Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher sat on a sofa arguing
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher had a different take on Arsenal's set piece expert
Gary Neville has branded Arsenal coach Nicolas Jover as “the most annoying bloke in football” after Manchester United were undone by two corners.
Arsenal claimed a comfortable 2-0 win over United in the Premier League on Wednesday night thanks to goals from Jurrien Timber and William Saliba. Both came from set pieces, prompting more praise for Jover, who is the Gunners’ set piece guru.
Timber headed in Declan Rice’s corner to make it 1-0 before Saliba deflected in Thomas Partey’s back-post header to double the home side’s lead. Arsenal’s expertise from set pieces proved crucial in a game of few chances in open play, but ex-United defender Neville was not ready to give them credit.
“He's got to be the most annoying bloke in football, the set-piece coach at Arsenal,” he declared on The Overlap watchalong while seeing Jover celebrate on the touchline. "He's got to be, hasn't he? He's got to be though, hasn't he?"
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Funnily enough, Arsenal legend Ian Wright didn’t see eye-to-eye, laughing in reply: "Of course, nobody likes somebody who's rubbish at his job!"
Ex-Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was impressed by what he saw from Arsenal. "I'll tell you what, give him what he wants,” he said. "If you were that set-piece coach for Arsenal, you could write your own contract, couldn't you? Couldn't get rid of him.
"You know, if he said, 'I want 25 grand a week,' you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't you?”
Once the emotion had subsided after Saliba’s goal, Neville did change his tune slightly. "I'll tell you what, I'll give some credit where credit's due," he said to Wright.
HAVE YOUR SAY! What do you make of Nicolas Jover and Arsenal's set piece prowess? Comment below.
Nicolas Jover is the man responsible for Arsenal's set pieces
"He's whipped everyone into the near post, so all the United players are in at the near post, and two of the Arsenal players are hung out at the back against [Noussair] Mazraoui and he's (Partey) literally got a free header. You've played them."
Asked about the importance of set pieces, Mikel Arteta said: “We need that. I think we want to be very dangerous and very effective from every angle and every phase of play. Today we could have scored from open play like we did against West Ham and Sporting.
“The team really has that belief that from every angle we have the mentality to threaten the opponent and try to score. Today was two set-pieces. We had 13 corners. We have to take a lot from that.”
And asked if teams are afraid to concede a corner against Arsenal, he replied: “I don't know. We work on what we work. Attacking the box in various ways. This is a way we attack the box and we are very efficient. We will find ways to keep improving.”
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