Set Piece FC. That is how they address us these days. Pundits, columnists, and rival fans use this term with such energy, as if they believe they have found a devastating new insult. Ian Ladyman, writing in the Daily Mail, questioned whether Arsenal's corner routines are “borderline illegal.” Dominic King, also in the Mail, wrote a nostalgic eulogy for Dennis Bergkamp to argue that Arsenal are no longer playing good football. Dave Bassett said the whole thing was "spoiling the game." And the ever insufferable Adrian Durham on talkSPORT said Arsenal winning the title would be "unbearable."

All of this happened in the same week that Liverpool set a Premier League record for scoring seven consecutive goals from non-penalty set pieces. Since the turn of the year, Liverpool have scored more goals from set-pieces (excluding penalties) than any other side in the league. I have been waiting for the Dominic King piece about how Liverpool no longer play good football. I am still waiting.

Let us deal with the facts first because the media clearly is not going to. Arsenal lead the Premier League with 19 set-piece goals this season. After the Chelsea game, we have scored 16 goals from corners alone this season, equalling the single-season Premier League record.

That is nothing but elite coaching, in which a group of players have worked for years to turn a routine part of football into a systematic competitive weapon. However, the media and pundits choose to portray this as something negative while ignoring the facts entirely. According to Opta statistics, as of March 1, 27.5% of all goals in the 2025-26 Premier League had come from set pieces, up almost 7% on last season, and the highest proportion in at least the last ten years.

So this is not something only Arsenal are doing. This is a league-wide trend. Chelsea scored from a corner against us on Sunday. Brentford, Newcastle, and Manchester United use set pieces as a weapon. Aston Villa have scored nine set piece goals this season. But the Mail ran stories about Arsenal, while talkSPORT built an entire conversation around whether Arsenal winning with set pieces would be "unbearable."

However, the most revealing contradiction came from Liverpool's manager Arne Slot, who said on Monday that his "football heart doesn't like" the Premier League's set piece dominance and that most games are "not a joy to watch." This is the man who just watched his side score three goals from first-half corners against West Ham, only the second time in Premier League history a team has done that. This is the same man who earlier this season said it was "almost impossible to win the league" without a positive set piece differential. Yet the media reports Slot as a thoughtful philosopher grappling with football's evolution, while they call us Set Piece FC.

Dominic King's piece deserves particular attention because it is the most revealing example of how this works. He invokes ‘the goal’ Bergkamp scored against Newcastle in 2002 to argue that we are not playing good football.

We are the current league leaders. We have scored the most goals and conceded the fewest. We have the most wins in the division, the second-most goals from open play, and the most from set pieces. Apparently we aren’t playing good football. Every Arsenal fan worth their salt loves Bergkamp, but the argument built around it is dishonest. Even though King acknowledges that we have been the strongest team in the league this season, he argues that we have not played good football because the goals are not pretty enough.

By this logic, Arsene Wenger's great double-winning side of 2001-02, which was physical, combative, built on the defensive foundation of Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole as much as the brilliance of Bergkamp and Thierry Henry, would also fail the aesthetic purity test on certain Tuesday nights. The "beautiful football" standard is only ever applied to Arsenal, and only ever when we are winning.

Since joining Arsenal in 2021, Nicolas Jover has helped the club score over 44 set-piece goals excluding penalties. In 2023-24, we scored 20 non-penalty set piece goals, the most in the division. In 2024-25, we scored 26, including 16 from corners, matching the single-season Premier League record.

Ladyman's piece calls set piece coaches like Jover "innovators" sarcastically, then argues the practice is "pushing at the boundaries of what should be permitted." But Jover's methods were built at Brentford, refined at Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, and brought to Arsenal. At no point during Jover's time at City, when City were winning titles, did any national newspaper run a piece questioning whether their set piece goals were "borderline illegal".

Jover came to Arsenal and drilled the routines, and along with Arteta, built a culture around it. Now we lead the league with 19 set piece goals and are one corner from setting a new Premier League record. That is not ‘borderline illegal’ as they try to portray it, but a case of preparation meeting execution at the highest level. Arteta himself said it best, dismissing the open play versus set piece distinction entirely: "I don't see football like open play and set pieces. I see the game in a different way."

The distinction is invented by people who needed a new way to diminish us after the old ones stopped working. Set Piece FC, record-breakers, top of the league. We will take all three. They use the label as if it is meant to hurt us. Instead it documents exactly how far ahead of the argument we already are.