Tottenham’s new set-piece coach Gianni Vio has already earned a pay-rise according to Dejan Kulusevski, after Harry Kane scored from a corner for the second game running to decide Saturday’s 1-0 win over Wolves.
Vio joined Antonio Conte’s coaching staff from the Italian national team in the summer, bringing with him a playbook reportedly containing more than 4,800 set-piece routines.
Spurs are already reaping the rewards, and Kane met Ivan Perisic’s near-post flick for the winner against Wolves after scoring a stoppage-time equaliser from the Croatian’s corner to salvage a point at Chelsea the week before.
Kulusevski, who was impressive again on Saturday, says former banker Vio is already making a difference.
“I just told [Vio] three times that we have to give him more money. He has to get a pay rise for sure! Shoutout to him,” Kulusevski said after the win over Bruno Lage’s side. “He’s very important.
“He makes a difference, like you can see. At the end of the day, we won on a set piece 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.
“Every time we get a set piece we have to believe we can score.”
Spurs scored just eight Premier League goals from dead-ball situations last season -- five more than league-worst Norwich and 13 fewer than league-best Manchester City -- and they also struggled to defend corners and free-kicks.
They shipped ten league goals from set-pieces last season, nine more than league-best City, and conceded the opening in the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge directly from a corner.
Kane believes set-pieces can be the difference in close games but says Spurs must start matches with more intensity after sluggish first halves against both Chelsea and Wolves.
“We’ve been working on [set pieces] in training,” Kane said. “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. Two in two now, hopefully we can keep it up.
“We’ve had plenty of time, we’ve had one game a week for the last three weeks now, so probably leading up to two days before the game, 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.
“It’s still really early on in the season so time will tell. But we’re in a good place,” the England captain added.
“We know we need to improve, especially the last two first halves against Chelsea and Wolves, we need to better.
“But I think as the season goes on we’ll get stronger and stronger.
“I think that if you want to do something important in the season you have to be able to handle those high-pressure situations.
“In the big games, in the tight games like Saturday, you have to be able to come out on top and build those points throughout the whole year.
“We’ve started the season well. Obviously the first game we played really well and the next two we know we can improve but we’ve got good results.
“That’s pleasing to see. But also we know you can’t keep that up the whole season, we have to be better, especially in the first half.”
