Football Manager Blog | Football Manager Guru | How To Score From Corners in Football Manager

Why am I writing this post?

A while ago, a reader commented on one of my post, asking me to post my setup for corners. I would like to say that I would gladly respond to any request from my readers. This should be a place, where you and I can come together and trade advice, and be better managers (:

When you initially read this article, your first reaction will be, “What right do I have to teach people how to score from corners?” Well, I’ve proven this strategy for me works.

The above screenshot, is taken from the post I wrote when I finished the first season with Wolves in the Premier League. We’ve scored the most goals from corners in the ENTIRE Premier League, with all the John Terry, and great defenders who are capable of scoring from corners.

18% of our goals, came from corners, and they were all scored by Christophe Berra, my first choice Center Back in the Wolves squad for that season.

I strongly believe that if you take the time and effort to tweak your corner strategies, the reward that you will get for that is well worth the effort. I cannot tell you how many times, precious corner goals have given us the advantage in a match or helped us claw back a few points.

Criteria

ONLY, and I stress, ONLY, when you fulfill all the criteria, will you see a significant improve of your corner conversion rates. Does this strategy guarantees you top the league in terms of corners converted like I did? I cannot guarantee that. But I can assure you, you would see your corners being more effective after you applied the strategies I used. If it does not work for you, you probably are not meeting all the criteria, work on them and your results will improve.

Okay, so on with the criteria! I will elaborate on them in further subsections.

1. The person taking your team’s corners, must have a corner attribute of at least 16.
2. Follow my team’s setup CLOSELY. Do not be lazy, do all the necessary tweaks. One player not marking the keeper or challenge at near post, makes a lot of difference.
3. Pick a good defender, who you want to be heading corners in for your team. (I will elaborate more on this)

Corner Taker

David Jones and Krivets are currently taking the corners for my Wolves squad and they both could do it consistently well. What you are looking for is a player, who has a corner attribute of at least 16. You can have the best players attacking the corner, but if the corner is delivered too high, or too low, there’s no way you are going to convert the corner at all.

Assign the player with the highest corner attribute to consistently take corners for your squad. It is even better if he could strike with his left foot or right foot, but I’ve found that this is not a huge factor. It is a bonus, but not a huge factor in converting corners.

Corner Setup

I’ve noticed in my many years of playing Football Manager that corners are most often converted by headers at the near post, or far post. I might be wrong, but that is just my personal observation, and what my gut feeling tells me.

Henceforth, in this corner setup that I use for Wolves, I’ve specifically set it up such that, if we have any chance of converting the corner, it would be by the player challenging at the far post.

Hence the first thing to do is to set, both you left and right corners to be delivered to the Far Post.

Now, this is what I need you to do.

1. The DC (Center Back) that you want to be converting the corners into goals, will be set to attack the Far Post.
2. The other DC, will be attacking near post. I believe this guy’s job is to mainly act as a decoy so someone will be in the box to mark him.
3. Put 1 forward to flick on at nearpost. Preferably the taller striker, his job is not really to flick on but act as a nuisance at near post. This is to draw attention away from the DC converting corners.
4. The TALLEST player other than the DC who is converting the corners, will be set to challenge the keeper. This is to make it hard for the keeper to come out to punch the ball away, or collect it from the air before it reaches the target.
5. The best player in the squad with the long shot attribute to Lurk Outside Area
6. Other players who are not involved in the roles above, set to Attack From Deep.
7. Remember to set some man to remain back to defend, so you are not open to the counter attack.

Seeing It In Action

Note, how Berra is placed before the corner is taken. Also, you might have noticed that no one is challenging the keeper, that is because the player I assigned to challenge the keeper was taking the corner lol. Sorry, I can’t find a better screenshot to demonstrate Berra scoring from a corner though.Also notice how no.13 is lurking outside the penalty box, reading to make any long shot that falls his way.

Noticed how Berra has made a run to attack the ball in mid-air? Berra eventually connects with the corner floated in and scores.

Choosing Player To Convert Corners

This is Christophe Berra, the man who converted 16 goals for my squad last season, making us the team that scored the most goals from corners last season in the whole of the Premier League.

Look at his stats. He is hardly a 20/20 at heading, nor 20/20 at jumping. In fact, he is only 15 at heading, and 14 at jumping. So what makes him so consistent in converting corners for me?

To be brutally honest, I believe that the person should have a decent jumping and heading attribute of at least 15. This is the two most important criteria in selecting the player to convert corners for you. Next he must have a high determination and bravery if possible. Notice Berra has 20 for determination? Think about it an extremely determined player would be more likely to get to a ball than a less determined one, they call it “mind over matter”.

The last attribute, I sincerely believe, will be what’s going to stop many of you from figuring out who is the best player for this role. And it is a hidden attribute, known as consistency. FM players throughout the years know that they might have the player with the best attributes in the whole world, but if he is an erratic player, he will never perform as well as a consistent player. Consistency cannot be determined with one look. Consistency requires observation from you, the manager, throughout a period of time.

I discovered that Berra was an extremely consistent player, when I realised he almost NEVER makes any mistakes leading to goal.

This is Kryvtsov, my wonderkid in the Wolves squad. He absolutely outclasses Berra in terms of heading and jumping at 19 each! However, his determination is only 15. Half a season has gone and Kryvtsov has only converted about a couple of corners for me. This pales in comparison to how consistently Berra converts corners for me in the 1st season. Hence my point of, heading and jumping is NOT everything.

Conclusion

I sincerely believe that if you follow this guide, your chances of scoring from corners will increase tremendously. Am I saying this is only one strategy to convert corners? Nope. Not at all, I am sure other Football Manager players have equally successful corner strategies.  This is just what I found to be most effecting for myself.

Even if you are not topping the league in terms of corners converted, I strongly believe that additional 1 or 2 goals coming from corners might be the 3 points you need to win the title, or avoid relegation, or to win a cup final.

To all, the best of luck with corners in your game, really hope to hear your feedback from using my strategy for corners. Cheers!