Arsenal's Set Piece Reliance: A Symptom, Not a Strategy

The narrative around Arsenal this season has been impossible to ignore: they've become a set piece team. Pundits point to the dead-ball routines, the near-post flick-ons, the training ground corners that find their way into the net with mechanical regularity. And the numbers back them up — 31% of Arsenal's goals in 2025/26 have come from set pieces, up from roughly 20% just three seasons ago.

But here's what the surface-level take misses: Arsenal aren't scoring more set piece goals. They're scoring fewer goals from everywhere else.

Set piece goal volume has been remarkably stable — 16, 15, 16, 14 across the last four full seasons. This season's pace projects to around 19-20, a modest uptick. The percentage spike isn't a story about set piece improvement. It's a story about open play collapse.

This is Article 1 of a five-part series examining Arsenal's title challenge through the lens of expected goals data. We'll start with the symptom — the set piece reliance — and work our way toward the cause.

How It Looks Across the Big 6

The chart above tells the league-wide story. Arsenal's set piece xG share leads the Big 6 by a significant margin. But context matters — this isn't just about Arsenal being good at set pieces. Liverpool and Manchester City both generate the vast majority of their xG from open play because their attacking systems produce higher volumes of quality chances.

Arsenal's 38% set piece xG share stands out not because of exceptional set piece production, but because the denominator — total xG — has shrunk. When open play creation declines, set pieces naturally occupy a larger share of the pie.

The Points Problem

This is where it gets uncomfortable. In 2025/26, 26% of the points Arsenal have earned required set piece goals to win. Without those set piece contributions, the open play and penalty output alone wouldn't have been enough to secure the result.

That number has climbed steadily. In 2022/23, Arsenal's open play output was prolific enough that set pieces were a bonus, not a necessity. Now they're load-bearing.

The Open Play Collapse

The real story lives in the open play numbers. Arsenal's open play goals by season tell a clear trajectory:

• 2022/23: 66 goals (on 59.94 xG — overperforming by +6.1)
• 2023/24: 59 goals (on 62.3 xG — underperforming by -3.3)
• 2024/25: 51 goals (on 51.7 xG — roughly neutral at -0.7)
• 2025/26: ~47 projected (on 42.4 xG — underperforming by -5.4)

Two things are happening simultaneously. First, the volume of open play chances has declined — shots per game dropped from 13.1 at the 23/24 peak to 10.5 in 24/25, with only a partial recovery to 11.1 this season. Second, Arsenal have gone from finishing above expectation to well below it.

The 22/23 season was a purple patch. Arsenal were converting 41.8% of their "sweet bucket" chances (shots worth 0.25-0.50 xG) against a league norm of 32-34%. That rate was never sustainable, and it hasn't been replicated since.

Where the Set Piece xG Actually Comes From

Corners dominate. Arsenal's set piece xG breakdown season over season shows that corner kicks consistently account for the majority of dead-ball expected goals. Free kicks contribute, but corners are the engine. This matters because corner xG tends to be lower-variance — it's volume-driven, built on practiced routines rather than individual brilliance.

That's partly why Arsenal's set piece production has been so stable. They've built a repeatable system: delivery, movement, contact. It doesn't depend on a single player's form. The open play side of the game does.

The Odegaard Question

There's one name that threads through every conversation about Arsenal's open play decline: Martin Odegaard.

Arsenal's open play xG per 90 drops by 0.3-0.4 when Odegaard isn't on the pitch. No other midfielder or attacker in the squad replicates what he does — his xA per 90 of 0.34 is 4th among all top-6 players despite injury-limited minutes. His xG buildup per 90 is 67% higher than the next closest teammate.

And his availability has cratered: 94% of minutes in 22/23, down to just 38% this season.

That's Article 2. For now, the takeaway is this: Arsenal's set piece reliance isn't the product of a coaching decision to prioritize dead balls. It's the natural consequence of an open play system that lost its engine and hasn't found a replacement.

The set pieces aren't the plan. They're the safety net.

Next: Article 2 — The Odegaard Effect. When Arsenal's creative fulcrum plays, the open play numbers look like a title-winning team. When he doesn't, they look like a team clinging to set pieces. The gap is enormous.