What split Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, once again, was their differing strength from corners.
Gabriel headed home the winner in the 64th minute after nudging a meek Cristian Romero to create space for himself, but the plan to herd Spurs’ players towards their goalkeeper was key.
Similar to the two goals Arsenal scored in last season’s 3-2 victory away to Tottenham, Guglielmo Vicario was pinned to his line, having been taken out of the game by Ben White and William Saliba leaning backwards against James Maddison and Micky van de Ven, forcing them onto the Italian’s toes.
The other part of the plan was Gabriel Martinelli’s positioning. With a slight movement forward, he dragged Rodrigo Bentancur and Dominic Solanke, two of Spurs’ strongest headers of the ball, towards the front post, which left a gap for Gabriel to attack Bukayo Saka’s delivery.
It was more scheming from set-piece coach Nico Jover, whose routines are a weapon Mikel Arteta relies on when planning how aggressive he wants to be in these big games.
Arsenal have scored a mammoth 51 set-piece goals since August 2021. There have been some people who have stated that Arsenal’s efficiency from corners has to inevitably drop at some point, but this is not an isolated moment reduced to one player’s finishing skill. Corners and free-kicks are two of the rare stationary moments in football where the ball flight and the timing of every run can be rehearsed to within an inch.
Gabriel’s goal was the 19th time Arsenal have broken the deadlock in a Premier League game from a corner since Jover arrived at the club from Manchester City in July 2021. If widened to include indirect free kicks, that number jumps to 22. If you include all goals from corners and indirect
In 2021-22, Arsenal went 1-0 up via a corner or indirect free-kick against Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Leicester City (twice), Manchester United, Wolves and West Ham United. The next season it was Crystal Palace, Brentford, Chelsea, Fulham and Newcastle, while last season the victims were Nottingham Forest, Everton, Brighton, Liverpool, Palace, West Ham and Newcastle.
It means there are only three current Premier League clubs that Jover has come up against with Arsenal who have not suffered this fate: Manchester City, Bournemouth and Southampton.
Sunday’s winner was the ninth goal Gabriel has scored from a corner in that time — 10 if you are more generous and award him the opener against Palace last season that went down as an own goal — three of which have proven to be the only goal of the game, following efforts against Wolves in February 2022 and Chelsea in November 2022.
When the game is tight and Arsenal are straining to find the decisive moment, set plays — particularly corners — are proving to be their game-breaker.
Perhaps it explains why Arsenal have been content in some games against fellow ‘Big Six’ sides to be more conservative and soak up pressure, safe in the knowledge that if they are not playing fluently, they still have a superpower they can use.
Arsenal’s two lowest possession totals (on record) against Spurs in the Premier League have both come this calendar year: 37.8 per cent in April and 36.3 per cent on Sunday. Both games were a testament to Arsenal’s solid base and their ability to defend deep. Nine clean sheets in 11 away games this calendar year goes a long way to explaining why they are unbeaten on the road.
With his first-choice midfield unavailable and few senior attacking options on the bench, it felt like Arteta opted to play the percentages game and back his team to execute either on the counter or from a set piece.
When Arsenal win a corner, there is a different noise to the usual ripple of applause that greets most teams. There is a roar and then a silence that speaks to the air of expectancy that fills the stadium when Arsenal’s big players make their way into the box. It is a psychological advantage they have over their opponents.
They can score from crowding or blocking, they can score from a short-corner routine or, as they showed in the opening game of the season against Wolves, from the second phase.
In that game at the Emirates, after the initial cross was cleared, virtually any other team would have retreated to their own half and got into a more familiar shape, but Arsenal refused to be pushed back. They reworked it wide and the players, so drilled in the principles of how to sustain pressure, were able to manipulate a one-on-one situation for Saka, whose cross was converted by Kai Havertz.
There was a sense that Jover was not given the autonomy he craved at City, where Guardiola arrived as a sceptic towards the idea of a specialised coach.
It was Arteta who orchestrated the move to bring Jover to Manchester City in 2019, flying him to his holiday home in Spain to learn how he operated after identifying it as an area the club could extract more from.
Jover’s first bespoke set-piece role came in 2016 at Brentford. After many years of studying set pieces, first at the Universite de Sherbrooke in Canada where he brainstormed his first routines, and then at Montpellier where he was primarily an analyst, he put his theories into practice.
His ways of working have evolved, but it has made Arsenal statistically the best set-piece team in England, with many recognising Jover as the best at what he does.
“In his field, in other fields, as a person,” Arteta said after the 1-0 win over Tottenham. “The relationship that we have, that’s why I made the decision to bring him to City when I was there, and then to Arsenal.
“Him and the staff have injected a belief to the players that there are many ways to win football matches. This is a really powerful one. It’s given us a lot, so big compliment to all of them.”
