Postecoglou does not want set-piece coach – Arsenal’s Jover shows why he should

Arsenal have far outperformed Spurs at set-pieces this season and the presence of a dedicated coach appears key in that disparity

Mikel Arteta acted on behalf of Arsenal as a whole, from the players to the supporters, when he produced his final touchline act in a breathless north London derby. The match was deep into stoppage time and the pressure was mounting on his players when the Arsenal manager stepped forward, in his dugout, and forcefully slapped the backside of Nicolas Jover.
The message to Arsenal’s set-piece coach, a key figure in their title charge, was clear. “Go on, Nico. Get the job done.” And so Jover hurried forward, squatting up and down with frenzied energy, as he successfully orchestrated Arsenal’s defensive strategy in those last few minutes. Corner after corner was repelled, cross after cross was cleared — and Arsenal kept hold of the three points.
That defensive solidity was not Jover’s first triumph of the day. Earlier in the game, Arsenal struck twice from inswinging corners. First through Pierre-Emile Højbjerg’s own goal, and then through Kai Havertz’s close-range finish. Arsenal’s prowess from dead ball situations earned them the lead, and then ensured that their lead was preserved.
Set pieces, then, provided the defining moments of this thrilling derby. Jover, as the specialist for Arsenal, was on the touchline for all of them. By contrast, a few yards away, Ange Postecoglou largely stood alone. There is no specialist at Tottenham Hotspur and, on the pitch, there was no sense that the players knew how to answer the questions that Arsenal were asking of them.
When the first set-piece coaches began to appear in professional football, the reaction from many was to sneer. Now, however, they are often among the most important people on the coaching staff. It increasingly feels like the non-believers are in the minority, and that they are failing to keep up with the evolution of the game.
Postecolgou’s view, as he explained in March, is that he does not want to “separate set pieces from everything else we do”. He has instead split the role between two coaches, Mile Jedinak and Ryan Mason.
Has it worked? Well, the facts do not paint a pretty picture. In the Premier League this season, they have scored 11 goals from set pieces and conceded 14. Arsenal, on the other hand, have scored 22 goals from set pieces and conceded six. Between the two teams, that is a swing of 19 goals over the course of a season.
Postecoglou was asked again, after this loss, about his team’s difficulties at defensive set pieces. “If I thought fixing defensive set pieces was the answer to us bridging the gap then I would put all of my time and effort into that,” he said. “But that is not where we’re at.”
To which the obvious riposte is: well, if Postecoglou had a set piece specialist on his staff, then he would not need to put any additional time or effort into it. That, evidently, would be the job of the expert.
It must be said, there are issues here that go beyond defensive formations at corners and free-kicks. The Spurs goalkeeper, Guglielmo Vicario, has struggled to defend corners in recent months and is repeatedly targeted by the opposition. He is a goalkeeper with many strengths but commanding his six-yard box does not appear to be one of them.
It would have helped his cause, though, if his team-mates had offered him some protection against Arsenal. Vicario was exposed to the dark arts of Ben White, Arsenal’s chief mischief-maker at set pieces, and was even pushed into his own goal by White as Havertz scored before half-time.
Earlier, in an attempt to get under Vicario’s skin moments before Hojbjerg’s own goal, White had attempted to undo the goalkeeper’s glove. Other teams in recent months have worked hard to remove White from the six-yard box. Spurs, to their cost, did not. “Our defensive set piece for those two [goals] were very poor,” Postecoglou admitted.
The Australian later added, tellingly: “We are still not absolutely laser-focused on the details, the small things that get you from where we are to become a team that contends. Credit to Arsenal, they are there now. They are a team that does deal with the details well, and we don’t.”