Arsenal’s Set-Piece Concern Ahead of the Wolves Game By: Ibiniyi Victor
During the later days of the iconic Arsene Wenger’s reign at Arsenal, quite a number of unwanted traits became the trademark of the Arsenal team – from poor decision-making at the back to howlers, capitulations and concession of dumb set-piece goals, despite commanding the tall figures of Per Mertesacker and Olivier Giroud at some point – all of this turned the once revered Arsenal to an object of ridicule by rival fans.
Dwelling on the set-piece play as a subject of discussion from the aforementioned issues, Arsenal’s plight in this area continued into the reign of Unai Emery, who, alongside his coaching staff found it hard to significantly improve the team’s set-piece defending; and we all know how things panned out for the Spaniard at the Emirate.
Another Spaniard, Mikel Arteta, who learnt the Arsenal way as a player under Wenger, and tutored by Pep at Manchester City, was charged with turning things around at the club. Frankly speaking, he has in my own judgement been clearly detailed in his plan for the club and has improved the team in many aspects including both the defensive and attacking set-piece play. He benefited from his relationship with the coaching staff at City by securing the service of Nicolas Jover who replaced Andreas Georgson in the summer as the new chief set-piece coach.
Thanks to the Frenchman’s appointment and some serious work in training, coupled with Aaron Ramsdale’s great command if his penalty area, Arsenal are yet to concede from a corner kick this season – a remarkable achievement indeed. Top teams like Man City hardly let-in goals from set-piece play, as it presents smaller teams with a rare opportunity to get bodies into the opposition penalty area. Having someone like Jover around certainly is important to how easy we want to finish off matches without conceding goals due to lazy set-piece defending.
Despite the significant improvement in this area, another area of concern is the opposite end of set-piece defending – attacking set-piece play. Many may not have paid much attention to, or attached any importance to, the corner kick scoreline in the match against Brentford which read Arsenal 14 – 0 Brentford. The gunners took fourteen corner kicks without posing any serious threat to the opposition. Does this mean that there isn’t as much effort put into attacking set-pieces as it is with defending set-pieces? Only the coaches and players know that, but we can only have different assumptions based on what we see on display on match days. Whichever it is, there’s no denying that the team need not rely solely on goals from open play, and truth be told – on days where you are not at your best, set-pieces give you what many often term as ‘undeserved’ or ‘ugly’ wins.
Funny enough, Arsenal won ugly against Wolves and personally, given their recent run of form, I wouldn’t mind another ugly win against them, but this time around, I hope we do that with eleven Arsenal players still on the pitch at the final whistle.
Ibiniyi Victor