Rival fans who moaned about Arsenal scoring from set pieces have all been very quiet this season.
The Gunners were the best team in the Premier League from corners over the last few years. Every time Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka stepped up to take a corner, there was an expectation that something would happen.
This season, however, Arsenal haven’t scored a single goal from a corner or free-kick. 15 of their 16 goals have come from open play, with the other being Bukayo Saka’s penalty against Sunderland.
So what has gone wrong with their corner routines? Mikel Arteta has had his say.
Mikel Arteta breaks silence on Arsenal’s lack of set-piece goals
Arsenal have gone from being called ‘Set-piece FC’ to failing to score from a single corner or free-kick in their first eight games in all competitions.
Nicolas Jover has received nothing but praise in recent years, but many fans feel he has to step up now and get the Gunners firing from set-piece situations again.
At this stage last season, Arsenal had already scored multiple goals from set pieces. Their first goal of the last campaign was from a corner against Manchester United – Riccardo Calafiori nodded the ball in from close range.
You would imagine that Arteta would be upset about the lack of goals from such situations, but the Arsenal manager is surprisingly optimistic.
That’s because he feels his men have been a lot more threatening in set pieces this season than last. He also believes it is down to luck, but he thinks if Arsenal keep doing the same, they will score plenty of goals from corners and free kicks before the end of the season.
He said, as per Arseblog: “My personal opinion is that we’ve done better things [from corners] than last year in the first five games, but we have scored no goals.
“And I think that’s the reality of set pieces as well: sometimes we score a goal, or they score an own goal, and it’s a set-piece goal, but we didn’t do things well. Last year we scored three goals by this time, and two of them we didn’t have to do with it, and the execution that it deserved wasn’t done rightly.
“But it’s an element of luck sometimes as well, and I think this season we should have scored four and we haven’t. So if we maintain that, I think throughout the season we’ll be in really good numbers, especially if we generate the amount of situations that we do.”
Arsenal take on Leeds United at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday. In the same fixture last season, they won 5-0. Two of those goals came from corners while another was a penalty.
It will be interesting to see if Jover can find a way to help the Gunners end their set-piece drought against the Whites at lunchtime.