True, I think many people underestimate how hard it is to take a really good corner, the margins of error are so small. It’s why so many hit the first man often.
I think that's too simplistic to expect as such. Professional footballers have different attributes they excel in, there seems to be a real lack of technically sound players who can deliver pin point crosses too. Van de Ven is also weirdly poor in the air, not sure why but he rarely wins headers. Though if we played a system that dropped Udogie and Porro and had Davies at LB, van de Ven and Romero in the middle and Dragusin at RB, we'd probably find we'd be better at defending corners as well as attacking them at the other end than we do currently by having Porro and Udogie in the team, neither of these two will likely win many headers. However we'd then also lose the mobility they both provide down their flanks and Ange relies a lot on that mobility, Arteta doens't seemingly expect the likes of White, Calafiori or Timber to be bombing down the flanks looking to aid in crosses and stuff, it's working though so he's making the right choice.
In our case with Eriksen he was often hoping to hit the first man, hoping that first man would be ours (normally Toby) and it would get flicked on, but it was very frustrating as we rarely got the flick on!
As you have just shown, there are many ways to approach what is in escence a simple problem, football being a simple game. But I find it hard to believe that we have noone who can deliver the crosses. Presumably this sort of thing is sorted out in training but there has to be a will to carry out an action. Maybe our coaches see other attributes in our squad and want other ways of delivering corners. We have witnessed Vicario adapting and our defenders adapting to what Man City started when they attacked him and scored. That does suggest we are reactionary rather than inovatory.
Porro, Maddison and Kulu are all good/ decent crosses but it's also about having the recipients for those crosses. Going through our team, Romero and possibly Bentancur are the only two players that have shown to be regular aerial threats, Dragusin is potentially one too but he hasn't played enough to truly tell. Arteta's utlised his versions of Porro, Maddison and Kulu but his recipients are far better though and more importantly he has more of them. He can essentially send up four CBs to attack a corner if he wanted and has four of them to defend one, we only ever play two CBs so that's instantly two less players who are aerial threats.
I blame zonal marking. Arsenal start with 4 or 5 players at the back all running forwards to either block (ie cheat) or attack the ball. Most of the time you’re always going to beat a guy who is just stationary. Get back to man marking, sticking people on the posts and leaving a man up so they have to keep two players back.
It’s ironic, as under Wenger after their last title win, Arsenal were so weak at set pieces in both boxes. In their efforts to overcome these weaknesses, they’ve become Stoke City.
I think it's also a variety of approaches in our preparation because we don't approach every corner the same way. There's a comment I saw on Reddit that analysed it quite well: .
Goal attempts: Arsenal 14 - 5 Manchester United. Shots on target: Arsenal 6 - 2 Manchester United. Big chances created: Arsenal 5 - 0 Manchester United. Corner kicks: Arsenal 13 - 0 Manchester United. Touches in the opposition box: Arsenal 36 - 6 Manchester United. xG: Arsenal 2.33 - 0.31 Manchester United. Arsenal did not play that well yesterday, but we were still comfortably better than you. You can call us Stoke City if that's what helps you sleep at night, but you were outplayed in that second half and pretty much every metric proves that.
Teams are too wound up re Arsenal corners just like they used to be about Stoke throw ins. Players need to attack the ball rather giving arsenal players the time and space to get the run on them. They could put a player on each post and get their keepers to come for the ball effectively.
It's nice to know that the media have finally jumped on the Woolwich Stoke bandwagon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c7084ejn1lxo "We all suffered Stoke. I think it is a great credit to remember Tony Pulis." - Roberto Martinez. This is largely to do with the officials completely changing a bunch of rules about 18 months ago. Fouling the goalkeeper is now fine. Blocking defenders is now fine. Timewasting is now fine. They decided this and didn't tell anybody. Arsenal leaned into it 100%.
The rule on goalkeeper timewasting is supposedly going to change from the 26/27 season. They will be allowed 8 seconds with the ref counting down from 5 after 3 seconds has passed. If they haven't released the ball then the opposition will be awarded a corner. We'd have had about 8,000 corners this season, I think. Still wouldn't score any.
I don’t think chances created v Utd is any yardstick for creativity. Lesser teams create plenty. Odegaard is key to Arsenal creating chances. When he was out, there was a distinct lack of it and set pieces seemed to be the best chance of Arsenal scoring. Arsenal are a decent side, but there is an increasing reliance on set pieces. If you want to be seen as stylish, that’s a bad thing; otherwise I don’t see the problem. Stoke were very effective for a period.
Yeah completely agree. I hate giving Arsenal compliments but the fact is they’re very good at corners. I’m confused why they’re getting so much stick for it.
I think that there are two reasons. The first and most emphasised is how much they slagged Stoke off for their style of play, which they've now emulated. The second is that they seem to get away with murder in those set-pieces, for some reason.
Having not seen the Man Utd game, why are them lot being compared with peak Pulis-ball ?? Was the game like the infamous Foy 3-2 ??
I don't think it's the Man Utd game in particular, just that playing them brings a lot of focus. The filth have scored loads of goals from set-pieces over the past season and a bit. They've also had periods of being very defensive. Their time without Odegaard was particularly egregious.
