordinary in open play and still carry a real, sustainable edge from a well-drilled routine. That edge says something specific about their preparation, not about their attacking quality in general.

It also travels differently between matches. A team's open-play xG shifts with the opponent they face, since a deep, well-organised defence suppresses chance creation far more than a passive one does. A well-drilled set-piece routine is far less sensitive to that, because it targets a fixed zone against broadly similar marking schemes week to week. That is part of why it deserves its own column rather than getting averaged away inside a single overall figure.

Common misreadings, corrected

"A big set-piece haul this month means the team is good at set pieces." Check the xG behind the goals, not just the goal count. A handful of well-taken headers from modest deliveries can look identical to a system working, right up until the shots regress towards their true value.

"Set-piece xG and penalty xG are the same category." They are not. A penalty carries a near-fixed value regardless of delivery and sits outside the delivery-zone breakdown entirely. Grouping it with corners and free kicks would distort both numbers.

"Inswinging deliveries are always better than outswinging." Neither swing direction is objectively superior. The better question is whether a team's chosen style is finding good zones and finding its targets. A well-executed outswinger beats a poorly aimed inswinger every time, and the delivery split is what actually shows which is happening.