What Chelsea fans can expect from former Aston Villa set piece coach Austin MacPhee
Aston Villa were locked at 0-0 with Freiburg when the first corner of the match was awarded shortly before half time in the Europa League final.
Lucas Digne took the kick short to Morgan Rogers, which triggered four Villa players to crash the six-yard box while Youri Tielemans peeled away outside the box. Rogers then floated the ball to the Belgium captain.
Tielemans slammed a volley through a gap in the crowd that was created when the goalmouth quartet split into pairs and dragged their markers apart. Villa never looked back after taking the lead and went on to win their first European trophy for 44 years.
Austin MacPhee is the top dog and his favourite ball is a dead one
The players involved in the first goal in Istanbul, at least the players that touched the ball, are gone.
Tielemans had a hitherto unreported release clause of £35 million and is now at Manchester United. Digne is expected to complete a return to Paris Saint-Germain for the same reason but a smaller fee.
Rogers moved from Villa to Chelsea for a British record transfer fee and has now been joined at Stamford Bridge by Austin MacPhee, the architect of the routine and the mastermind of enough Villa goals over the years to leave supporters frustrated by his departure.
It’s a sign of the times that a club of Chelsea’s unshackled ambition should pay a rival for a specialist coach whose work looks so repeatable on the surface but it’s understood that Villa will receive compensation specified by a release clause.
Villa have undergone a degree of backroom change this summer but it’s the loss of MacPhee that attracted headlines. He joined Villa to link up with Dean Smith but both Steven Gerrard and Unai Emery kept him on.
The 46-year-old is the best in the game, a status demonstrated in the numbers but only really proven by watching Villa week in and week out to observe the patterns in a way the man himself might.
Judging a set piece coach on defensive results is a minefield, but what can Chelsea fans expect to see from their new set piece conductor-in-chief at the right end of the field as new boss Xabi Alonso aims to get the club back on the right path?
The first corner and the element of surprise
It was no accident that Villa scored from their first corner against Freiburg. MacPhee always has a trick up his sleeve and his teams don’t hesitate to roll out the plan at the first opportunity.
Villa’s first corners throughout 2025-26 alone were a sight to behold and Chelsea will be no different. The Blues will work on countless set piece blueprints on MacPhee’s watch but the first corner kick of each match will be worth keeping an eye on.
Catching the opposition cold is a vital point of difference and, perhaps, the biggest reason to bring in MacPhee specifically rather than hiring someone to copy Villa’s dead ball footage.
Every opposition manager and set piece coach last season knew that Villa would have a fresh manoeuvre from their first corner but not one of them knew what it would be. In a game of tiny margins, MacPhee’s imagination is priceless.
Mastery of space and bodies
Villa were the best set piece team in Europe in 2023-24. Only Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur scored more goals from corners in the Premier League last term. The consistency of MacPhee’s efforts is remarkable and there’s more to it than sketching out pretty passing moves.
Buy-in from players is the cornerstone of Emery’s success at Villa and a commitment to understanding and executing MacPhee’s plans has been a huge part of that. Chelsea have acquired the man but the collective mentality that turned his work into results doesn’t come with a release clause.
MacPhee is a peerless manipulator of very expensive flesh puppets. Villa’s Europa League opener was a clever movement of the ball superbly implemented by top players, but creating a hole in front of the goalkeeper big enough to land a Harrier jump jet is the where the real genius lies.
That’s MacPhee’s most potent point of difference and what makes him worth paying for.
Set piece coaches are everywhere but the Scot is the one whose methodology stands out as combining imaginative set plays with the ability to understand how to move or block the pieces needed to make them happen.
Every set piece coach at the top level knows how to create spaces and deploy blockers but the MacPhee flourish with the ball is unmatched.
As the game inevitably edges away from the overly physical yet highly choreographed nature of corners and free kicks, Chelsea might now be uniquely futureproofed.
