So Nicolas Jover gets a goal bonus? Welcome to the age of the set piece

London – When Nicolas Jover was pictured this winter puffing on a Cohiba, the quip around London Colney was that Arsenal’s set-piece coach had clearly earned a performance-related windfall. The Athletic has now confirmed the punchline: Jover’s Arsenal contract contains a goal bonus every time the Gunners score from a dead-ball situation.

The clause is less a curiosity than a statement of modern priorities. Arsenal have plundered 21 set-piece goals in 2025-26, more than a third of their 58 strikes from 29 league fixtures. On Sunday both goals in the 2-1 defeat of Chelsea originated from corners, lifting the club’s seasonal tally from corners alone to 16 – level with the Premier League record shared by Oldham Athletic (1992-93, 42 matches), Tony Pulis’ West Bromwich Albion (2016-17) and Arteta’s Arsenal of two seasons ago.

Chelsea, for their part, briefly levelled through Piero Hincapié’s own goal – again from a corner – after David Raya had clawed a Declan Rice near-own-goal off the line. “It was such a game of grapples and holding people all over the place,” Match of the Day pundit Leon Osman observed, neatly summing up a contest fought largely in the aerial wrestling ring.

Jover, recruited from Manchester City in 2021, has become the face of a league-wide arms race. Liverpool’s surge underlines the trend: after recording only three non-penalty set-piece goals before Christmas, the club parted company with coach Aaron Briggs on 30 December and have since hit nine – a competition-best run that includes seven consecutive goals from restarts. Head coach Arne Slot, whose side beat West Ham 5-2 on Saturday with another cluster of set-play finishes, admitted the evolution leaves him conflicted.

“It’s the new reality,” Slot said. “My football heart doesn’t like it. I think about the Barcelona team from 10 to 15 years ago. Every Sunday evening, you were hoping they would play.” He predicted that under-16 grassroots teams could soon be rehearsing corner routines rather than passing patterns. “I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s the new reality. I have my opinion about it but that doesn’t change it.”

The unease is not confined to Anfield. Manchester United have 15 set-piece goals – second only to Arsenal – yet are rarely branded a set-piece side. Bruno Fernandes leads the league with 25 chances created from dead balls, proof that elite individuals still drive the numbers.

Purists bristle when expensively assembled attacks default to the training-ground whiteboard, but the method is hardly new. Villa’s Austin MacPhee and Brentford’s collective approach have drawn praise for inventive routines; only the long-throw mimicry of sides such as Wolves, reliant on Yerson Mosquera’s shot-put deliveries, feels like a step towards anti-football.

For Arsenal, the emphasis is simply pragmatism. Arteta’s squad have found set pieces the most reliable solvent for a low-block defence, and the only route to corners is sustained offensive pressure. “If you can score and make the difference from set pieces, then you take that opportunity,” Osman added.

Supporters may lament the aesthetic dip, yet neutrals complained just as loudly during the death-by-a-thousand-passes era. Should Arsenal ride set-piece supremacy to a first Premier League title in 22 years, few inside the Emirates will quibble at the method. No asterisk will accompany the engraving on the trophy; no fan will demand fewer goals because they arrived via a Jover-rehearsed decoy run rather than a 20-pass move.

The cycle will turn – referees may yet police the shirt-pulling at corners, and coaches will search for the next marginal gain – but for now the league lives in the age of the set piece. Just don’t expect Nicolas Jover to apologise when the cigar smoke drifts across north London.