By KYSON EVANS
Tiger Media Network
Arsenal’s season so far has been defined by two different relationships with the same moment in the game: the dead ball.
On one end, they’ve become one of Europe’s most ruthless set-piece attacking sides. On the other hand, they’ve developed a habit for conceding soft, avoidable goals from corners and free kicks that undo their own good work.
And somewhere between those two truths, the conversation around Arsenal has spiraled into something far louder than the football itself.
The label “Set-Piece FC” floated around in the fall, mostly from rival fans but echoed by critics who suddenly seemed allergic to the idea of a top-four club leaning on structure, choreography and data.
Never mind that eight of Arsenal’s early-season goals came from dead balls, a rate that one analyst on ESPN joked was “only behind Erling Haaland” in scoring efficiency. Meanwhile, when Liverpool leaned on the same edge a few years ago, they were celebrated for it.
Back in Liverpool’s 2018-19 run, Jürgen Klopp’s side turned set pieces into a trophy-winning weapon. Pundits lined up to call it innovation.
“Liverpool’s ability on dead balls has taken them to another level,” one analyst said in a breakdown for This Is Anfield, marveling at the goals that began to flow from cleverly designed routines.
Players embraced the praise, and no one accused them of being one-dimensional.
Arsenal, somehow, isn’t getting the same grace. What it is getting is punished the moment it switches from attacking to defending. Their numbers, over a third of the goals they’ve conceded this year coming from set pieces, have put a target on their back.
And when a team builds a reputation around something, it stings more when they get beaten by it.
Just ask Virgil van Dijk. After scoring a simple near-post header against Arsenal earlier this season, he didn’t bother hiding the irony. As quoted by The Times, he shrugged and said: “It’s very easy, isn’t it?”
A little smirk. A little wink. A nod to the narrative Arsenal can’t seem to shake.
Mikel Arteta defended his side’s approach earlier this year, telling reporters at Sky Sports that preparation, not gimmicks, is what drives their routines.
“It’s a huge part of the modern game,” Arteta said. “We work on it because it wins points. It’s no different from pressing or possession.”
Defender Ben White echoed the sentiment in a post-match chat with Arsenal.com, brushing off the talk that Arsenal is over-reliant.
“If people don’t like that we score from set pieces, that’s their problem,” he said. “A goal is a goal.”
Hard to argue with the logic. Harder still to ignore the goals they’ve allowed the other way.
This season’s frustration is that Arsenal actually does the hard part at a high level. They design clever runs. They bully teams in the air. They create chaos. They’re scoring enough from set pieces to win matches, but conceding enough from them to keep dropping points. The Premier League rarely forgives that kind of contradiction.
Liverpool never had that contradiction. Their set-piece excellence came with a defense that gave little away. That’s why their routines were described as “tactical evolution” on Match of the Day, not as a shortcut.
Same methods. Different narrative. Results, or lack thereof, shape perception.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. Arsenal isn’t fraud for maximizing an overlooked area of the game. They aren’t naive for studying the marginal gains Liverpool once mastered. But they are vulnerable in the moments they should be untouchable.
That’s what makes the criticism sting more than it should — the hypocrisy. If Liverpool’s set-piece “renaissance” was groundbreaking, why is Arsenal’s suddenly embarrassing? If Klopp’s team was applauded for squeezing every drop out of dead-ball moments, why are Arteta’s actions painted as a boring play style?
Arsenal doesn’t need to abandon the thing it’s great at. It just needs to fix the thing that keeps undermining it.
Balance the ledger, and the narrative flips overnight. Stop conceding cheap headers, and suddenly all those corner-routine goals become a mark of maturity, not a punchline.
Liverpool proved a few years ago that set-pieces can win titles.
Arsenal is proving now that they can lose you points just as fast.
If Arteta can steady that second half of the equation, this team won’t be “Set-Piece FC” anymore.
They’ll just be dangerous.
This story was written as part of INF 322: Sports Writing, a course in the Department of Informatics at Fort Hays State University.