DEJAN KULUSEVSKI joked that Tottenham’s set-piece coach deserved a pay-rise after they scored again from a dead-ball situation.
Harry Kane netted the only goal against Wolves to win 1-0 when he nodded in at the far post after Ivan Perisic had flicked on Son Heung-min’s corner.
It came a week after Kane had headed home Perisic’s corner in the sixth minute of injury time to seal a dramatic 2-2 draw at Chelsea.
The goals mean Spurs have secured four points from dead-ball deliveries already this season.
It shows the work with set-piece guru Gianni Vio, who was hired by Spurs in the summer, is starting to pay off.
And Kulusevski added: “I just told him (Vio) three times that we have to give him more money. He has to get a pay-rise for sure! Shout-out to him.
READ MORE ON TOTTENHAM
“He’s very important. He makes a difference, like you can see. At the end of the day, we won on a set piece today so we have to keep working on that.
“It’s not the funnest thing in the world but it makes results.
“It helps a lot. Three games, three goals (from set pieces) I think, so we have to keep listening to him and do what he says.
“I don’t remember that we scored so many (from set pieces) last season but it’s very important. Now we have to get better.
Most read in Football
“Every time we get a set piece we have to believe we can score.”
Spurs scored only eight league goals from set-pieces last season, which was only five more than divisional-worst Norwich and 13 fewer than league-best Man City.
They also conceded ten league goals from set-pieces last term, nine more than league-best Man City and nine fewer than divisional-worst Leicester, Leeds and Everton.
They have conceded from a corner already this season, thanks to Kalidou Koulibaly’s stunning volley at Stamford Bridge, so there is still work to do.
But with ex-Italy staff-member Vio claiming to have a staggering 4,380 set-piece routines in his armoury, Spurs should be aiming to improve further in this area.
Kane added: “We’ve been working on them in training. We see it as a real opportunity to break the deadlock in games.
“We know how important set-pieces can be in tight games especially.
Read More on The Sun
“We’ve had one game a week for the last three weeks now, so probably leading up to two days before the game (we’ve been working on set-pieces), a couple of days looking at what the opposition do, looking at how we can exploit that.
“We have Gianni helping us, for sure the gaffer is involved, all the staff are involved as well. So far so good, but we’ve got to keep it going.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
