In military science, ballistics involves the precise calculation of a projectile's flight path, while also being associated with reliable protection such as armour and bulletproof vests. Researcher Dr Flavien Baur uses the term to describe the playing model Mikel Arteta built at Arsenal.
The club combined a carefully calibrated positional structure, exemplary defending and a devastating weapon at corners, changing Premier League set-piece standards for good.
From decline to Premier League gold
When Arteta took charge on 20 December 2019, the club were in a deep and prolonged decline. According to Understat, their expected goals differential had fallen from +39.7 in 2015/16 to -6.4 by 2019/20, when they collected just 56 points. The Spaniard's first 21 league matches also produced a negative balance of -0.17 xG per game.
The turning point came in the summer of 2021. Arsenal reached an average of 2.13 points per match with a positive xG differential of +0.93. In 2023/24, they collected 89 points with an xG differential of +52.6, before winning the long-awaited league title in 2025/26, ending a 22-year wait. Their defence was the best in the league, conceding just 27 goals, compared with 35 for their nearest rival.
The club also reduced their dependence on individuals. From 2014 to 2021, their three leading creators accounted for 60–69% of goals from open play; during the title-winning period, that share fell to 47–48%.
Nicolas Jover's artillery
Set-piece specialist Nicolas Jover arrived from Manchester City in July 2021, having previously worked at Montpellier, with Croatia's national team and at Brentford. As his former colleague Mads Buttgereit recalled, Jover could spend more than an hour analysing a single corner, calculating every possible reaction from the opposition.
On the pitch, this became carefully organised chaos. A group of players starts from one point before making synchronised runs into the six-yard box. Some attack the delivery, others block defenders and isolate the goalkeeper, while a third group waits for the second ball. Gabriel and William Saliba play key roles in the air, while right-footed Declan Rice and left-footed Bukayo Saka provide deliveries on the desired trajectory.
In the title-winning 2025/26 season, Arsenal scored a record 18 goals from corners and 24 from set pieces according to official league figures. At the other end, the number of shots they conceded from set pieces fell from 3.09 per match to 2.18.
Arsenal's success prompted a league-wide trend. The share of their expected goals coming from set pieces rose from 16.7% to 31.7% in 2025/26. Rivals began copying Jover's methods, and by 2026 four Premier League clubs had surpassed Arsenal on that measure. Wolverhampton Wanderers, for example, raised their share to 35.2%, but scored only seven goals out of 23. Unlike mid-table sides, Arsenal did not rely on corners to survive; they used them to complement a powerful positional attack.
Decision-making and neuroscience
Dr Baur's hypothesis draws on neuroscience research. In December 2024, scientists Thomas Habekost, Jakob Ovesen and Jes Buster Madsen set out a three-stage model of a footballer's cognitive activity in Frontiers in Psychology:
- Assessing the situation: scanning the pitch, attention, anticipation and the use of working memory.
- Selecting and executing an action: choosing a response. According to Paul Cisek's affordance competition hypothesis, the brain simultaneously prepares several motor responses, such as a pass, shot or dribble, until one wins out.
- Evaluating the outcome: comparing the expected outcome with what happened and adjusting behaviour.
In a 2005 study, Russell Poldrack demonstrated that regularly practising motor sequences reduces the load on the brain's prefrontal cortex, transferring control to the basal ganglia. The action becomes automatic, much like changing gear for an experienced driver.
A corner routine practised to the point of becoming automatic frees a player from having to devise a solution on the spot. The starting positions are known in advance, sharply reducing the amount of cognitive processing required and saving mental energy.
Mental fatigue and a setback in Budapest
But automaticity has a downside. In a 2010 study, Okihide Hikosaka and Masaki Isoda showed that urgently stopping a learned pattern to adapt to an unexpected move by an opponent demands enormous brain resources.
Cognitive fatigue directly reduces the accuracy of tactical decisions. A 2020 experiment by Kunrath showed that mental fatigue narrows players' useful field of vision from 189.9 to 181.6 degrees, reduces concentration and disrupts the compactness of their lines. A 2026 review by Diogo Aveiro confirmed the negative effect of mental fatigue on decision-making in football. Meanwhile, studies by Mohr in 2003 and Carling and Dupont in 2011 demonstrated that a 35–45% drop in physical activity during the final 15 minutes of a match is not accompanied by a direct deterioration in technique; instead, the failures occur in assessing the moment.
The theory was illustrated in the 2026 Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest. Arsenal took an early lead in the sixth minute through Kai Havertz, who scored from a second ball, and switched to a deep defensive approach. Until the 65th minute, the Parisians averaged only 1.6 shots per 15-minute spell, but then increased that to 3.7. Ousmane Dembele equalised from the penalty spot in the 65th minute, and PSG won the trophy in the shootout.
Arsenal had just 28% possession, recorded 70% passing accuracy and made only 1.3 entries into the final third, compared with their average of 8.9. They took corners at their usual rate but were cut off from the opposition half. Their ‘artillery’ had no firing position.
2026/27: Winning without set pieces
By October 2026, Arteta's side had made their best start to a league campaign, taking 21 points from a possible 24 with a goal difference of 13:5. Yet they had scored just once from 27 set-piece shots worth 3.58 xG. The decline in corner productivity fell within the normal statistical margin of error at 1.7 standard deviations, while positional play produced 11 goals from 10.7 xG.
Arsenal no longer depend on a single component: Arteta's ballistic model removes as much uncertainty as possible before the ball is even put into play.
