During an unflattering takedown of England’s presumed tactics for the 2026 World Cup, Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman took an entirely unprompted swipe at Arsenal, claiming that the Champions League finalists exclusively owed their Premier League title to goals from corner kicks.
Koeman has experience of the rigors of English soccer after spending 15 months in charge of Everton, Mikel Arteta’s former club. The former Barcelona boss has been watching the Premier League title race unfold from his perch on the Netherlands bench and, while scouting the Dutch talent on offer in the division, concluded that the end of Arsenal’s 22 years of angst and agony could be boiled down to one tactic.
“I think Arsenal became champions through corners,” Koeman told assembled media ahead of a pre-World Cup training campaign, “otherwise they wouldn’t have made it.”
Arsenal’s set-piece success is no secret. The Gunners have ranked among the division’s dead-ball specialists for years, while the presence of set-piece coach Nicolas Jover cavorting around the technical area is a fixture of every match. Other Premier League managers have bemoaned Arsenal’s tactics in this regard, while Koeman’s compatriot Arne Slot lamented how set-piece obsession has spread across a division he no longer enjoys watching.
There’s no doubt that dead balls have underpinned Arsenal’s upward surge. As many as nine of the club’s Premier League victories during the 2025–26 campaign owed some part to goals from corner kicks. Without that superpower, the Gunners would have claimed 65 points compared to the 85 they actually achieved.
How Mikel Arteta’s Obsession With Set Pieces Formed
Arteta set about focusing on set pieces early on in his Arsenal tenure. During the Spaniard’s first summer with the club in 2020, the club appointed Brentford’s specialist Andreas Georgson. The impact, however, wasn’t so obvious. The Gunners scored just six set-pieces goals in the 2020–21 campaign, the third-lowest tally in the Premier League.
Having been promoted from head coach to manager, Arteta had the influence to usher through the arrival of Jover, whose expertise he had experienced first-hand while at Manchester City. Since that 2021 appointment, the Gunners have been unrivaled at these dead-ball scenarios.
Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke cites a trip to watch an NFL game as the moment of Arteta’s set-piece awakening. “There’s been a lot of conversation about set pieces this year,” Kroenke mused to the club’s official YouTube channel. “Mikel Arteta was looking at an NFL game and he broke it down in a way that I had never heard and he goes, ‘Every play is a set piece, every play is choreographed, every play is a set piece.’ And you could see him start to go into his mode where [he thinks], ‘How do we apply this?’
“I know he had already unleashed many ideas at that point but he’s always constantly looking. I took him to a hockey game, [he said], ‘Look at the triangles on the ice, they form triangles everywhere up the ice, we have to get down there, I’d love to meet the coach.’
“He sees it through his own way where he can break it down and he might not know how it’s going to relate to what he wants to do, but he wants to apply it in some way.”
England Lumped in With Arsenal Dig
Koeman’s jibe at Arsenal was prompted by a question about the type of soccer which will be on display amid the sweltering temperatures at this summer’s World Cup. The Dutch boss was pessimistic about the presence of any entertaining action and pointed out that England’s roster selection had already shown how they would prioritize set pieces.
“I do think that intensity probably will be a bit less,” Koeman lamented. “I don’t believe you’ll get matches like Paris [Saint-Germain] against Bayern [Munich]. Especially the first match. And you can see it with England as well and the choices in the roster. They are going to rely on set pieces, throw-ins and corners. That will be important, because that takes no energy. But has a lot of effect.”
Thomas Tuchel certainly has the personnel to excel from the exact type of corners which Arsenal have perfected; chiefly because he has their set-piece takers. Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice are both expected to start for the Three Lions this summer, where their corner-kick deliveries may prove to be as crucial as their work in open play.
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