Nicolas Jover

Nicolas Jover (born 28 October 1981) is a German-born French football coach who is currently the set-piece coach of Premier League club Arsenal.^[2]

Nicolas Jover

Personal information
Date of birth	(1981-10-28) 28 October 1981 (age 43)[1]
Place of birth	Berlin, Germany[1]
Team information
Current team	Arsenal (set-piece coach)

Career

Born in Berlin, Germany, Jover was raised in France.^[3] He moved to Quebec, Canada in his early twenties to study for a sports degree at the University of Sherbrooke,^[4] courtesy of the link between University of Montpellier and Sherbrooke.^[3] During his time there, Jover drew on the influence of North American sports such as the National Football League.^[4] After studying for a master's degree, he joined Dynamik de Sherbrooke, a local amateur club, as their technical director.^[3]

Jover returned to France and joined Montpellier as a video analyst in 2009.^[3][4] He helped them claim their first Ligue 1 title in the 2011–12 season,^[5] which saw Montpellier boss René Girard received UNFP Ligue 1 Manager of the Year^[6] and striker Olivier Giroud was named the league's top scorer by the Ligue de Football Professionnel.^[7] While working at Montpellier, he also took a match analyst role for Croatia for a brief spell in 2013.^[8]

Jover moved to England as a set-piece coach of Dean Smith at Brentford from July 2016,^[9] and was part of Smith's successor Thomas Frank's coaching team until June 2019.^[10] In the 2018–19 season he shared the same office with goalkeeping coach Iñaki Caña,^[11] who would join Arsenal in December 2019.^[12][13]

In July 2019, Manchester City appointed Jover as an assistant to Pep Guardiola, specializing in set-pieces,^[14][15] on the recommendation of Mikel Arteta who was the No.2 at the Etihad.^[16][4] Arteta left Manchester City for the Arsenal's head coach job in December 2019.^[17][18] In the 2020–21 season, Jover helped Manchester City claim the Premier League title and reach the Champions League final.^[3] He left his role in June 2021, when his contract expired at the end of the month.^[3][19]

On 5 July 2021, Jover was appointed as set-piece coach to manager Mikel Arteta at Arsenal,^[20][19] working alongside assistant coaches Albert Stuivenberg, Steve Round, Carlos Cuesta and Miguel Molina, and goalkeeping coach Iñaki Caña.^[12][21] In the 2023–24 season with Jover's help, Arsenal scored twenty set-piece goals (excluding penalties) in the Premier League, the most in the division. Sixteen of those came from corners, matching the record in a single Premier League campaign.^[22]