With Lampard and Drogba are stepping down, who is gonna be our penalty,freekick and corner taker?

Malouda will get lesser time if he doesn't impress in next few games with Mata joining the squad.

Lampard's corner and free kick has been poor since last season, his penalties are still top class though.

I see a lot people(including me) start dumping Lampard and Drogba from starting eleven, who's gonna be the new set pieces taker? Lampard can't start every games with that kind of performance, definitely not enough for us. (hate to say this.)

Give your thoughts.

Malouda's delivery from corners was quite good last night I thought. Mata is also capable of taking corners and he took penalties for Valencia last season, but I doubt he'll be replacing Super Frank as our taker. Not even Ballack did that and I think he missed about 2 in his whole career.

Didier's freekicks were a little off last season. That was a real strength of his in the double winning year.

BTW if you want to check out a guy who can take a free kick, see Keisuke Honda for CSKA this morning. Scored a ripper.

I didn't read the whole thing but this maybe interesting to some.. soccerbythenumbers

Alex takes em well. Once Luiz is back he has a good free kick technique as well.

Alex takes em well.

Alex is a good option to have for direct freekicks from a certain area of the pitch, but when you need something else than just a "hit it as hard as you can" type of a shot, then Alex is really not the player.

Not sure about corners, maybe Malouda?

And as for free kicks I'm sure one of Lampard, Drogba, David Luiz or Alex will be on the pitch at any given time. We should be fine with that.

Whoever takes them it would be nice to see some imagination now and then rather than blasting it at the wall, which is all Lampard is doing right now, at least Drogba can bend and dip the ball at pace..I am sure there must be some other players with the skills than just Frank and Drogba?

You know you have a dearth of left footed options from free kicks when Ashley Cole has to step up at times(think he's scored one his whole career). Hopefully Mata will rectify that.

On the matter of set-piece takers, who do you reckon is the best in the league? For me it's probably Leighton Baines.

Traditionally the problem we've had is our best set-piece takers, eg Drogba, Ballack, Alex etc are also the kind of guys you want in the box! Lampard just isn't very good at them either. It's been area we've been lacking in since Zola left, and yet all that considered we score more than our fair share of goals from them! If we had Adam or Baines taking our corners, Ivanovic, Alex, Terry and Luiz would probably be competing for Golden Shoe!

Even after all these years no one's surpassed David Beckham at taking corners.

I'd rank our takers as follows:

1. Drogba

2. Alex

3. Lampard

4. Malouda

5. Cole

1st three are able to score and even hit the net with good percentage, Malouda and Cole are hit&miss more or less.

Mata should be able to deliver the ball into the box with good accuracy and so is Modric if the deals go through.

Josh took corners for the reserves and im pretty sure he took one or two last season for the first team. He is quite decent.

Im not sure about Alex, One he might not be here much longer and two he only blasts them (usually into the wall or over the bar). Ashley has taken a few here and there. I wonder how Torres would do at taking free kicks or Pens, popping in a few pens might do him the world of good. Saying that the two games this season we should have had a pen in each game and not one of them was given.

Mata could do a job maybe.

I would love to have Leighton Baines taking set pieces for us...and if we didn't have Ash, he'd be a fantastic choice at LB.

We have so many targets in the box for corners etc. but we don't seem to get the right ball in often enough.

Drogba is still classy ar free-kicks, and for precision, he's the man. Alex's free-kicks are awesome when they come off.

It's clear Lampard, Malouda and Drogba are considered the best corner takers, but as I said, too often the ball doesn't end up in a dangerous area at all.

Lampard is a quality penalty taker, as is Drogba. Lamps has been missing more lately, but I think it's a confidence thing. Once he gets on a roll, he doesn't look like missing. Drogba I'd argue is possibly better, but he's behind in the queue and that's just the way it is.

Alex finds the crack from the wall almost every time. In the WBA game he was very unfortunate not to score. If we lose Alex we lose a great freekick taker.

Drogba is number one in every category for me. He'd give great corners if he wasn't so important in the box.

In a youtube compilation Mata shoots a good freekick that is eventually saved from the top corner. I think he'd be better giving corners though.

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Ivan had a punt from a few in the last couple of seasons?

Pretty sure Drogba has scored the most free-kicks in the PL over the past 3 seasons.

Mata would be obvious choice to do the corner kicks, considering he is only 1.70 and have taken set pieces for valencia. Freekicks I think we need a bit more striking power then mata can bring though.