The question seems to revolve around whether scoring from set pieces is something we do instead of scoring from open play.
When you lose the ball in an attacking position, you are open to a counter. If you win a corner instead, then you have a set piece and more opportunity to reorganize, while also working for a chance to score.
In this sense, perhaps we do avoid risky passes in open play that might lead to goals, in favor of winning set pieces, and therefore scoring from set pieces. I believe this is a side effect rather than a primary intention, but it is a side effect that we are willing to accept and even embrace. A corner for Arsenal used to be worse than a goal kick, because of how open we were to the counter. This has changed. It is now a way to keep pressure on the opposition and force them to break their structure to defend the set piece. In this more expanded sense, it actually might improve our chances at scoring from open play on both the front and back end. The team tries to avoid conceding the corner, but when they do, we are in an advantageous position even if we don't score directly from the set piece.
For the defending team, the solution is a matter of choosing between lesser evils. The most common strategy is to defend deep and clear long and early, allowing them to maintain their defensive shape while avoiding the set piece, but sacrificing any real semblance of possession or effective counter attacking. The other is to press us higher in a mid block to threaten our back line, but risk letting us play some football. The former feels much more common than the latter these days, because we have better press resistance in midfield and unbelievable pace and work rate in recovery.
How we score goals is going to be a direct result of the oppositions choice in this regard. That the deep block is so common means we don't get as many chances to employ the tactical obverse, and thus do not win games in that manner as frequently. Frequency also becomes a matter of habit, and if a less talented team comes in and presses us high and tries to out-work-rate us, it'll be a test to see if we can nimbly adjust. If we ever lost a game that way, other teams would start doing it. If we destroyed them, everyone will double-down on the deep block.
When the other team works so hard to make it a marginal game, you're going to have to accept that to some degree. We seem to have found a pretty darn good solution. However, if Gabriel, Rice, or Saka are not out there, we need to be able to recognize that it'll be more of a dice roll and show a bit more urgency in the rest of our attacking game. When you lose our combination players like Kai and Odegaard, it's hard to make that pivot happen.
