Chelsea Targets Set-Piece Specialist Austin MacPhee
Chelsea have opened talks to bring Aston Villa’s acclaimed set-piece coach Austin MacPhee to Stamford Bridge, targeting one of the most influential backroom figures in the Premier League’s recent tactical shift.
They are not alone. Other Premier League sides and clubs from the Saudi Pro League are also in the hunt, turning the 46-year-old Scot into one of the most sought-after specialists in the modern game.
Chelsea eye an edge for Xabi Alonso
New Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso has room to reshape his staff, and set plays are a clear area he wants to sharpen. Bernardo Cueva, recruited from Brentford for £750,000 in 2024, is stepping away from the touchline into a more background role, leaving a gap in a department that can swing tight matches and title races.
MacPhee fits that brief with almost clinical precision. His contract at Villa contains a release clause, so any move would require compensation, but Chelsea know exactly what they would be paying for: a proven, repeatable advantage.
The numbers behind the reputation
Villa’s transformation on dead balls under MacPhee has been dramatic and sustained. During the 2023-24 campaign, they scored more goals from set-pieces than any other side across Europe’s top five leagues, a remarkable return for a club not operating at the financial level of some of their rivals.
They backed that up the following season, staying among the top five in Europe for set-piece output and finishing joint-top with Arsenal for set-piece goals in the Premier League last term. Corners, free-kicks, rehearsed routines from throw-ins – Villa turned them into a steady supply line.
Those details matter. In a league where margins are razor-thin, MacPhee’s work has effectively added a striker’s worth of goals to Unai Emery’s team without a single transfer fee.
Villa’s architect of detail
MacPhee has not just been a club operator. For the past five years, he has balanced his role at Villa Park with a similar position with the Portugal national team, working under Roberto Martinez until the coach’s post-World Cup resignation. That dual workload has kept him at the sharp end of tactical evolution, exposed to both club and international demands.
At Villa, his fingerprints are all over a period of rapid rise. Under Emery, the club have won the Europa Conference League and punched their ticket to the Champions League. Set-pieces were not the only reason, but they were a recurring theme in some of the most important nights of that run.
MacPhee is now expected to be one of several staff members to move on this summer, a natural consequence when success draws attention from richer, rebuilding giants.
A battle for marginal gains
For Chelsea, the pursuit is about more than filling a vacancy. Alonso is stepping into a club desperate to re-establish itself among England’s elite, and the hierarchy knows they cannot rely solely on headline signings to close the gap.
Set-pieces are the clearest, quickest route to improvement. Chelsea have the height, the delivery, the volume of attacking situations. What they want now is the kind of structure and ingenuity that turned Villa into Europe’s most dangerous dead-ball side.
The competition for MacPhee underlines how far the game has moved. Coaches once considered niche are now central to long-term planning, chased not just by Premier League rivals but by the financial muscle of Saudi Arabia.
If Chelsea win this race, Alonso gains a specialist with a track record of squeezing every drop out of a squad’s potential. If they lose, they may end up facing MacPhee’s routines from the other side of the technical area, counting the cost one corner at a time.
