Ronald Koeman, the Netherlands manager, used a pre-World Cup media appearance to deliver an unexpected criticism of Arsenal, who are preparing for the Champions League final. He suggested the club\u2019s Premier League title was built on dead-ball routines rather than open play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Arsenal became champions through corners,\u201d Koeman told assembled media ahead of a pre-World Cup training campaign, \u201cotherwise they wouldn\u2019t have made it.\u201d The remark followed a question about how teams might adapt their tactics in the sweltering conditions expected at the summer World Cup. Koeman added he was pessimistic about the presence of entertaining action and pointed to England\u2019s roster selection as evidence the side would prioritise set pieces.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s set-piece record has been a recurring talking point. The club employ set-piece coach Nicolas Jover and have been noted for their dead-ball work. As many as nine of the club\u2019s Premier League victories during the 2025\u201326 campaign owed some part to goals from corner kicks. Without that superpower, the Gunners would have claimed 65 points compared to the 85 they actually achieved.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta\u2019s focus on these moments began early in his time at the club. In the summer of 2020 Arsenal signed Brentford\u2019s specialist Andreas Georgson, although the immediate effect was limited: the team scored just six set-piece goals in the 2020\u201321 campaign, the third-lowest tally in the Premier League. After Arteta moved from head coach to manager he was able to appoint Nicolas Jover in 2021, a coach he had first worked with at Manchester City. Since that appointment the club have been dominant in dead-ball scenarios.<\/p>\n
Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke described the manager\u2019s method for seeking ideas in a discussion about set pieces. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of conversation about set pieces this year,\u201d Kroenke mused to the club\u2019s official YouTube channel. \u201cMikel Arteta was looking at an NFL game and he broke it down in a way that I had never heard and he goes, \u2018Every play is a set piece, every play is choreographed, every play is a set piece.\u2019 And you could see him start to go into his mode where [he thinks], \u2018How do we apply this?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he had already unleashed many ideas at that point but he\u2019s always constantly looking. I took him to a hockey game, [he said], \u2018Look at the triangles on the ice, they form triangles everywhere up the ice, we have to get down there, I\u2019d love to meet the coach.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sees it through his own way where he can break it down and he might not know how it\u2019s going to relate to what he wants to do, but he wants to apply it in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koeman\u2019s comments sit alongside other voices in the game who have criticised the spread of set-piece emphasis, with Arne Slot among those to lament how obsession with dead-ball routines has become widespread across the division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Koeman accused Arsenal of relying on corner goals. Set-piece rise traced under Arteta & Jover again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1162,299,1637],"class_list":["post-14118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-arne-slot","tag-assists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}