Liverpool kept the pressure on Manchester City at the top of the Premier League on Thursday night with a commanding 2-0 victory over Leicester City.
Diogo Jota netted both strikes for the Reds, with the first coming via a corner 10 minutes before half-time.
It was a welcome sight for Liverpool fans given that their side's efficiency from corners has at times been questioned this season.
Like is the case at many clubs, there’s often a common misconception amongst Reds supporters that Jurgen Klopp's team can sometimes be fairly wasteful from dead-ball situations, particularly given the quality they have.
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Players are regularly accused of over-hitting or under-hitting their crosses into the box, or missing too many good attacking opportunities from close range.
This to some extent might be true as very few goals do tend to be scored from corners on average. In fact, conversion rates vary on average in the Premier League from anywhere between 1% to 5% depending on efficiency and quality.
However, even so, Liverpool actually have the league’s best record from corners this season. Their total of 10 goals is two more than the next best side, West Ham United, and they’ve also accumulated the highest xG from corners too (8.15).
A lot of the Reds' success comes as a consequence of their dominance in most matches they play.
Against almost any team Liverpool face, they usually see more of the ball, attempt the most shots and, as a result, win plenty of corners - only Manchester City have averaged more this season (7.3 per game).
The Reds, of course, started working with Neuro11 this season, a company co-founded by Dr Niklas Hausler and Patrick Hantschke, who offer assistance in obtaining edges and marginal gains over opponents.
One of the ways they do this, as confirmed by Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders in the summer while on a pre-season tour of Austria and France, was improving the side's efficiency from set-pieces.
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“One of our ideas, for example, was to improve the delivery in our set-pieces,” said Lijnders.
“Direct free-kicks, wide free-kicks, penalties and corners. We met Niklas and Patrick from Neuro11 three years ago. We wanted to work together, everything was ready, but the pandemic made it impossible. Jurgen and I really believe in these two guys and their concept. We believe in the stimulus they give.”
When looking ahead to the up and coming and season, Lijnders added: “Will it pay off? I’m hopeful it will.”
And the evidence highlighted above does suggest that it definitely has.
