Premier League 2022/23 Set-Piece Specialists and Their Value for Special Markets

The 2022/23 Premier League season highlighted how some clubs turned corners, free-kicks and dead balls into a core attacking weapon, producing a disproportionate share of their goals from set pieces and creating repeatable, model-friendly patterns for bettors targeting special markets. Understanding which teams leaned on rehearsed routines rather than open-play fluency helps explain why certain fixtures consistently offered value in “to score from a set piece” or related niche markets.

Why Set-Piece-Oriented Teams Matter for Special Markets

When a team relies heavily on set pieces, their path to scoring becomes more predictable and less dependent on chaotic open-play sequences, which is exactly what niche markets try to quantify. Coaching time invested in throw-ins, corners and wide free-kicks translates into structured movements and reliable target zones, giving those sides a stable source of chances even when their open play stalls.

For bettors, the cause–effect chain is straightforward: teams that generate and convert a high volume of set pieces create a statistical “floor” for specific bets such as “team to score from a corner,” “header goals,” or “time of first set-piece goal.” The impact is that prices built mainly on overall goals or league position can underestimate how often these teams score from dead-ball situations, especially in tight games where corners accumulate but open-play threat is limited.

Which Teams Scored Most From Set Pieces in 2022/23?

Across the 2022/23 Premier League, a small cluster of clubs stood out for how often they turned dead-ball situations into goals, regardless of their broader playing style or league position. Liverpool finished with 17 set-piece goals, while Tottenham Hotspur and Brentford followed closely on 16, with Arsenal on 14 and Manchester City and Fulham each on 14 according to season-wide tallies.

Those raw totals show that set-piece strength was not restricted to traditional underdogs; title contenders and mid-table sides also extracted real value from rehearsed routines. For special markets, the key is that these numbers reflect system-level priorities—dedicated routines, specialist takers and aerial targets—rather than one-off moments, which gives their patterns durability over a full season.

How Different Set-Piece Profiles Create Different Betting Opportunities

Not all set-piece-heavy teams present the same risk–reward shape for special bets; the type of set-piece reliance matters as much as the volume. Brentford, for example, used corners and wide free-kicks as a structured part of their attacking identity, with coordinated runs from targets such as Ben Mee, Ethan Pinnock and Christian Nørgaard and servicing from consistent takers like Bryan Mbeumo and Mathias Jensen.

By contrast, Liverpool’s tally combined strong delivery with a generally high-possession game that naturally generated more corners and attacking free-kicks, turning territory dominance into dead-ball returns. The impact for bettors is that Brentford’s set-piece threat travels well into tough away fixtures where open play is limited, while Liverpool’s numbers lean more on match states where they can sustain pressure and rack up repeated dead-ball opportunities.

Comparative View: Key Set-Piece Teams and Their Traits

To make those profiles concrete, it helps to compare the main 2022/23 set-piece leaders side by side in terms of volume, style and betting relevance.

From a betting perspective, the interpretation is that raw totals highlight where to look, but the tactical driver tells you when those strengths will actually translate into value—whether in big games under pressure, or in routine fixtures where favourites enjoy territorial dominance. Teams whose set-piece threat is structurally embedded, rather than a by-product of overall superiority, usually offer more consistent angles in niche markets across different opponent types.

Mechanisms Behind High Set-Piece Output

High set-piece output rarely happens by accident; it stems from deliberate coaching choices that prioritise repeatable patterns over improvisation. Brentford’s routines, for instance, rely on clusters of tall players attacking specific zones, pre-planned blocking movements, and deliveries targeted at the near post or far-post knockdown areas, turning every corner into a designed sequence rather than a random cross.

Liverpool and Arsenal built their success on a mix of delivery quality and structural design, using screens and decoy runs to free their best aerial threats while also varying short-corner routines to manipulate defensive shapes. The impact of these mechanisms is that opponents often know what is coming but still struggle to stop it, which stabilises the probability of set-piece goals and makes season-long statistics meaningful inputs for specialised betting models.

How Special Markets Translate Set-Piece Strength Into Edges

Special markets connected to set pieces—goals from corners, first goal method, or specific player-to-score headers—are priced from broad team metrics but often underweight the detail of dead-ball execution. A team with mediocre overall offensive numbers but elite set-piece output can therefore be undervalued in markets that care only about how a goal is scored, not how frequently they score in open play.

For example, Brentford’s ability to fabricate chances from long free-kicks in the opposition half meant they could threaten in matches where their shot totals were low, supporting bets built around at least one headed goal or at least one set-piece goal even when main goal lines looked fairly priced. The cause–effect link is that tactical dependence on rehearsed routines increases the likelihood that any isolated dead ball swings a match toward a specific outcome, magnifying the value of that angle in niche markets relative to teams that rely on flowing attacks.

Incorporating Set-Piece Data in a Data-Driven Betting Framework

A data-driven bettor analysing 2022/23 would treat set-piece metrics as a separate layer rather than folding them into overall attacking strength. Measures such as set-piece goals, shots from dead balls, and corners per match provide a clearer view of whether a side is structurally dangerous from those situations or simply benefited from a small number of fortunate conversions.

You then link that layer to opposition traits: a set-piece-strong side facing a team that concedes many set-piece goals—Bournemouth, for instance, allowed 21 such goals and 0.55 per game in 2022/23—creates a compounding effect that should move your expectations in niche markets more than standard totals suggest. The impact is that value emerges where the market underestimates the interaction between a team’s rehearsed dead-ball strength and an opponent’s vulnerability, rather than just their overall attacking and defensive numbers.​

Where References to a Sports Betting Service Fit in This Logic

Whenever a bettor attempts to operationalise these ideas, the moment of execution involves choosing where and how to express a specific angle—whether through team set-piece goal markets, header-based props, or “first goal from a set piece” options tied to high-output teams. In those situations, the key evaluative question is how well the chosen operator surfaces granular markets and responsive pricing that reflect the tactical realities highlighted by the data, especially in matches where set-piece edges are clearer than open-play advantages. Viewed this way, a sports betting service such as ufabet168 becomes a practical endpoint in the chain from tactical insight to market selection, providing the instrument through which a pre-match model focused on set-piece strengths and weaknesses can be expressed rather than changing any of the underlying logic about which teams to target.

How “casino online” Differs From Set-Piece-Driven Football Risk

From a risk-structure perspective, it is tempting to mentally group all wagering under the same umbrella, but the dynamics behind a match-based model built on set-piece statistics differ significantly from activity on a casino online venue. In football markets, a bettor can integrate detailed information about routines, opposition vulnerabilities and referee tendencies into a probabilistic view that either aligns with or conflicts with posted odds, allowing for selections grounded in observable tactical causes. By contrast, most casino-facing games operate on fixed, transparent house edges where patterns in past outcomes do not meaningfully alter future probabilities, meaning that transferring set-piece-based reasoning into that context would misread the nature of variance and available edge.

Summary

The 2022/23 Premier League season confirmed that several teams—most notably Liverpool, Tottenham, Brentford, Arsenal and Fulham—relied heavily on goals from set pieces, turning rehearsed routines into a structural part of their attacking output. For bettors, those tendencies matter because they shift value toward special markets centred on corners, free-kicks and headers, especially when matched against opponents with known set-piece weaknesses. A data-driven approach that treats set-piece strength as a distinct tactical asset, rather than a side-effect of overall dominance, offers the clearest path to finding mispriced opportunities in niche markets built on dead-ball situations.