One of the biggest shocks in recent history occurred in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday: a goal from an Arsenal corner. Admittedly, the corner relied on some rather poor defending from Burnley and wasn’t a direct goal from a corner—god only knows when that last happened at The Emirates—but any method will do at this moment in time.
In case you haven’t guessed it, Arsenal are rather atrocious from corners at both ends. When defending, Arsenal are very vulnerable to conceding—Arsenal’s bogey teams tend to be teams who are strong from set-pieces; when attacking, Arsenal are just as vulnerable to conceding. The sight of Arsenal losing the ball from an attacking corner and then the opposition charging upfield, breaking through the defence with ease and slotting the ball home past a helpless ‘keeper has been commonplace at the Emirates Stadium for a long time.
For years, Arsenal have lost precious points in title races, as well as the more recent battles for Champions League places, by conceding silly goals from set-pieces at both ends. In the 2012-13 season, Arsenal managed four goals from corners all season, at a conversion rate of 2% (they averaged about 5.55 corners per game). Therefore Arsenal score fewer goals from corners in a season than they average corners per game. In 2013-14, the story was the same: Arsenal scored four goals from corners and averaged 5.55 per game. The only difference was that, of their rivals, Manchester United were even worse: three goals from corners all season; 5.68 corners per game. United’s corner conversion rate fell from 7% to 1%—their position was the exact reverse: first to seventh—and this proves just how crucial goals from corners can be.
What can Arsenal do to solve this? The Gunners are a very small team compared to their rivals in the Premier League, but they still have plenty of players capable of winning headers—even Alexis Sanchez, as he proved yesterday, can win headers against defenders much bigger than him—and need to set up more effectively to get the most out of their set-pieces.
Something which has been more noticeable than ever this year has been Arsenal’s lack of ideas when attacking from corners. Almost always, there are no players in the six-yard box, no players offering a short option and there are normally more than four or five opposition players closer to the goal than the nearest Arsenal player. This means that even to register a shot on target the corner-taker and header-maker both have to play their parts perfectly. This rarely happens, as Arsenal’s corners often fail to beat the first man and almost always are headed away by a defender.
For starters, Arsenal need to change their stock corner tactic. What I would suggest is that Arsenal have their two best headers in the six-yard box, pressuring the goalkeeper, whilst the rest of the players are in positions to get on the end of rebounds, perform flick-ons at the near post and be in positions to keep the attack going if the corner delivery is poor—putting a man on the other side of the area from the corner-taker, in order to pick up on corners which are too powerful, would not be a bad idea. With this setup, what needs to happen is that the corner-taker smashes the ball into the six-yard box so that if any player gets a touch on the ball, there is a huge chance of a goal.
To prevent conceding from attacking corners, Arsenal must have at least two men outside of the box ready to stop counter-attacks. Should the opposition have any players out of the box, ready to launch a counter-attack, they must be man-marked. Should worst come to worst and the counter-attackers steal a march on the defenders, Arsenal have to resort to fouling players. This is a tactic commonly employed by Mourinho sides, and these fouls, breaking up the opposition’s play, have helped them win very difficult matches in the past—John Obi Mikel is a fine example of a player who mastered the art of breaking up the other team’s attacking play.
Next, Arsenal must be willing to vary their tactics, though this may be dreamland as Arsenal haven’t had a Plan B for years. There may be a scintilla of light at the end of the tunnel however; Arsenal showed just a little bit of variation against Burnley—Danny Welbeck was even seen in the six-yard box at one point—and this helped Arsenal to be threatening at once from the eighteen corners they had. If the stock option isn’t working, mixing things up is the way forward: start putting the corners further away from goal, taking the goalkeeper out of the equation; put a few men on the far post and play the ball there; or, god forbid, try using the short option for once. Variation like this is the only way to catch a defensively strong team off guard, and if Arsenal can do this once in a game, it massively enhances their chances, particularly as they are so capable of scoring from open play.
In defence, the key thing the Gunners must do is put two players on the near and far posts, looking to hack away any opposition headers off the line. For some reason, they stopped doing this in the last few years, and this made them even more vulnerable. Next, Arsenal must try to have the same threat as the opposition and be able to counter-attack. Putting men who are not going to win headers, such as Santi Cazorla and other small players, further forward on the halfway line and in between, ready to launch a quick move upfield, will stretch the opposition out and take some of their attackers out of the box.
Arsenal are a team who should be challenging for the title. They score plenty of goals from open play, but almost never score from set-pieces and concede from them often. If they ever sort out this area of the game, results and overall seasons will improve immediately.
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