Newcastle v Arsenal: What’s happening with giants?

It is instructive to note that Howe was fielding similar questions nearly a year ago.

Newcastle had just gone a whopping 50 corners without scoring in the Premier League – but they eventually started firing again.

By the time Newcastle contested last season’s Carabao Cup final in March, Howe even sensed an opportunity as he stressed to his staff that “a set-play could win us the game… let’s go into the detail that could swing it for us”.

Newcastle spent the next couple of weeks working on free-kicks and corners after spotting Liverpool’s vulnerabilities in deeper areas inside the box.

The routines were not necessarily coming off on the training ground, but one did when it mattered most at Wembley as the Magpies went on to end a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy.

Burn’s opener that day neatly illustrated the work of assistant manager Jason Tindall and set-play analyst Kieran Taylor, who played their part in Newcastle scoring a respectable 13 goals from free-kicks and corners in the Premier League last season.

However, given the huge amount of work involved, Howe had been looking to bring in an additional set-play coach to help share the load for some time.

And Martin Mark’s record at set-piece innovators Midtjylland certainly stood up when he joined Newcastle in June.

Midtjylland scored more goals from set-plays (19) than any other side in the Danish top flight last season – even after excluding penalties – and maximising dead-ball situations proved crucial to their title win the previous year.

Kristian Bak, who is Midtjylland’s head of sport, said Mark’s “hunger really shone through” during his time at the MCH Arena.

“Martin stood up for the idea that we should be the best in the world in that discipline,” he said of the 32-year-old. “For him, every single day had to involve set-pieces and having a person like that is a gift.

“His hunger and his nerdy attention to detail rubbed off on several departments, and he was very good at spreading the importance of set-pieces across the whole organisation. He took that part to the next level.”

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