The first thing, James Ward-Prowse explains, is to suppress the buzz of anticipation that comes when he places the ball down and focus as quickly as possible on the scoring opportunity that awaits.
'You analyse the wall, see if there is a weak point or smaller player you might be able to get the ball over,' he continues, inviting Sportsmail into the mind of a free-kick specialist, in this case in the precious seconds before his stunning effort at Watford last week.
'I lined it up, decided I wanted to go over the wall and then it's just back to the muscle memory of striking the ball, how I need to get it up and down so quickly to get beneath the crossbar.