Andrews appointed Set Piece Coach at Brentford

Former Republic of Ireland player and coach Keith Andrews has been appointed as the new Set Piece Coach at Brentford.

The 43-year-old joins from Sheffield United, where he has been First Team Coach since December 2023. Andrews was also assistant to Stephen Kenny during his three-year spell as Republic of Ireland manager from 2020 to 2023 and served as MK Dons Assistant in 2015/16.

Former Brentford Assistant Brian Riemer has previously spoken about set pieces being ingrained in the culture of the West London club.

“When I first came to Brentford I thought this focus on set pieces was a waste of time and resources and the players would never embrace it," Riemer admitted in an interview in 2021. “I was obviously proved wrong.

“It’s something the entire club wants to be really good at and, therefore, we always spend time on set pieces at training. We have a set-piece playbook covering every situation, including kick-offs, throw-ins, corners, wide free kicks and central free kicks. This is what benefits us.

“We believe there are about 60 set-piece situations in every game, which means it’s basically 60 times that you can potentially create a chance of scoring. I know you don’t do that every time but it’s 60 opportunities, and considering how much work goes into creating chances in open play, it makes sense to make use of all these situations.”

Brentford advertised the Set Piece Coach role on TGG Jobs and the key responsibilities were as follows:

• Take ownership for maintaining and improving the Brentford FC Set Piece Play Book.
• Be responsible for embedding the set piece principles based on the Play Book into the first team squad, via on the grass coaching, team and group analysis sessions, and one-to-one analysis and coaching with individual players.
• Analyse upcoming first team opponents and design strategies to maximise our set piece output against those opponents, aligned to our set piece principles.
• Working with the head coach, design the training week to ensure that sufficient coaching time goes into working with the players on the grass to finalise the set piece strategy for the next opponent.
• Ensure that all set piece coaching is high energy, engaging, detailed and clear for the players.
• Take a lead role on match days to provide clear information to the players before and during the game, and analyse our opponents defensive set piece set-up to ensure real-time adjustments are made to our strategy in order to maximise our opportunities and make use of our key strengths.
• Review our set piece performance after every game and feedback to staff and players about our strengths and weaknesses.
• Advise the recruitment team about requirements for new players aligned to the set piece strategy, and spend time watching and reporting on potential future signings.
• Keep abreast of other team’s set piece strategies and use this to take inspiration for developing and improving the Set Piece Play Book.
• Work with our analysts and data department to continually review and improve the metrics by which we measure our set piece strengths and weaknesses.
• As requested by the Director of Football, provide analysis and key metrics regarding set pieces for use in board meetings, strategy meetings, or any other relevant meeting or report.
• Adopt a positive and progressive attitude to set pieces around the training ground and take a lead role to ensure that all players and staff understand the importance of set pieces for the Club.