LONDON — It was not so long ago that a team such as Doncaster Rovers might rock up at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with a well-worn and occasionally effective plan for downing a Premier League giant. Keep it tight in open play, trust yourselves to nick something from a set piece at the other end. Eighteen months ago, when Ange Postecoglou was at his most dismissive about the value of specialist set piece coaching, it might even have worked.
In 2025, however, what was once a great equalizing factor between the EFL and the Premier League looks to be another aspect of the game where money talks. Whenever Xavi Simons stood over a corner or Rodrigo Bentancur stood over a free kick, Andreas Georgson would step out from Thomas Frank’s shadow to supervise another carefully crafted routine. Check their penalty area and it was apparent how much smaller and younger the League One side looked. Gone are the days when a giant 33-year-old might be the rock on which Doncaster built their defense. Instead, it was the Premier League athletes who leaped highest and hit hardest.
In the early exchanges, Doncaster looked firmly in this tie. They attacked aggressively out wide, Tottenham loanee Damola Ajayi causing particular issues for his parent club, volleying a delivery from wide back across goal to a spot where Toyosi Olusanya could not quite turn the ball home. McCann’s side looked comfortable in possession too, and though they were no less vulnerable down their own flanks than they were dangerous when they had the ball, you could convince yourself that they could create a few issues for their hosts as this game went on.
Then came Tottenham’s first corner, lofted menacingly towards the goal line by Simons. It is fair to note that with or without a set-piece coach at his disposal, Ian Lawlor in the Doncaster goal ought to have been able to get a more convincing punch on the corner. Sean Grehan could have cleared it anywhere, but where he did, the perfect spot for Joao Palhinha to try an overhead kick. With Lawlor in no man’s land, the connection didn’t even have to be that sweet to hand Spurs the lead.
Make no mistake, with or without set pieces, Tottenham would probably have had this game won with relative ease. Their quality out wide was beyond anything right back Tom Nixon could deal with, Wilson Isidor skipping past him two minutes after the opener to deliver a fine cross Jay McGrath could only turn into his own net. Spurs could wait until the last kick of the ball to add a third, Brennan Johnson charging through an exhausted defense to meet Lucas Bergvall’s through ball and clip home.
Before then, another goal seemed more likely than not, it would be from another dead ball. There was a period late in the first half when this was on the brink of training ground exercise status, Spurs working on a string of corner routines that ended with an unmarked Pedro Porro striking at goal. It was too easy for Bentancur to outjump the red and white shirts when a delivery went straight into the box while Kevin Danso’s knock on found Archie Gray in the box for one of the best chances of the game. The former limbering up to hurl one into the mixer spoke to the burgeoning trend for long throws in 2025-26.
In all, 11 of Tottenham’s first 15 shots came from set pieces. And perhaps the extreme nature of their dominance from set pieces is exactly that, extreme. An improvement from dead balls has been a key tenet of Spurs under Frank, while the early-season data from League One would suggest that Doncaster are a fairly unremarkable team when it comes to attacking and defending such scenarios.
Equally, as set pieces become the latest marginal gain that obsesses the Premier League, it is easy to see how the particular sort of dominance Tottenham applied might be applied on the days that are supposed to be about giant killing. When the nights draw in for FA Cup third round weekend, how many more of League One’s finest will find themselves smothered and bullied at corners? If that does indeed prove to be the case, it is harder than ever to see how the next Doncaster might pull off a cup upset.
