Chelsea have identified Brentford guru Bernardo Cueva as one of their targets to work in the club’s new set-piece department.

Telegraph Sport exclusively revealed last Friday that Chelsea are going to recruit set-piece specialists to work in a newly created club-wide department.

And Cueva is understood to be one of the men on the radar of Chelsea, who believe their opponents last Saturday, Brentford, are one of the best examples of maximising set pieces.

Cueva’s official title at Brentford is ‘tactical statistician’, which includes responsibility for the set-pieces and he will often shout instructions to the players from the technical area. He was booked during Brentford’s victory at Stamford Bridge earlier this season, below.

Born in Mexico, Cueva was previously strategic analysis manager at Club Deportivo Guadalajara, known as Chivas, before he moved to the UK in September 2020.

While it is not known whether there has been an approach or any talks yet, Brentford are used to having their set-piece specialists poached, having seen Nicolas Jover, who went to Manchester City and then to Arsenal, Gianni Vio, who worked with Antonio Conte at Tottenham Hotspur, and Andreas Georgson, who has worked for Arsenal and Malmo, all depart.

Brentford have been one of the most effective and innovative teams at set-pieces for some time, while Aston Villa have a set-piece specialist and Nottingham Forest employed one at the end of last year.

Injuries have impacted Brentford’s statistics this season, but only Arsenal and Manchester City had conceded fewer goals from set-pieces than Thomas Frank’s team before last weekend’s games, although Chelsea had scored two more from set-pieces than the Bees.

Chelsea say Pochettino has been involved in the process of creating a set-piece department, despite sources stating otherwise and the head coach dismissing the importance of specialists last month.

Pochettino declared that “football belongs to the players, not to the specialists” and suggested the club should look to the summer transfer market to improve their set-piece record.

“We work a lot on set-pieces. After that, it is about the quality of the player. It is about the takers,” said Pochettino. “We don’t have a specialist. Maybe Chilly [Ben Chilwell] is good in the delivery but after that, we don’t have a specialist. If you want to be good at set-pieces, we work a lot. But then you need good takers.

“When you have good takers, and of course, Wolves have good takers, and like Manchester City have or other clubs. It is not down to the work. We work similarly. But the problem is to have good takers.

“We have specialists [coaches]. We are a coaching staff in charge of everything. You can have a specialist and you can promote the specialist. Or you can have the specialist and not promote the specialist. It depends how you want to sell the idea of working on set-pieces. We have a specialist, we have a group of analysts for set-pieces, we have the coaching staff and we work a lot. And then it is about the quality. At the moment, we were talking about trying to find a good specialist [player] for next season.

“Look before at West Ham and after. What changed? After and before? It’s not the same. The taker is [James] Ward-Prowse. Or he is Pochettino, no? Prowsey is a much better taker than me. For sure, you can work, like West Ham were working. But now, you add a player like him, you increase the percentage. That is football. Football belongs to the players. Not to the specialists.”

Chelsea’s creation of a set-piece department is part of a number of performance-related changes that were first put forward during a club review last summer.