The Seven Corners That Ended a 22-Year Wait

There is no extra credit for the way you score. A header from a corner counts the same as a curling shot from 25 yards. Arsenal scored 24 goals from set pieces in the league. Their rivals did not. That is not an exploit. That is a coaching decision, executed brilliantly, over the course of an entire season.

Photo by Nelson Ndongala on Unsplash

A coaching appointment, July 2021

When Arsenal hired Nicolas Jover from Manchester City in July 2021, the announcement barely registered. He was a 39-year-old French set-piece specialist, lured across London on the back of Mikel Arteta's connections from his own time as Pep Guardiola's assistant. The hiring of a specialist coach for one phase of play was unusual but not headline-grabbing. Arsenal had finished eighth the season before. There were bigger problems than corners.

Five seasons later, Jover's name is the answer to one of the most consequential questions in modern Premier League history: how did Arsenal end a 22-year title drought in a season where their open-play attack was, by Mikel Arteta's own admission, not good enough to win the league?

The answer is seven matches. Seven moments. Seven corners — or set pieces close enough — that turned almost-certain draws and losses into wins. Sixteen points. The exact margin between a championship and a 23rd year of waiting.

This is the story of those seven moments.