Never forget where you’re coming from. On the August 2021 night Brentford made their bow as a Premier League team, Mikel Arteta received valuable, indelible lessons on defending and attacking set pieces. Mads Bech Sørensen, these days back at the Bees’ former sister club, Midtjylland, launched the throw-in that led to Christian Nørgaard heading home for 2-0.
By then, Nicolas Jover was by Arteta’s side in the Arsenal dugout, having joined from Brentford via Manchester City. They have learned and developed much together since. Set pieces are no longer the refuge of scoundrels and dinosaurs, and with Jover’s fussy sideline guidance Arsenal have developed into their current hybrid of restart muscle and creative flair. The former has often stood in for the latter. At Brentford , it took until the second half for Arsenal’s flair to arrive, and only after a Jover special had grabbed the lead.
A homecoming win, then, for Arsenal’s breakout star of the season. The now talismanic special teams guru who made his bones at Brentford, a significant destination in Arteta’s own journey of personal development. There were distinct wobbles on their first assignment of 2025, Brentford doing what they do best in unsettling their opposition. David Raya, another Brentford-Arsenal brain drain traveller, was guilty of misreading the angles for Bryan Mbeumo’s opening goal and only just rescued himself from an even more serious error when fumbling Keane Lewis-Potter’s shot.
Has Liverpool’s frontrunning broken Arsenal’s hearts? Not just yet, though just when Manchester City need rewiring, Arne Slot’s remake/remodel of Jürgen Klopp’s team has left Arsenal little margin for error after their stumbles in the first half of the season. Officialdom often takes the blame among the wilder fringe groups of the club’s support when injuries have far more credibility as mitigation. Sickness in the camp had taken its effect here, Kai Havertz’s absence down to seasonal lurgy.
As Arsenal stare down nine games in January, to follow seven in December, the breakdown of Bukayo Saka is their hard-luck story. At least Brentford was negotiated without him. The wisdom of such a young player reaching 250 games is a question against the club’s personnel department. The case of Raheem Sterling, still just 30, currently on Arsenal’s books but reported to be headed back to Chelsea as unwanted goods, is just one example of too much too young. When Saka reappears from an injury that has slowed many a speedster, can he be the same player? Will the twitch fibres recover? Will Arsenal still be in the title hunt when he does return?
To answer one question, in Saka’s stead, Arteta placed yet more trust in flaming youth. Ethan Nwaneri, 17, was making his first Premier League start at the same ground he became the Premier League’s youngest ever player, at 15 years and 181 days in September 2022, the eve of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. He was replacing Arsenal’s fallen king, up against Lewis‑Potter, whose presence at left-back reminded injury crises are not confined to title challengers. Thomas Frank could complain of heavy first-team absences, only Nathan Collins available of a first-choice defence.
As Arsenal dominated possession, Frank’s cut and shut backline needed to stay disciplined, so there was disappointment in the crap 90s football manner of Gabriel Jesus’s equaliser, a pinball begun by Mbeumo taking a risk on the edge of the box. With Martin Ødegaard’s radar off-beam – Brentford’s Mikkel Damsgaard perhaps the brighter of the Scandinavian playmakers – it was left to Jover to find solutions. Whenever a corner was awarded, Arteta vacated his pensive patrols of the technical area, and Jover could line up his desired strategy.
Nwaneri further fulfilled Saka surrogate duties by pinging in a beauty; Mark Flekken was distracted by the trademark blitz and dropped the ball for Mikel Merino to score. Jover had bitten the hand that used to feed him. Do he and Austin MacPhee, Aston Villa’s specialist, another noted fellow of the Brentford/Midtjylland school of free-kicks, corners and second balls, exchange celebratory high-five emojis in the set-piece gurus WhatsApp group? These men of increasingly high profile remain mysterious, enigmatic as their influence grows. “Set piece FC,” sang the travelling Gunners fans. A ninth Premier League goal from corners had dug their team from a hole.
There was soon something else to celebrate, that long-awaited flair, Nwaneri supplying the pass from which Gabriel Martinelli, who had struggled in the Saka position against Ipswich, took the blood from the contest. The teenage prodigy departed with 10 minutes left on the clock, having been fleetingly but decisively influential.
If Arsenal’s chase for a Premier League title remains unfulfilled this May, where might that leave Arteta? He has done his growing up in public, his first senior role a job that would daunt even the most experienced managers. Arsenal’s development season on season will surely grant further opportunities. What Brentford, particularly in the first half, and others this season have shown is that his team have lost plenty of the fluency that took them to Guardiola’s shoulder. Arteta has learned that other approaches are available. The temptation to overexpose the flowering of Nwaneri can be resisted when the Jover effect is still yielding results.
