Brentford’s set pieces under Keith Andrews: how the Bees turned corners into a weapon in 2026/27

Keith Andrews arrived at Brentford as a set-piece coach, but in his first season as head coach, corners were one of the team’s weakest areas. The Bees scored only four goals from corners in 2025/26, the joint-lowest total in the Premier League. A few months into the new campaign, the picture has changed: Brentford created more expected goals from set pieces than any other side over the first five games, and a corner routine opened the scoring in the 3-0 win over Chelsea.

The change shows up in the betting markets too. Bookmakers now price Brentford games with more attention to corners totals, headed goals and first-goal markets, and the depth of those markets varies a lot from one firm to the next. For anyone backing the Bees from a dead ball, comparing prices across the best betting sites in UK matters more than usual, since set-piece specials are rarely priced the same way twice.

From set-piece coach to head coach

Andrews joined Thomas Frank’s staff with a remit focused on set pieces, then replaced Frank in the summer of 2025. His first season ended with a ninth-place finish, well above most predictions, built largely on direct play and counter-attacks. Brentford were also at the front of the Premier League’s long-throw revival: a stoppage-time equaliser against Chelsea in September 2025, from a Kevin Schade long throw, was the club’s seventh league goal from throw-ins since the start of the previous season, five more than any other team, according to Opta Analyst.

Corners were the exception. Opta’s end-of-season analysis put Brentford joint-bottom for goals from corners, an odd statistic for a club with a reputation for dead-ball routines and a head coach who had built his career on them. Defensively, the same data showed them as the best side in the league at defending corners.

What has changed this season

The numbers from the opening weeks of 2026/27 show a clear shift. Over the first five games, Brentford scored three set-piece goals, the third-highest total behind Chelsea and Brighton, from 3.82 expected goals, the highest set-piece xG in the league. They took a shot from 59% of their corners, the best rate in the division and roughly double the 29% of last season.

Analysis of the routines points to one main adjustment. Brentford have moved away from the front-post “packing” set-ups that dominated last season, with deliveries aimed at the back post rising from 17% to 42% of corners. The aim is to win the first contact further from the goalkeeper and recycle the ball back across goal, where runners arrive late.

The Chelsea opener as a template

The first goal against Chelsea on 18 September followed that pattern exactly. Mikkel Damsgaard’s corner on 61 minutes was met at the back post by Jannik Schuster, who headed it back across the six-yard box for Jaidon Anthony to nod in from close range. Two Brentford players were left unmarked from the same delivery, and the goal changed a game that had been goalless and tight for an hour.

Brentford went on to win 3-0, their first home league win over Chelsea since 1938. The second and third goals came from counter-attacks as Chelsea pushed forward, the other strength Andrews carried over from last season.

The takers and the targets

Delivery is shared rather than left to one specialist. Mathias Jensen, Damsgaard, Vitaly Janelt and Dango Ouattara all take corners and indirect free kicks, depending on who is on the pitch, with Jensen the only one involved across corners, free kicks and set-piece crosses. In the box, Schuster’s aerial presence at the back post has become the reference point of the new routines.

Long throws remain part of the toolkit as well, and the screens and blocks Brentford used to make them so effective now feed into the corner routines.

Can it last?

The early data suggests there is more to come rather than less. Three goals from 3.82 expected goals means Brentford have slightly underperformed the quality of their set-piece chances, and a shot rate of almost six in ten corners puts regular pressure on opposing defences.

The sample is still small, though, and results have cooled since the international break. Brentford sit sixth after seven games following a 2-1 home defeat to Liverpool on Saturday. Keane Lewis-Potter had put them ahead before Yehor Yarmoliuk’s red card moments before half-time turned the game, and the Bees finished with nine men after Vitaly Janelt, one of their regular corner takers, was sent off for a second booking in stoppage time. Whether the routines keep producing goals once opponents adjust their marking will be one of the more interesting threads of Brentford’s season.

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