I’ve heard a lot of talk about the ‘genius’ of Arsenal’s so-called set-piece ‘guru’ and the incredible work he’s played in the team’s push for the title.

Well, forgive me for bursting the bubble here, but amid all the excitement about the goals Tottenham conceded from corners last week, something very significant was somehow missed. Two of those goals should not have counted.

We are witnessing a stealthy, very deliberate, strategy from Arsenal – and Ben White in particular – to obstruct goalkeepers in a way which will avoid detection by the referees.

It happened twice in that Tottenham game. White seemed to be trying to undo goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario’s gloves before the ball reached the box for the first goal. He nudged him again on the way and backed into him on the goal-line when the third goal went in.

White does this all the time. The referee sees him standing those two yards behind the goalkeeper – but there’s nothing to see there for Mr Plod. And Mr Plod’s attention is elsewhere when the ball is kicked and White moves in front of the goalkeeper to make that contact. Blocking him. Obstructing him.

Where does blocking becoming obstruction? Might I suggest the referees consult their own little FA rule books for a definition of that term? Law 12 states, in black and white, that obstruction is ‘moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player.’

‘Set-piece genius’? Call me old-fashioned but what we’re seeing here is cheating. This blocking by players from set-pieces is more prevalent than ever before, which presents a challenge for referees. But Arsenal do this every game and it’s always by White, so the penny should have dropped long ago. Arsenal have been using this pattern of offending ever since the set-piece coach, Nicholas Jover, joined Mikel Arteta at Arsenal. That was two seasons ago.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that we also have the VAR officials, sitting in their warm booth, equipped with the camera capacity that ought to be pulling Arsenal up on this every time.

White does this in every game. By keeping their obstruction low-key, Arsenal ensure that these Mr Plods are none the wiser. It’s a sneaky way to obtain an advantage, in my opinion. Right up there with that cynical offence these days called ‘simulation’ – a word which my Oxford English Dictionary tells me means: ‘in the the action of pretending; deception.’ Please let’s stop beating around the bush and start calling out these offences for what they are.

I suspect that the fine attacking football Arsenal have been playing has also helped them avoid detection in a way that, say, Tony Pulis’ sides never did. Their 16 goals from corners this season is the most in a Premier League campaign since Tony’s West Bromwich Albion in 2016/17 team. We’ve seen 22 set-piece goals from them in all, excluding penalties, which is more than any other Premier League side this season.

It surprised me that Tottenham were not onto Arsenal’s tactics at set-pieces. With all the coaching staff and analysts which big clubs employ today, I would have expected someone to have spotted the strategy. It took until the second half for Spurs to organize themselves and starting to block the blocker – White. But by then, they had conceded three goals – two of them illegal, in my opinion – and were left with what turned out to be an insurmountable challenge.

If the Spurs coaching staff and analysts had missed this vital factor, then it was up to the players on the pitch to organize themselves and work it out in the moment. It can’t always be up to a manager and his staff.

Surely in the remaining games this season, the teams playing against Arsenal – and the referees themselves – will be aware of this unlawful tactic and do something about it.

City are still the best

On the basis on this week’s Champions League semi-finals, Manchester City’s players must have been sitting at home and shaking their heads, wondering why they are not still in the competition.

None of the four teams are as strong as City, who for me remain the best team in Europe. The Real Madrid side I saw draw in Munich, are a shadow of Pep Guardiola’s. But the best teams don’t always win cup competitions. That’s football!

Players owe it to Klopp to re-ignite their fire and intensity for his grand farewell

I experienced playing for a manager who I knew would be leaving my club. Bob Paisley told us his intentions a year before he went and some of those who didn’t know him perhaps imagined that we would lose some of our intensity. Bob was avuncular, would walk around Anfield in carpet slippers and spoke with a North East accent that some found hard to decipher.

But we loved Bob, would run through walls for him, and neither he nor we players let up one bit in the 1982/83 season, which we knew would be his last. We regained the league title with three games to play and won the League Cup that year.

All of that leaves me baffled by the way that Liverpool have fallen away so badly in recent weeks. I felt that the goals they had in them – allowing them to win when not playing well – made this title theirs to lose, though I am sorry to say that they have proved me wrong.

Don’t think for one minute that Jurgen Klopp has done anything different or dropped his own intensity one iota. I would have expected those senior players to gather the team together and sort things out. I assure you that’s how it would have been for us. There are three games to ensure that Klopp’s extraordinary era at this great club does not fizzle out. That team’s leaders should be demanding something better this weekend.

Vital CPR drive gets to heart of the matter 

I felt humbled to be in the company of people, including Fabrice Muamba, whose lives were saved by emergency CPR, at the launch of ‘Every Minute Matters’ – a campaign led by Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation. 

The campaign aims to recruit 270,000 people over 12 months to learn how to administer CPR. I underwent heart surgery in my 30s but cannot imagine the ordeal that many at the launch have been through. More than 80 people suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every day in the UK. 

Less than 10 per cent survive. I can’t stress enough the importance of CPR and I hope that, one day very soon, administering it will be a skill taught in schools up and down our great country