Why Arsenal’s targets have dried up: How opponents wrecked their set-piece methods and the damning statistics for misfiring ahead line

Fans love to honour and immortalise their leading goal scorers to ensure their legacy lives on for ever.

So when you put it like that, perhaps it’s not all that weird — or deeply cringe — to see the black-and-white mural of Arsenal’s set-piece coach Nicolas Jover appear alongside other club legends down the Hornsey Road tunnel outside the Emirates Stadium.

Since the start of last season, Arsenal have scored 31 goals from set-pieces, not including penalties. That’s the same number of goals in that time as Mohamed Salah has scored for Liverpool. Only Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer have scored more.

It’s no secret any more that the Gunners under manager Mikel Arteta are the set-piece kings. A quick social-media search and you soon find images of the Spaniard kitted out in a baseball cap and tracksuit like former Stoke boss Tony Pulis.

Their last three league goals have all come from corners and the question is whether they now rely on them too much, especially if their opponents are doing all they can to figure out ways to stop them — and they are.

In the same way analysts will plot ways to stop Haaland or Salah, clubs are now looking for ways to cut off Arsenal’s goal supply from corners.

Sean Dyche’s Everton, corner aficionados themselves, dealt with Arsenal’s threat with old-school strength and desire at the Emirates on Saturday. The Toffees have scored 50 per cent of their goals since the start of last season from set-pieces and know how to defend them, too. Arsenal only had two attempts on goal from their eight corners in the goalless draw. 

The Gunners’ victory over Monaco three days earlier in the Champions League was far more interesting. Arsenal love to crowd the back post to cause the necessary chaos to allow Gabriel to run free and head in the deliveries from Bukayo Saka or Declan Rice.

So, Monaco left three forwards high up the pitch with two on the halfway line, forcing three Arsenal players to trudge back and mark them due to the threat of a quick counter-attack.

Unlike champions Manchester City at the Etihad, where Gabriel nodded in, Monaco also tried to mark the pack man-for-man instead of zonally. Other sides have tried that in the league and still conceded. For Monaco, both tactics worked.

Arsenal are far from being worked out at set-pieces. But teams are searching for ways to stop them, which means Arteta must do two things: keep evolving the set-piece routines and, crucially, improve at scoring from open play.

They are doing the first. Mail Sport revealed after Arsenal’s win at West Ham that Gabriel had ditched his usual charging run from the penalty spot like at the Etihad and, instead, began his charge as part of the back-post brigade. They will keep needing to mix things up.

However, it’s their decline from open play that’s their real issue and the one that will likely cost them the title if they don’t fix it. For when set-pieces aren’t working, Arsenal look short of ideas.

Nearly a third of Arsenal’s goals this season have been from set-pieces, and that’s not even including penalties. Only Everton, Palace and Nottingham Forest score a higher proportion of their goals this way.

Arsenal have only scored 18 goals from open play. That’s fewer than eight clubs, and one of those is Wolves. Their expected goals (xG) from open play is even worse, at just under 17, which is about the same as West Ham. You can forget about winning a Premier League title with those numbers.

But what’s gone wrong? Last season, Arsenal scored 59 goals from open play, the fifth-most in the division. They are currently on track to reach about 43.

As Thierry Henry pointed out on Monday Night Football, they have become far too predictable on the ball. They too often take the easy option.

Brave players from top teams try to split defences with their passes, playing the ball through the opposition lines of midfield or defence.

Arsenal’s midfielders have completed 112 passes between the lines this season, behind 10 other clubs and 15 fewer than Chelsea’s midfielders, 18 fewer than Tottenham’s, 33 fewer than Manchester City’s and, staggeringly, 61 fewer than Brentford’s, the highest in the division.

They also depend too heavily on star men Saka and Martin Odegaard.

Saka has created 27 chances from open play in the league this season, the most of any Arsenal player. Only Palmer, Bernardo Silva and Dejan Kulusevski have created more.

Odegaard is second on the list of Arsenal creators and he missed seven league games with injury.

That’s especially damning of the Gunners’ left-flank duo of Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli. They have created 14 chances each. Five Bournemouth players have more than that, so too have four from Palace and four from Fulham.

For Martinelli, a player who scored 21 goals and made nine assists across the previous two campaigns, that’s a sharp decline. He’s creating much less, taking fewer shots and is much more wasteful on the ball. It leaves Arsenal lop-sided. Nearly 48 per cent of the Gunners’ chances from open play have been created down the right side.

Even when you compare that to title rivals Liverpool, who have Salah flying down the right wing, producing goal and assist numbers greater than he has ever done before, the split across the left, right and central channels remain much more evenly split.

That keeps opponents guessing, which means defences must be alert for attacks from all angles. Arsenal just aren’t doing that and it impacts everyone.

Saka and Odegaard still lead the way in their involvement in open-play sequences that end in an Arsenal attempt on goal, whether that be taking it themselves, creating the chance, or just playing a pass in the build-up, but even then, their numbers are down.

Odegaard’s has dropped from 7.7 involvements per game to 6.4, Saka’s 7.5 to 6.5. Last term, Trossard, Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus all averaged more than six. This season, only Saka and Odegaard do. Martinelli averages just above four now — less even than deep midfielder Mikel Merino.

Arteta picked up a couple of water bottles in a press conference recently, to try to illustrate how he sees Arsenal’s style of play.

‘You guys see it that this (the first bottle) is set-pieces and this (the other bottle) is open play. I see it like (the first bottle) is open play and set-pieces. It’s all together with every style of play.’ His point was that how Arsenal play in the open wins them the set-pieces from which they have thrived.

That may well be true. But, if Arteta is to lift the Premier League trophy come May, he cannot depend on one leading to the other.

To be champions, he needs both to flow.