GAME OF THROW-INS

While over-reliance on set-pieces marks a surprising return to a more primitive style of football, Arsenal are built to make the most of the current playing fad

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the Premier League this season. But what concerns me most about Arsenal is their obsession with set-pieces.

They're not alone in this regard. All across the Premier League, you'll find teams who spend forever and a day getting into prearranged patterns for free-kicks and corner-kicks, and often even throw-ins.

Nicolas Jover is Arsenal's set-piece coach. Whenever they get a free-kick - and often for corners - the TV cameras focus on him. It's not as if they have to search for him. He's right there beside Arteta, bellowing instructions.

Jover and the chap at Aston Villa who looks like a '70s rock star have a ridiculously high profile. It's only a matter of time until a set-piece coach is munching kangaroo unmentionables on 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here'.

This all brings me to Declan Rice. He is an exceptional midfielder - and he wasn't a bad centre-half, either. It's easy to forget that he started out at West Ham in that position.

Rice has made the PFA's Team of the Season in the last two years and won Arsenal's Player of the Season gong last time out. He is one of England's key men, and is capable of making a big splash at next year's World Cup.

At Arsenal, though, it seems far too often that Rice is playing with the handbrake on. Just wandering around, waiting to come alive when it's time to take a set-piece.

Now he did score two cracking free-kicks against Real Madrid in the Champions League last season but he has never scored one in the Premier League. His corners often take an age to set up, which is frustrating - even though Arsenal fans will argue that they often score from them.