Arsenal’s efficiency from corners has become a cornerstone of their progress under Mikel Arteta.
Since the appointment of set-piece coach Nicolas Jover ahead of the 2021-22 season, they rank first for both goals from corners (52) and goals from non-penalty set-pieces (65) in the Premier League. Liverpool are next best on both accounts, but have nine goals fewer from corners and six goals fewer from non-penalty set-pieces.
Arsenal’s reputation for creating goals from these situations sometimes brought an expectation that corners would be converted, which added to their growth as one of the league’s most dominant sides.
That theme carried into the first half of this season, with both goals in a 2-0 win over Manchester United contributing to a ‘death by corners’ narrative. But Arsenal are now without a set-piece goal since the opener against Tottenham Hotspur on January 15 (12 games in all competitions). As a result, questions have started to be asked about what has impacted Arsenal’s aerial dominance.
Before hitting panic stations, it is worth noting that Arsenal still rank first for goals from corners in the Premier League this season with 10. For non-penalty set pieces, the only teams who rank above their 12 goals are Crystal Palace and Aston Villa, who both have 13.
Despite still ranking highly in these metrics, their recent drought from corners was compounded by a string of matches in which they failed to score. In February, after scoring five times against Manchester City, they went four games without scoring inside the first 80 minutes. With corners such a valuable way of breaking open tight matches, their failure to convert contributed to dropped points.
Arsenal have scored in all their games this month, including seven away to PSV, but has anything changed about the way they attack at corners?
The first thing to get out of the way is the absence of Bukayo Saka through a hamstring injury. The England international had 13 assists in all competitions at the time of his injury, and three were from corners. All of these corner assists were for Gabriel, but were slightly different in their strategy.
The first came against Spurs in September. His corner was placed in the middle of the six-yard box. Gabriel’s smart double movement bought him an extra yard to power into that space.
Saka then found the Brazil defender at the back post the following week away to Manchester City, after another smart double movement got him free of Kyle Walker.
Saka found Gabriel in almost the same spot just minutes earlier. City could have expected that delivery and run to come again, but stopping it was another proposition.
A change came in November against West Ham as Gabriel joined Arsenal’s back-post pack of players before losing his marker and heading in at the near post.
The precision of Saka’s deliveries alongside the variation and intent in Gabriel’s runs made a huge difference.
Including the equaliser in January’s north London derby, Arsenal have scored two goals from corners since Saka was subbed off at Selhurst Park. One came from the second phase, and the other was an own goal. Gabriel Martinelli and Declan Rice provided the right-footed delivery against and Spurs, and Ethan Nwaneri a left-footed one against Brentford.
Rice’s deliveries were partly responsible for Arsenal’s scoring streak late last season as five of his nine assists were from set pieces. He has eight assists this season, three from set pieces, but his deliveries have not changed too much. Some have been subpar, but he has still provided more than good enough deliveries in that time.
In the second leg against PSV, his first corner found Mikel Merino at the back post. The Spain international was the target as Gabriel was being double-marked on the penalty spot. But Merino could not direct his header on target.
Merino has been found in similarly good positions by Rice after peeling behind onrushing runners, but the finishing touch has not been there. Below is an example against Nottingham Forest…
Gabriel has also come close in recent months without success.
It shows how fine the margins can be on corners that the delivery can find the recipient perfectly, but the final execution being a centimetre off can add to this trend. There have only been two games since Saka’s injury where Arsenal have failed to muster a shot from a corner (Wolves and Leicester City away), so the issue is not necessarily a failure to create scoring situations from corners. Instead, execution and possibly how space is made could be the main factors.
Outside of the deliveries of Saka and Rice, and Gabriel’s runs, there was another key cog in Arsenal’s corner routines: Kai Havertz.
Although he was not a common scorer from corners, the German helped in a few ways. Often stationed towards the far end of the six-yard box, he could communicate with the bench to help relay instructions to his team-mates. He was also effective at creating space for others.
Often a decoy runner, Havertz can either take a marker with him — it would be stupid to leave a 6ft 4in forward unmarked that close to goal — or stay away from the cluster of bodies to open a running lane for Gabriel.
That, as well as blocks of players latching onto defenders, helped for Gabriel’s goals earlier in the campaign. More recently, left-footed corners have taken Gabriel further away from the goal, making it more difficult to direct them towards the goal with power as seen below.
That being said, chances are still being generated from set pieces.
Sometimes, there is not always a science to why such a reliable source of goals goes dry. In Arsenal’s case, there are some key factors — such as being without one of the best set-piece takers in the league in Saka — but they also seem to have lacked a bit of luck or composure when it comes to that final action. Those are not major issues when looking at the bigger picture, even if the efficiency of the last four seasons would have been better to carry through recent months.
“Another big part of that (training) is set pieces,” Arteta said in his post-Manchester United press conferences. “The amount of (attacking) situations we generate, we generate them (set pieces), so that’s another tool that a few months ago we were exceptional at.
“It opened a lot of games. We lost a lot of players up front, so we need to recover all those things as well because they’re really helpful.”
Martinelli has made his return and is another taker from the left alongside Rice. On the right, it will be interesting to see how quickly Arsenal decide to bring Saka back. A revival of potency from set pieces could be particularly helpful to open up their upcoming Champions League meetings with Real Madrid.
Whatever happens though, Arsenal have been consistent from corners for years and are still creating chances from them. It seems they just need the rub of the green to get back on track rather than a total rethink.
(Top photo: Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
