Arsenal star Declan Rice has made a surprising admission about Arsenal’s set-piece training.
The Gunners are viewed by many in the Premier League and abroad as the best team in the world in corners and free-kicks, and they have delivered time and again.
Set-piece coach Nicolas Jover is the man who has transformed Arsenal in that department, and he deserves all the praise in the world for his work.
However, this season, Mikel Arteta and his coaching staff have had to change how they train set-pieces.
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Declan Rice says Arsenal barely even train set-pieces anymore
When you look at how dangerous Arsenal are from almost every set-piece situation, you would imagine that they train for it all the time.
The general feeling is that Jover spends many hours at the Sobha Realty Training Centre over the course of a week to make them as good as they are.
However, Declan Rice has revealed that Arsenal barely train set-pieces anymore – not because they don’t want to but because there is no time.
The Arsenal midfielder has claimed that due to the busy schedule, Arteta, Jover and others have been forced to limit set-piece training. They just take part in video analysis ahead of every game now.
Rice told The Sun: “It’s a lot of hard work, but this season, we haven’t actually worked on it.
“You would think with the goals we’ve scored, we work on it all the time, but just because of the schedule this season, it’s been a lot of video stuff instead of actually on the pitch.”
If Arsenal are this good without putting in a lot of work on set-pieces, imagine the damage they could do if they had the time to train on it every single day.
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Chelsea must be scared of Arsenal’s set-pieces thanks to a seven-day break
Arsenal haven’t had time to train set-pieces due to the busy schedule, but they are in the middle of a seven-day break.
The Gunners have no midweek game this week, so Arteta has a whole week to get his side to recover and work on a few different tactics.
There is every chance that Jover would’ve used this time to get some training in too, which is not great news for Chelsea.
The Blues aren’t great with defensive set-pieces, and if Jover has had time to implement new ideas, Arsenal could really hurt Liam Rosenior’s side.
That should worry Chelsea ahead of their visit to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
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