Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Manchester City staff member Nicolas Jover is joining Arsenal to replace Andreas Georgson as expected.

Earlier in the month, Swedish club Malmö FF confirmed that they had appointed Arsenal set-piece coach Andreas Georgson as their Sports Manager, working under Sports Director Daniel Andersson.

Reports suggested that Georgson would be replaced at Arsenal by Nicolas Jover of Manchester City, who would specialise in set-pieces as Georgson did. Mikel Arteta has now confirmed that change.

“Yeah, we had a situation in the summer with Andreas [Georgson], where he had the possibility to leave to his country,” Arteta explained. “He had different reasons to do that and I understood that situation, so we needed to recruit somebody.

“After looking through what the best solution would be, a person that I know was on the market, was available, is someone whose expertise are incredibly useful and valuable for us. He’s joining us. His name is Nicolas Jover and I’ve worked with him before at City.”

Obviously, it’s good that Arteta was able to bring in somebody he already knows and trusts to fill the role, and it’s hard to begrudge Georgson the opportunity to return to his home country and take on a new position with more responsibility.

Arsenal’s record on defensive set-pieces was very good last year, but it was much poorer on attacking set-pieces. With only a one season sample size, it’s hard to say how much of that was down to Georgson.

Jover now has a full pre-season to try and get some of his own ideas across, so we’ll see how that translates when the new campaign gets underway.