Mikel Arteta reveals Arsenal set-piece mentality

Arsenal's newest weapon has the team feeling confident whenever a chance presents itself.

Whatever Arsenal set-piece coach Nicolas Jover is being paid, it clearly isn't enough. The Gunners again wreaked havoc from dead ball situations in the 2-0 win over Manchester United at the Emirates.

With the main catalyst for Arsenal's set-piece dominant out in defender Gabriel, there was a thought that the Gunners' threat from set-pieces would be lesser...United found out that Arsenal still has venom.

Arsenal struggled to make clear-cut chances in open play, but when the chance came from a set-piece, the Gunners cashed it in, with Jurrien Timber getting on the end of Declan Rice's pinpoint cross before Thomas Partey was found at the back post by Bukayo Saka, and his header deflected off William Saliba and into the net.

Set-piece FC, anyone?

For Mikel Arteta, his team's ability to score from corners when things aren't exactly flowing in general play is crucial, especially against a side like United.

"We need that," Arteta said via arsenal.com. "I think we want to be very dangerous and very effective from every angle and every face of play. We worked on all of that. Today we couldn't score from open play like we did against West Ham, against Sporting, so the team really has belief that from every angle we have the mentality to threaten the opponent and to try to score. We constantly have threatening corners."

Perhaps the best thing about Arsenal's recent success at scoring from corners is that now teams get nervous whenever they concede one, knowing how prolific the Gunners are at taking advantage of those situations.

With Gabriel missing, that threat was still as big as ever, and Timber, along with Saliba, has made sure that every team playing the Gunners in the next few weeks not only has to dot their I's and cross their T's in open play but even more so at set-pieces.

Despite so many attacking weapons on the pitch with Martin Odegaard, Saka, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard, now teams have to worry about Arsenal defenders at set-pieces.

It is yet another lever the Gunners can pull and as we saw against United, when things are a little tough and disjointed in open play, there's still an avenue that the team can attack.

In total, 13 corners tell the story of an Arsenal team that pinned United back and beat them into submission, with the mental fatigue evident with Partey being left unmarked at the back post for the second goal.

Give Mr. Jover a pay rise, Mikel.

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