Salty set-piece snobbery is funny

Morning all. Wherever you are, I hope you’re doing well today. I’m sure you know I hope that every day, but sometimes it’s worth saying it out loud.

I touched on this yesterday a bit in the recap of the 2-0 win over Man Utd, but I find the whole debate/discussion/furore around Arsenal scoring from set-pieces absolutely hilarious and fascinating in equal measure. As fans of this club, we have experienced things which shape our view of Arsenal itself, of football, the game, and what happens in it.

Just go back to last weekend when we were ripping West Ham to shreds at the London Stadium. We were 4-0 up, playing brilliantly and, to all intents and purposes, the game was won. Then, football being football, they scored a couple of goals in quick succession and I don’t think there was a single Gooner in the world (who was old enough for this to be relevant) who didn’t immediately think of that 4-4 draw at Newcastle all those years ago.

If you recall goals from Theo Walcott, Johan Djourou and Robin van Persie (2) putting us 4-0 up by the 26th minute, you also remember conceding four in the second half after we went down to 10 men – including two scored by Joey Barton of all people. That game took place on February 5th 2011, nearly 14 years ago now, and yet when West Ham scored twice, I had flashbacks. Put them in a Vietnam war movie and they’d be dismissed as hackneyed and too clichéd, but they were real!

Similarly, I remember games against teams like Stoke and Bolton (but particularly the Tony Pulis era Stoke), where a corner or a throw-in or free kick anywhere on the pitch where it could be lumped into our box gave me the heebie-jeebies. We were a small team back then, technical but certainly lacking physicality and stature, and the opposition seemed to be filled with giants who could be NBA players.

So, the ball would come in, we had goalkeepers whose approach to dealing with these deliveries was to look absolutely stricken, say a quick decade of the rosary, then either stay rooted to their line or come steaming out – eyes closed – hoping for the best. The defenders never looked as comfortable as you might like; our collection of 5’8 midfielders did their best but were out-muscled often; and each set-piece was a chest-tightening, stomach-flipping, nerve-wracking, arse-clenching nightmare. I did not care for it at all.

As for what we could do up the other end, I might be proven wrong by someone who can dig up the stats, but we never felt particularly threatening. The only player I can recall scoring with any frequency from set-pieces was Laurent Koscielny. I know there must have been more, and we had to have scored a few goals every season from corners and free-kicks, but you never felt like we had any consistent threat.

Which is why I’m so enjoying what we can do now. If anyone out there wants to dismiss it as industrial or boring or anti-football, be my guest. The goals we score from set-pieces are worth just as much as a brilliantly worked move (like Leandro Trossard’s goal against West Ham, for example), or a rocket of a shot into the top corner (like Riccardo Calafiori’s against Man City). If opposition fans think set-piece goals are too good for them to worry about, then that’s fine by me.

I suspect that’s not going to be a view shared by any serious manager or head coach for much longer though. You can’t ignore what Arsenal are doing. Certainly not when you’re playing us, because we’ll test you and your defence to the absolute limit; and not when you think about how you can win games against everybody else.

There’s a serious point to be made though. Here’s Mikel Arteta speaking about set-pieces in September 2020:

It’s a key percentage of goals scored and conceded that has a great impact on results and points at the end of the season. So it’s another aspect of the game that you have to dominate.

This was just after hiring Andreas Georgson from Brentford as our set-piece coach. In July 2021, after the Swede left for a job with Malmo, Arteta raided Man City and brought in Nicolas Jover – who he himself had hired/recommended while working as an assistant to Pep Guardiola. To say the job he has done has been first class is probably an understatement, the fruits of which are obvious to everyone when we see another goal go in the back of the net and the miserable, downcast faces of the opposition who knew what we wanted to do but just couldn’t stop it. That’s demoralising.

The key point for me though is this: despite all the best preparation, organisation, training, planning and everything else, there will be days when your team just doesn’t quite click. It happens, it’s just one of those things in football. We’ve all been there, you look at the team and think we could play till midnight and not score from open play. However, if you have the kind of threat we possess from set-pieces, there’s an aspect of the game that is kind of distinct from everything else.

So on a day when it doesn’t click, when we can’t find our rhythm for whatever reason, we still have a way to win. It won’t happen every time, but it is a kind of safety net for when performance levels are not where we need them to be. It is, as Arteta often says, maximising every aspect of the game to give yourself the best chance of winning.

To me that’s not industrial or boring or whatever term you want to use to try and dismiss Arsenal’s quality from corners and free kicks – it’s common sense. And long may that continue in a world where that seems to be too often in short supply these days.

Right, I’ll leave it there for now. The Arsecast is below if you haven’t had a chance to listen, and if you want more for your ears, we’ll have a double helping over on Patreon today. First, we’ll look back at all the midweek Premier League action in The 30, before we do our Fulham preview podcast later in the afternoon. To sign up for instant access for just $6 per month, go to patreon.com/arseblog.

Have a great Friday folks.

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