Arsenal beat Hull on Saturday afternoon, and while it was a welcome three points for the Gunners on the day, there’s a worrying trend emerging so far this season.

Last year, Arsenal won the Premier League, and they won it in unpopular fashion – scoring a barrage of set piece goals in big moments.

Arsenal’s set-pieces have changed

Arsenal’s bread and butter last season was goals from corners, and it was a very specific type of delivery that led to so many goals.

Indeed, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka both seemed to have mastered the skill of the inswinger to the back post.

However, for some reason, this season we’ve seen Arsenal switch it up.

With the same personnel on dead balls, Arsenal have been attempting more and more short corners, and, sadly, it’s not working.

The prime example was in the game against Hull, Declan Rice was clearly setting up for an inswinger, but Christos Tzolis came over to seemingly give some instructions from the coaching staff – a short corner followed that was easily dealt with by Hull.

Rice knows what works best, and he may need to speak to Mikel Arteta about this situation.

The numbers tell you that Arsenal’s set-piece threat is greatly diminished at the moment.

Of course, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to not be as reliant on set plays, but they’re such an important tool to have, especially when games are on a knife edge.

Arsenal need to rediscover that knack of scoring from corners, it gives an extra dimension to the team, and as the fixture list piles up and Arsenal push on multiple fronts, there will be times where games will be decided by just one moment.

Declan Rice seemingly knows this current corner routine idea isn’t working, and he may need to have an uncomfortable conversation with Mikel Arteta about reverting back to the old strategy rather than persevering with these new ideas.