How Premier League teams are borrowing NFL plays for set piece success
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Sam Tighe
It started as a trickle, but now it’s a flood. Set piece mania has taken over the Premier League, with the past five seasons seeing teams take advantage of these situations for maximum benefit.
Arsenal‘s dominance from corners and free kicks is now globally revered, Brentford‘s long throws are threatening to reshape the tactical makeup of the league, while Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace are three further teams that can turn just about any set piece into a well-worked goal.
But what has changed? Firstly, the amount of detail that goes into preparing for them is night and day in comparison to years past. Where once a corner might be aimed for one of four distinct zones, or free kicks simply delivered to the tallest player, set-play designs have become infinitely more intricate.
Arsenal and Tottenham were among the first to embrace a designated set piece coach — hiring Nicolas Jover (2021) and Gianni Vio (2022) respectively — and, before them, Brentford had been finding an edge from set pieces for years thanks to the work of Andreas Georgson. Now, almost every Premier League club has one.
And the second key component is that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that some managers are borrowing ideas from other sports — specifically the NFL. If you’re an American football fan, you will surely recognize tactical parallels between the two, but for the uninitiated, we can help.
So, what has soccer learned from football? And how are the lessons being implemented in set piece situations?
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A wide receiver stack: England’s ‘Love Train’ from 2018
England‘s 2018 World Cup performance is a good place to start. The Three Lions’ performance in Russia far surpassed expectations, as they advanced to the semifinals of the competition and scored 12 goals in the process — and powering both of these feats was some carefully designed set piece magic.
Indeed, England built a reputation as set piece specialists in Russia with 75% of their goals (nine of 12) coming from corners, free kicks and penalties — beating Portugal‘s record from 1966 for most set piece goals at a World Cup.
Corners became a particularly powerful tool, with England’s attacking players adopting an odd formation that was quickly dubbed “The Love Train.” Manager Gareth Southgate later revealed that this had been inspired by the NFL and that the team had worked with coaches from the Atlanta Falcons in the build-up to the tournament.
“We’re always looking for those set-play situations,” he told Sky Sports during Super Bowl LIII. “The details that coaches go into on those things is phenomenal.”
England’s “Love Train” was effectively a wide receiver stack. It featured three or four players standing in a line — sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal — rather than fully spaced out or occupying different zones.
As the ball came in, they would break off in different directions, hoping the flurry of movement would cause confusion among the opponents, and their proximity to one another would prevent defenders from getting touch tight.
It worked brilliantly. The horizontal stack enabled striker Harry Kane to score against Tunisia in the group stage, while the vertical stack allowed center back Harry Maguire to power a header home against Sweden in the knockouts.
Scheme him open: Arsenal make space for Gabriel
Arsenal are the best Premier League team from set piece situations and have been for some time. Since the start of the 2023-24 campaign, they’ve generated the most expected goals (xG) from set pieces (38.91) and scored 24 goals directly from corners, six more than the next team.
Manager Mikel Arteta regularly texts with LA Rams head coach Sean McVay — both teams are owned by Stan Kroenke — sharing ideas, trading expertise and welcoming feedback. There can be no doubt that Arteta and his set piece “guru” Jover are mining their counterparts for useful information.
The Gunners have a wide variety of set piece routines to call upon, from corners to free kicks to throw-ins, but there is one particular setup that’s become synonymous with the club.
It begins with Arsenal’s players clustering at the back post. In this example against West Ham United, they have seven men placed at least six yards behind the far post, and none in the center or at the near post.
By the time the ball comes in, almost all of them have converged on the near post. With so many of them moving, West Ham’s defenders lose track of their markers, while the two defenders situated toward the near post cannot see any of the movement behind them.
The result is, incredibly, a free header for Arsenal’s best aerial presence, Gabriel Magalhães.
ARSENAL LEAD WEST HAM. ANOTHER Gabriel goal from a corner. ????
???? USA Network | #WHUARS pic.twitter.com/Vab1AaTVkb
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) November 30, 2024
That’s no accident. Gabriel is so overwhelmingly good in these situations — he leads all Premier League players in set piece xG (7.39) since the start of 2023-24 — that much of Arsenal’s set piece work is designed to free him up, or get him into a dangerous spot. It’s barely any different to a core concept of offensive play calling in the NFL: scheming a guy open.
A good chunk of an offensive coordinator’s playbook will have plays specifically designed to get one specific player open for a catch, with all of their teammates’ movements intended to take defenders away from them.
Arsenal have leaned heavily into this line of thinking with Gabriel. It all takes place in a much more compressed space, but the theory behind the movements is the same. Center back William Saliba and, surprisingly, diminutive winger Leandro Trossard, have emerged as particularly good at causing confusion and blocking off markers to create space for their teammate.
