{"id":642582,"date":"2026-05-01T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/642582\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:12:08","slug":"why-an-mma-fighter-has-helped-albion-punch-above-their-weight-at-set-plays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/642582\/","title":{"rendered":"Why an MMA fighter has helped Albion punch above their weight at set-plays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabian Hurzeler has explained why he brought in an MMA fighter to help Albion<\/a>\u2019s work on set-pieces.<\/p>\n

And he added: \u201cI don’t always want to be known as a club that is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The head coach said the tale of the tape at set-plays might work against his side again as they face Newcastle but they can still be clever in their ringcraft.<\/p>\n

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He revealed: \u201cWe brought him in because I think we spoke a lot about set-pieces, about blocking, new trends in the Premier League. We tried to adapt to it as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t always want to be known as a club that is nice. In certain moments you have to be quite resilient in personal duels and therefore there are different ways of being resilient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are different ways of using a block, different techniques to win one against one duels, especially at set-pieces.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd an MMA fighter always has one-against-one duels.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always needs to find a way to beat his opponent and therefore we try to get ideas from other sports and that was an idea we used in quite an effective way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a club, we were never known as being so dominant at set-pieces.<\/p>\n

Read more….<\/p>\n

Albion boosted as Gomez eyes return ahead of Premier League finale<\/a>
Hurzeler faces the media ahead of Albion’s trip to Newcastle<\/a>
Kirby says stadium vision will inspire girls and help Albion attract players<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were never known as recruiting only for set-pieces, so therefore we need to find ways to be innovative.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe need to find ways that we can’t be beaten that easily when taller teams, taller opponents will face us, and that’s quite similar to what we face against Newcastle.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very physical team. We might not be that physical regarding our height but there are always ways you can defend and attack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fabian Hurzeler has explained why he brought in an MMA fighter to help Albion\u2019s work on set-pieces. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,23048,1614,146120,85],"class_list":["post-642582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-mma-fighter","tag-premier-league","tag-set-pieces","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}