The Gunners prevailed over old rivals Manchester united last night as they handed new manager Ruben Amorim his first defeat at the helm, with Jurrien Timber and William Saliba both on the scoresheet for the home side. However, the main talking point has come from Arsenal’s corner kicks with both of the goals coming directly from them in the second half to make the difference, with it being the first time in a decade that the away side had conceded from them twice in one game.
In an interview after the game pundit and former Red Devils player Dimitar Berbatov came out to say “Arsenal are the new Stoke City, depending on set-pieces to win”. This relates back to Stoke City’s famous set-piece era which came under Tony Pulis when the Potters registered the most goals from them when he was in charge from 2008 to 2013.
The North London club has a very precise corner tactic since new coach Nicolas Jover has come in, where they have five to six players bunched together behind the back-post, and then they run into the six-yard box making it hard for the opposition team to concentrate on their runs into the danger area and look the ball at the same time, as the Gunners usually display their physical presence and set-piece prowess to beat any team in the air hence the underlying stats and their comparison to Stoke City of past coming in. Signings such as Kai Havertz, Mikel Merino and Jakub Kiwior highlight towards the tactic with all players over six feet.
Since the beginning of the 23/24 season, Arsenal have scored the most goals from corners in Europe’s top five leagues, with a table topping 22 goals coming from them which is five more then German champions Bayer Leverkusen and seven more then English champions Manchester City who have 15 from them.
In terms of individual players, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice are joint top for the most set play assists with seven each since the start of last season more than any other players in the Premier League. Also, centre-back Gabriel Magahalaes has recorded the most goals since his debut with 17, scoring most of them from set-piece action.
According to analytic data from Opta, Arsenal are the second most team to perform in swinging corners with 96% of them being played in that way, which is two percent less then Brentford who have done it in-swinged 98% of the time they take a corner. As well as that they have only took short corners five percent of the time which is much lower than clubs around them like Tottenham Hotspurs and Manchester City who have took their corners short over 30 percent of their total.
Another key point to look at is that the Gunners have an average of 3.83 teammates in the six-yard box when the corner comes in, which is the most of any Premier League team, making it a key component of their set-piece success over the past few seasons.
However, for the ultimate comparison of the clubs being compared, Stoke City under Pulis had 43.3% of their goals come from set-pieces in his era. On the other hand, Arsenal have only recorded 25.2% of their goals from set-pieces, which excludes penalties, since the beginning of last season which is almost a 20% difference between the two clubs. Shockingly, Everton has recorded 50% of their total goals from set-pieces in the same time period as the London club, perhaps showing that the Gunners aren’t the “set-piece kings” after all.