And, speaking after the recent game with Fulham, where Gabriel’s run set up Trossard to score the only goal in a 1-0 win, opposition manager Marco Silva told the BBC: “Gabriel jumps so high, it’s impossible to stop him. It’s very difficult to control. The way we tried to block his run, most of the game, we did it very well. We were too open and left the path for Gabriel. We didn’t want him to run in that part. Any flick is very difficult to control at the back post.”
Running a screen or block: Aston Villa grapple in the box
“The first goal was a foul,” Lille manager Paulo Fonseca complained after his side lost 2-1 to Aston Villa in the UEFA Conference League quarterfinals in 2024. “It is blocking, screening, they are clear fouls.”
Fonseca specifically referenced basketball, but screens and blocks are prevalent across both the NBA and the NFL — and now in soccer too. The goal in question saw Morgan Rogers grapple with and then physically push a Lille player away from the back post zone at a corner, allowing his teammate Ollie Watkins to swing round into the space created and head home unchallenged.
Ebere Eze smashes in a free kick, but his teammate Marc Guehi was within one meter of Chelsea’s wall when it was taken, resulting in a disallowed goal for Crystal Palace. ???? pic.twitter.com/MRkh2Dh5vu
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) August 17, 2025
This is commonplace during Villa’s attacking corners (and several other clubs’ too). The key is to be as subtle as possible and, just like in the NFL when running a screen or a pick play, don’t stay engaged for so long that the block develops into a hold.
This technique has also made its way into free-kick routines, and we saw a goal ruled out on the opening day of the Premier League at Stamford Bridge because of it.
Ollie Watkins is on ????
His 25th goal for Aston Villa in all comps ???? pic.twitter.com/TrrTWuF467
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) April 11, 2024
Eberechi Eze, at the time a Crystal Palace player, thought he’d given his side the lead against Chelsea when he lashed a free kick home from 20 yards. But it was ruled out for a foul by Marc Guéhi, who stood in the defensive wall (which isn’t actually allowed in the first place) and then shoved Moisés Caicedo to the side, creating a gap which the ball flew through. It’s fair to say the routine lacked the desired subtlety.
Months later, in MLS, there was an even more egregious attempt: Real Salt Lake‘s Rwan Cruz piled into the Portland Timbers defensive wall like a snowplough in winter, moving three players out of the path of the ball as it flew past. There’s disrupting a wall, and then there’s bowling it over.
The defensive end’s chop: Mikel Merino gets free of markers
Some soccer players are learning lessons from their NFL counterparts, as Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino recently revealed.
“I was lucky enough a couple of summers ago to be doing some commercial stuff with a defensive end from the [New Orleans] Saints, Cam Jordan,” he told CBS Sports. “We spoke a lot about what type of movements he does, how he uses the hands and how he uses his body to get rid of the opponent.”
Watch Merino in attacking corner situations and it’s evident that he’s been studying a host of NFL techniques.
The Saints’ Cam Jordan seemingly taught him the defensive end’s chop move: a downward, chopping motion with your arms to sever the grapple an opponent may have on you. It helps pass rushers evade an offensive lineman’s reach — and, apparently, also helps soccer players escape their markers at corners.
It was on display against Chelsea last season, as Merino chopped through Reece James’ arms to free himself for a near-post run, then looped a header into the net.
MIKEL MERINO.
Arsenal strike on a set piece yet again! ????
???? Peacock | #ARSCHE pic.twitter.com/CdrVu8fsPb
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) March 16, 2025
Later on in that same game, he utilized a spin move that running-back Saquon Barkley would have been proud of to leave James in his dust and create a free run at the ball.
Then this season, in the 2-0 Carabao Cup victory over Brighton, Merino squared up his marker and utilized a wide receiver’s stutter-step to slip past his marker and freely access the six-yard box.
Merino is hardly the first footballer to craftily evade the attention of a defender at a set piece, but the variety and precision of his moves point to a man who studies NFL tapes with gusto.
A seismic shift
Just like in the NFL, soccer is a copycat sport. Successful tactics are replicated across the board, and clever ways to exploit set piece situations are spawning like wildfire across the world.
“Mentally, I think you can learn a lot [from the NFL], Merino told CBS Sports. “It’s one play at a time.”
More and more clubs are embracing this thinking as the benefits become ever more obvious. Those that invest the money and time — such as Arsenal, Villa, Brentford and more — see huge benefits, while those that don’t run the risk of being left behind.
And it won’t be going away anytime soon — it’s too effective. NFL playbooks are hundreds of concepts and thousands of plays deep, so there’s plenty more for soccer’s set piece specialists to glean from them as they constantly seek innovation.