Stop obsessing over set-piece coach ‘messiahs’ – top-class football will always be about special stars like Declan Rice
DO you want to know the best thing about Declan Rice’s two magnificent free-kicks against Real Madrid?
It’s that we can all now stop obsessing about set-piece coaches — and Arsenal’s supposed ‘Messiah’ Nico Jover in particular.
I loved the fact that Declan came out in his post-match TV interview and revealed Jover had wanted him to cross the ball rather than shoot from 28 yards.
And also that Declan, 26, had told Bukayo Saka: “I fancy this.” And Saka had replied: “Go on, then. Have a go.”
The statisticians, sports scientists, number crunchers and coaching gurus would have said: “You’ve played 400-odd games as a professional footballer, Declan, and you’ve never scored a direct free-kick, so you ain’t taking one against Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final.”
But here were two excellent footballers, Rice and Saka making an instinctive, off-the-cuff, on-field decision in a hugely consequential match.
That is what top-class football will always be about: great players doing great things in the heat of the moment. And even more special was the fact that Declan went and did it twice.
The coverage of football is becoming far too intellectualised by people in the media who want to make themselves sound clever by over-complicating a game which is both simple and chaotic.
Great coaches can rein in that chaos factor but most goals come from elements of individual brilliance which cannot be coached, or from serious defensive errors which can’t be predicted.
Arsenal’s supporters painted a mural of Jover on a wall near the Emirates. But surely we can now stop mythologising these blokes?
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The Gunners are good at set-pieces for the same reason that certain teams have always been good at set-pieces — great delivery and great heading ability.
Saka, Rice and Martin Odegaard can all deliver a wicked dead ball and Gabriel, in particular, is seriously good at heading them in. Jover’s routines are not rocket science.
From corners, Arsenal usually position a bunch of players beyond the back stick, a couple move to the near post, a couple to central areas and a few remain at the far post so that all areas are covered.
It’s pretty much the same as it ever was. Set-piece coaches became a major part of the game about seven or eight years ago, when I was playing in the Premier League.
The best ones are the guys who realise they are not the stars of the show, that they are at training to deliver a short, sharp 20-minute session without trying to bore the pants off of everyone — because very few footballers enjoy practising set-pieces.
These coaches can sometimes give a team an extra one per cent. But they aren’t reinventing the wheel.
I reckon Newcastle’s set-piece coach must keep to himself because when Dan Burn scored the opening goal in the Carabao Cup final, we didn’t hear about coaching genius.
We just saw Kieran Trippier — one of the best dead-ball merchants in the business — crossing it to the tallest bloke on the park, who nutted it in.
When it comes to taking direct free-kicks, that is a true art form.
I’d have fancied myself to score them in training but doing it in a match, getting the ball up and over a wall of 6ft 3in blokes — or round them — in front of a full house is a different matter.
At Watford we had three particularly good free-kick takers — Gerard Deulofeu, Tom Cleverley and Jose Holebas.
There were times when, as captain, I had to intervene when they were arguing about who was going to take one.
And given that I was substantially bigger than all three of them, that was where the argument ended.
Gerard would want to take every single one but some days he just wasn’t at it and I’d have to tell him as much.
Before Rice’s first goal against Madrid, he and Saka had a conflab with Odegaard and Mikel Merino.
Skipper Odegaard was telling them that Jover wanted the ball crossed, while Rice was simply going with his gut instinct.
He doesn’t think he is anybody special, even though he is a very special player.
Troy Deeney
But if Arsenal get a free-kick around 25 yards out against Brentford today, no conversations will be necessary. Declan will take it.
For Declan to have scored two direct free-kicks in 12 minutes made Tuesday a career-defining night for him.
Having played against him and met him, it is impossible not to like Dec. I was just delighted that it was him.
Here is a kid who fully appreciates the life of a professional footballer and who thoroughly enjoys it.
There is no sense of entitlement. He doesn’t think he is anybody special, even though he is a very special player. It’s lovely when good things happen to good people.
Especially when they’ve treated a crucial moment in a Champions League quarter-final as if they were having a kickabout with their mates at the park.
“I fancy this, I’m going to have a pop here” — and not just once, but twice. That is the sort of instinct you simply cannot coach.