All eyes have been on Anthony Elanga this week, with the Swedish international set to complete a £55m move to Newcastle United any minute now – if he hasn’t already!
But it seems he isn’t the only new Scandinavian who’s arrived this summer, with hidden recruit Martin Mark starting work on Monday as Newcastle’s new set piece coach after leaving Danish giants FC Midtjylland.
Bringing strong experience to the coaching set up, and having worked alongside some of the best in the business, just how big an impact could Mark have on our performances next season?
Midtjylland already had a strong reputation for being a potent goalscoring threat by the time Martin Mark became the ‘Head of Set Pieces’.
But from then, things only got better. Midtjylland scored 61 goals from set pieces between 2022 and 2024, picking up the Danish Superliga title along the way.
While some of our biggest goals last season came directly from set pieces, like *that* Burn goal against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final, you could argue we don’t score enough from corners and free kicks considering the number of 6ft 2+ players in our ranks (Burn, Botman, Schar, Joelinton, Isak and Osula, to name a few).
In a recent interview, Mark comments on his philosophy and how it has evolved to being so well-regarded.
“It’s more like 90% attacking and 10% defensive. We have an offensive mindset in our style of play, we want to attack, we want to dominate the opponent on set pieces and put pressure on them.”
Describing a game against Brondby, Midtjylland were able to capitalise on the Brondby press, launch a swift counter, and then begin to dominate proceedings through set pieces.
“We had a long throw in, and for the next four and a half minutes we just attacked them, with throw in after throw in into the box.”
”Think it was four throw ins in a row. Having five set pieces in the first four minutes of the game really puts our opponents under pressure.”
We know Eddie Howe prefers a high press, attacking style of play, but with how quick on the counter we could be next season (owing to Elanga joining Isak and Gordon in attack, and the pairing of Hall and Livramento at fullback), Mark may just suit us perfectly.
Set piece coaches are all the rage in the Premier League right now, with Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover being the most notable example.
But when we play the Gunners next season, it won’t be the first time that Mark and Jover will have crossed paths, as the Arsenal man enjoyed a brief stint learning from the experts at Midtjylland.
“He was here in Midtjylland actually – back in 2018 or so – just to learn how we do things when it comes to set pieces.”
“Two weeks after he got a job at Brentford and now you see him on the Champions League coverage whenever Arsenal get a set piece the camera zooms in on him!”
If Mark’s preferred style of play already suited us, then the Dane will have no difficult task in matching Howe’s high expectations and drive to succeed.
Dan Burn revealed in a recent podcast that Howe will extensively analyse our future opponents, coming up with fluid strategies and ever-changing tactics, something which Mark has done plenty of times in his own work.
“So if you’re not on the right timing, on the right spot, it will never be a success for you. We think it’s better to have fewer and be good at them.”
“Of course the opponent can read us, but sometimes we switch it up at halftime. I just pull up a flip board and say right you go there, you go there and you go there and we try it.”
“It’s all dependent on the opponent – for us there is a big difference between playing against a full zonal team compared to a team who go man-to-man. So even if the core strategy is similar the small details will change.”