Fans love to honor and immortalize their top scorers to ensure their legacy lives on forever.
So when you put it like that, perhaps it’s not so strange – or deeply embarrassing – to see the black and white mural of Arsenal manager Nicolas Jover appear alongside other club legends in the Hornsey Road tunnel outside the Emirates Stadium . .
Since the start of last season, Arsenal have scored 31 goals from set pieces, not counting penalties. It is the same number of goals in that time that Mohamed Salah scored for Liverpool. Only Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer have scored more.
It is no longer a secret that the Gunners, under the command of Mikel Arteta, are the kings of set pieces. A quick search on social media and you’ll soon find images of the Spaniard dressed in a baseball cap and tracksuit like former Stoke boss Tony Pulis.
Their last three league goals have all come from corners and the question is whether they are now too reliant on them, especially if their opponents are doing everything they can to find ways to stop them, which they are.
In the same way that analysts will devise ways to stop Haaland or Salah, clubs are now looking for ways to cut Arsenal’s goal supply from corners.
Arsenal have scored 31 goals from set pieces, not including penalties, since the start of last season
The set-piece coach, Nicolás Jover, has been immortalized with a mural on the outskirts of the Emirates
Sean Dyche’s Everton, however, dealt with Arsenal’s set-piece threat in a goalless draw.
Corner-fans Sean Dyche’s Everton met Arsenal’s threat with old-school strength and desire at the Emirates on Saturday. The Toffees have scored 50 per cent of their goals since the start of last season from set pieces and they know how to defend them too. Arsenal only had two attempts on goal from their eight corners in the goalless draw.
The Gunners’ victory over Monaco three days earlier in the Champions League was much more interesting. Arsenal love to crowd the back post to cause the necessary chaos that allows Gabriel to run freely and head in deliveries from Bukayo Saka or Declan Rice.
Monaco then left three forwards high up the pitch with two in the halfway line, forcing three Arsenal players to trudge back and mark them due to the threat of a quick counterattack.
Unlike champions Manchester City at the Etihad, where Gabriel headed in, Monaco also attempted to mark the group man by man rather than zonally. Other teams have tried in the league and still conceded. For Monaco, both tactics worked.
Arsenal are far from settled on set pieces. But teams are looking for ways to stop them, which means Arteta must do two things: continue to evolve set-piece routines and, crucially, improve the ability to score from open play.
They are doing the first. Mail Sport revealed after Arsenal’s win at West Ham that Gabriel had abandoned his usual attack from the penalty spot as at the Etihad and instead began attacking as part of the far post brigade. They will still need to mix things up.
However, their decline in open play is their real problem and the one that will likely cost them the title if they don’t fix it. By the time set pieces don’t work, Arsenal are out of ideas.
Almost a third of Arsenal’s goals this season have come from set pieces, and that’s not including penalties. Only Everton, Palace and Nottingham Forest score a higher proportion of goals this way.
Mikel Arteta and Jover will need to continue changing as teams adapt to their set-piece strategies
Arsenal have only scored 18 goals from open play. There are less than eight clubs, and one of them is Wolves. Their expected goals (xG) from open play is even worse, at just under 17, which is roughly the same as West Ham. You can forget about winning a Premier League title with those numbers.
But what went wrong? Last season, Arsenal scored 59 goals from open play, the fifth most in the division. They are currently on track to reach about 43.
As Thierry Henry pointed out on Monday Night Football, they have become too predictable with the ball. Too often they take the easy option.
Courageous players on top teams try to split defenses with their passing, passing the ball across opposing midfield or defense lines.
Arsenal’s midfielders have completed 112 passes between the lines this season, behind 10 other clubs and 15 fewer than Chelsea’s midfielders, 18 fewer than Tottenham’s, 33 fewer than Manchester City’s and, astonishingly, 61 fewer than of Brentford, the highest figure in the division.
They are also too reliant on stars Saka and Martin Odegaard.
Saka has created 27 chances from open play in the league this season, the most of any Arsenal player. Only Palmer, Bernardo Silva and Dejan Kulusevski have created more.
Odegaard is second on Arsenal’s list of creators and has missed seven league games through injury.
Bukayo Saka has created 27 chances from open play, the fourth most in the top flight.
The Gunners rely too much on Martin Odegaard and Saka to create their chances
That’s especially damning for the Gunners’ left flank duo of Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli. They have created 14 opportunities each. Five Bournemouth players have more than that, as do four from Palace and four from Fulham.
For Martinelli, a player who scored 21 goals and had nine assists in the previous two seasons, that is a steep drop. He’s creating a lot less, taking fewer shots, and is wasting the ball a lot more. It leaves Arsenal unbalanced. Almost 48 per cent of the Gunners’ chances from open play have been created on the right side.
Even when you compare that to title rivals Liverpool, who have Salah flying down the right wing, producing more goals and assists than ever before, the split between the left, right and central channels remains much more even.
That keeps opponents guessing, which means defenses must be alert to attacks from all angles. Arsenal are just not doing that and that affects everyone.
Saka and Odegaard still lead the way in their involvement in open play sequences that end in an Arsenal goal attempt, whether taking it themselves, creating the chance or simply making a pass in the build-up, but even then, their numbers have lowered.
Odegaard’s has dropped from 7.7 participations per game to 6.4, Saka’s from 7.5 to 6.5. Last season, Trossard, Martinelli and Gabriel Jesús averaged more than six. This season, only Saka and Odegaard do it. Martinelli now averages just over four, even less than deep midfielder Mikel Merino.
Arteta picked up a couple of water bottles at a press conference recently to try and illustrate how he sees Arsenal’s style of play.
Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard have created just 14 chances each from the left wing
‘You see that this (the first bottle) is a set piece and this (the other bottle) is an open play. I see it as if (the first bottle) were open play and set pieces. It’s all together with every style of play.’ His point was that the way Arsenal play outdoors gives them the set pieces they have thrived on.
That may very well be true. But if Arteta is to lift the Premier League trophy in May, he cannot rely on one leading to the other.
To be champions you need both things to flow.