Arsenal needed a No 9, everyone said so.
How else could they possibly keep pace with free-scoring Manchester City and rock-and-rollers Liverpool?
Well, they didn’t sign one and sit third in the Premier League with the same number of goals as City and only five fewer than Liverpool.
Their key signing was in fact completed in 2021, and he certainly does not wear No 9.
It is now more than two years since Nicolas Jover belatedly followed his former colleague Mikel Arteta down from Manchester to join him at Arsenal. The Frenchman’s task was to turn the Gunners into set-piece specialists – and you cannot deny he has achieved just that.
The year before Jover arrived, Arsenal scored just six goals from set-pieces. Only Fulham and Sheffield United got fewer. The Gunners were the most miserly in defence, but could not score them at the other end.
Now, they lead the league in set-piece goals with 17, four more than their nearest competitor Everton.
Goals though are a bit of a blunt metric, especially when you consider the Gunners have taken more corners than any other Premier League side this season and therefore more likely to have scored more. But drill deeper, into statistics like expected goals and set-piece efficiency, and their success still bears out: Sean Dyche’s set-piece kings at Everton are table-toppers but Arsenal remain right up there, with West Ham, Brentford and Newcastle the only three others besting them in terms of xG per corner taken.
The real question is what makes them so hard to stop, the challenge that faces Eddie Howe and co this Saturday when they visit the Emirates. We asked set-piece coach Andy Parslow, formerly of Watford, Wimbledon and Swansea, who identified four key areas…
Recruitment and personnel
“The likes of Kai Havertz joining, Declan Rice joining, these are players with good height in the team so increases the options that they’ve got,” Parslow tells i.
“Alongside that Gabriel, William Saliba, Ben White on the keeper, they’ve got options to go and head the ball.
“You can have the best set-piece coach in the world, if you haven’t got good options to get to go and head, the job becomes significantly more difficult.”
Rice’s arrival has also given Arteta an extra option for taking corners on the left-hand side, with the midfielder apparently proving his prowess on a mid-season training camp in Dubai.
The immaculate left foot of Bukayo Saka remains the preferred option from the right – Arsenal almost always hit inswingers – but after returning from the Middle East, Rice took 12 corners in the next four games, a pattern Mikel Arteta has confirmed will continue going forward.
“He’s been practising,” Arteta said. “He’s been excellent because he’s got the consistency and the quality with his deliveries which makes it another way of threatening the opponent.
“It’s a decision that the team had in relation to how we have to attack the box in certain things – and because he had a delivery. Then they started to work, especially with Nico [Jover]. They built that relationship, trust and timing. They said: ‘This can work.’”
Delivery and direction
Saka remains the most effective crosser of the ball but Rice’s right foot makes him a better option for Arsenal’s specific strategy at corners, crowding the goalmouth and aiming for the six-yard box.
“Ben White does a great job blocking in the goalkeeper,” Parslow explains.
“I’m surprised more clubs haven’t done better in terms of stopping him from doing that because everyone knows what he’s going to do each time the corner comes in.
“And the good thing about the inswingers into the six-yard box is it doesn’t have to be a perfect header: any contact on the ball in there is going to go towards the goal and because it’s so close to the goal, it’s so hard to stop it from going in.
“And they’ve got the players that can consistently hit those areas with good speed on the ball.”
Timing
“When Rice or Saka signal, they put their hand up,” Parslow says.
“Quite often it’s thought that is to tell the players where the ball is going to go, so like one hand means near post, two hands far post as an example.
“The way that Arsenal do it is that when the when the hand signal goes up, that’s the time for the players in the box to begin their movement.
“It’s a huge frustration sometimes for set-piece coaches when you get the delivery right but the players have gone too early and they’ve arrived in the space they’re not actually attacking the ball with momentum. They’ve stopped and then have to jump vertically, and the opposition players have had time to get into position to mark, to affect the jump.
“Saliba’s goal against West Ham, they had two arriving at the back post behind him. They start with like a staggered position and by the time the signal goes up, it means they’re all arriving at the right place for when the ball arrives and it just increases the probability.”
Sure enough, watch back the victory at the London Stadium and you’ll see White makes a late dart in front of the keeper to screen where the ball is going to be, Havertz and Saliba both arriving to virtually the same spot that Rice has hit, and behind is Gabriel Magalhaes, who probably would have scored a marginally overhit cross.
Later in the game, Gabriel gets on the scoresheet himself, connecting with a Rice free-kick while Gunners queued up behind him to score. The Brazilian’s marker never gets goalside.
“They’ll start with four players offside behind the defensive line, and again on the signal they’ll go on to arrive in the line as the taker’s making his run up,” Parslow explains.
“And what happens then is they’re arriving in [the line] just as the players are dropping so they can arrive with momentum.
“It’s impossible [for the defender] to see the ball and the man at the same time. It makes it difficult to affect the man and drop at the right time.
“The timing of that is so crucial because if they get that wrong, especially with VAR in the Premier League, any sort of fraction of the millimetre of a shin pad that’s offside is going to be given unfortunately.”
A Terry-esque desire to head the ball
While it is easy to look at Xs and Os and believe that anyone could arrive at the back post and score for Arsenal these days, there is also an element of individual ability.
Since Gabriel arrived in the Premier League nearly four years ago, no one has scored more goals from set-pieces. Nine have come directly from corners and free-kicks, while his other five have come in the immediate aftermath: a cross half-cleared or a second ball attacked.
“Gabriel is desperate to go and head the ball,” Parslow says.
“You see it in how he tries to separate from his marker, how he accelerates towards the ball to go and get in there. There’s a few other players that have been like that: you think of Sergio Ramos, Nemanja Vidic, John Terry. When the ball comes in, nothing else in the world exists except for that ball and their heads and you cannot stop them.”
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/HEwhJ4z
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