Tottenham's new set piece coach Gianni Vio is making such an impression on the players that Dejan Kulusevski told him three times on Saturday that he deserves a pay rise and Harry Kane has also praised the Italian.
The former Italy, AC Milan, Leeds and Brentford coach was brought in by Antonio Conte this summer to vastly improve the club's set piece options. Vio has designed 4,830 different attacking set piece scenarios which he adapts to the players at his disposal and he was lauded at Euro 2020 for his impact as Italy won the tournament.
Spurs scored just eight league goals from set-pieces last season, which was only five more than relegated Norwich, who scored the least, and 13 fewer than champions Manchester City, who scored the most.
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It's no coincidence that since Vio's arrival in north London, Tottenham have already scored from two set pieces in their first three games. Kane scored in the 96th minute from Ivan Perisic's corner at Chelsea and then the striker nodded home from Perisic's flick-on from Son's corner against Wolves on Saturday. Eric Dier also scored from the second phase of a set piece against Southampton in the opening match of the season thanks to his positioning.
Vio has been working closely with the squad ahead of matches since pre-season and Kane praised his influence on the team.
"We’ve been working on them in training. 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," he said. "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."
Spurs winger Kulusevski admitted after the latest set piece brought the match-winning goal against Wolves he told Vio that Tottenham needed to pay him more.
"I just told him three times that we have to give him more money. He has to get a pay rise for sure! Shout-out to him," said the Swede. "He's very important. He makes a difference, like you can see. At the end of the day, we won on a set piece today so we have to keep working on that. It's not the most fun thing in the world but it gets 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."
Kane believes Spurs have improved in plenty of aspects since last season and that they have a different mentality this campaign.
"We’ve definitely made improvements since March-April time," he said. "We’ve definitely strengthened. The mentality was starting to change towards the back end of last year. To get into the Champions League in the way we did and performing in high-pressure situations at the end of the season was really important, and of course we’ve added to the squad, we’ve got better, we’ve improved, we’ve had a good pre-season with the manager.
"He demands a lot from us on the pitch, off the pitch, (with the) mentality. Also it’s still really early on in the season so time will tell, but we’re in a good place. We know we need to improve, especially the last two first halves against Chelsea and against Wolves, we need to do better, but I think as the season goes on we’ll get stronger and stronger."
Conte wants his players to be nastier and more ruthless and Kane believes it's just as much about being smarter on the pitch and that the new recruits will bring that winning knowledge.
"I think in certain situations you have to be clever, you have to be smart, you have to dig deep as a team and grind it out in moments, as we did [against Wolves]. It wasn’t pretty, especially in that first half, but we also dug deep and stuck together," he said. "We’re just building a good squad, players who have the passion and desire to win every moment, every game.
"That’s what creates a good environment. You see it in training, you see the competition for places and everyone ready to go at it and try to impress the manager. That’s really important."
People are now starting to talk up Tottenham's prospects this season because of Conte, his ambitions and past and the busy summer transfer window which has brought seven new signings.
"I think that if you want to do something important in the season you have to be able to handle those high-pressure situations," said Kane. "In the big games, in the tight games, 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."
Former Brazil striker Ronaldo was in the stands as a special guest at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday and Kane admitted he was a forward he took inspiration from growing up.
"I haven't spoken to him, I just saw on social media that he was in the stands. We’ve got a few Brazilians in our team now so I’m sure he was watching some of those," he said. "Ronaldo was one of the greatest strikers of all time. I loved watching him, I love watching him on You Tube as I was growing up. A great to see him here."
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