Four reasons why Arsenal have stopped scoring from set-pieces
Eleven games, seven in the league; 89 Corners, 49 in the league; No goals, nowhere near first in the league.
Arsenal have tumbled and stumbled and dropped straight out of the title race in the last two months.
Since the giddy glee of a 5-1 Manchester City thumping, Arsenal have scored just three Premier League goals, 67% of which were against relegation bankers Leicester City.
While a lot of this problem can be simply attributed to the excuse “we’ve got no players” (a favourite in North London), a hidden root flashed onto the screen in their game against Manchester United: Arsenal, the set-piece kings, just don’t score them anymore.
This method of goalscoring has been a tactical arms-length strategy for Mikel Arteta and Co. During turgid spells of clueless possession, at the start of the last two seasons, Arsenal expertly deployed set-pieces to avoid difficult questions and split games wide open. Now, when they need games opened up maybe more than ever, ol’ reliable has become ol’ deniable.
So what’s happened? Let’s have a look, starting by comparing Sunday’s game to the last time Declan Rice recorded a set-piece assist: Arsenal vs Man Utd, 4th December 2024.
The squad
A simple option, tied nicely into “we’ve got no players” is that Arsenal have the wrong players available right now. With Myles Lewis-Skelly taking over left-back, and Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz taking over the injury table, Arsenal have lost a lot of regular set-piece quality.
Riccardo Calafiori provides a huge physical presence in the box, matched with a great leap which Lewis-Skelly does not. Havertz is another imperious target, and while Mikel Merino is no slouch, he’s not a natural runner in the same way – he can’t emulate that Arsenal trademark “back to front” march that Havertz has become synonymous with Nicolas Jover. Saka’s loss is also immense. No player has more goal creating actions from dead balls this season than Saka’s five, and only James Ward-Prowse matches him over two seasons, on seven. Given Saka only takes corners, this is quite ridiculous.
But, Arsenal didn’t actually have that many players against Man Utd the first time around, when they scored two corners and could’ve had more. Oleksandr Zinchenko started at left-back, Jakub Kiwior played instead of an injured Gabriel, and Merino didn’t come on until moments before it became 2-0. So where does this absence actually manifest?
The deliveries
As a result of this squad change, we have two core impacts on results. Firstly, the taker quality is way down. Saka is being replaced by Martin Odegaard and Ethan Nwaneri as the only left-footed options, and both have struggled to replicate the depth and whip – balls float and hit the front of the 6-yard all too easily.
Of the six corners from Arsenal’s right side on Sunday, only one of them cleared the penalty spot – and was directly claimed by Andre Onana. In fact, only one corner was met by an Arsenal player, and we’ll come to why in a moment.
Rice’s deliveries are consistently inconsistent, and while the shot rate from his dead-balls has actually risen from last season (one every 99 minutes in 23-24, to one every 79 minutes now), his volume in general has risen: 3.4 corners up from 2.8, and 2.9 free-kicks from 1.6.
During this barren spell, Rice has taken 35 corners and 25 free-kicks. He’s created just eight shots.
There are a lot of numbers to say “Arsenal are getting a lot of opportunity to be weakly effective””– the argument here is that it’s on the takers. But surely, now that Saka has been out for what seems like three years, Arsenal should have adapted to this situation?
The tactics
Arsenal haven’t really adapted to the situation. They’ve shown glimpses of adapting, but in general there are regular and often stupid teething issues. Take a look at the set-ups from below. On every single corner, Man Utd sit in the same, very deep, zonal block, with man-markers prepared on Gabriel and Merino.
Arsenal’s idea in this game, and in fact in most games, is to isolate Gabriel for a big thumping header. This in theory works but for two core issues: it relies on the taker hitting the right spot, and relies on good use of surrounding players. Arsenal fail on both fronts. On the latter, a lot of players just float around, not influencing the core battle of Man Utd vs Gabriel – the threat of the supporting cast is minimised by Arsenal not targeting them regularly.
Compare to December, where the threat of Timber and Partey was maximised as Arsenal used the idea of Gabriel to create space elsewhere. Arsenal did this minimally this time around, and even less so against Nottingham Forest.
By not creating optimal space for Gabriel centrally, Arsenal’s shots are forced wider of that beautiful ~eight-yard spot.
Bad luck
I’d be remiss not to mention this, but a lot of good routines have had bad bounces. Merino’s two loops far post vs Forest, Gabriel vs PSV, most of the team against Newcastle United. All of this is doubly hurt by Gabriel facing an increasing amount of “sturdy contact” increasing the isolation problem. Bad Bounces + Bad Adaptations = rough.
There is hope though. Arsenal have toyed with the idea of Rice from the edge a few times in recent months, and this kind of creative thinking can help to rejuvenate the stagnation currently: playing into their takers, and their squads, strengths. The issue is, as we’ve seen above, is that Arsenal need to be more forcefully creative. But at this point, that’s a criticism all over the pitch.
