After yesterday’s post about how Arsenal’s attack is the real problem at the club I went back through my personal database and looked at shots, big chances, and expected goals and as I suspected (yesterday’s post was mostly gut based) the Arsenal attack has been weird under Emery. However, what I found when I looked at the last 18 months was how much this club was a hot mess before Emery took over
The chart for Emery’s tenure at Arsenal is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, chaotic*:
This is a chart of Emery’s Arsenal’s shots for and against using a rolling three match average and there are some good signs here. The shots against average is on a downward trend and the shots for average is rebounding after a fall off a few weeks back. This data is backed up by the xG for and xG against rolling three match average under Emery:
The xG for and against data shows similar trends as the shots data but paints a much brighter picture of the last few weeks. In fact, it looks a lot like Emery has the club headed in exactly the right direction – as the blue line (xG for) and the red line (xG against) are diverging. This is exactly what you want to see from your club’s attack and defense; the attack outperforming the defense. Or, erm, in other words, more expected goals for and fewer against.
So, my analysis yesterday was a bit off. You can see that Arsenal are getting better throughout the season and instead of a wholesale panic moment, there is a slight convergence in these last few games.
Arsenal are objectively improved both defensively and offensively since the start of the season. The attack has been markedly better in the last 7 games – up to 1.9 xG average per game from 1.4 in the first 12 matches. And the defense has made a similar improvement from 1.6 xG against average in the first 12 games to a 1.0 xG against average in the last 7. If I look at expected goal difference (which is a more accurate predictor than either xG or xGA) Arsenal have swung from -0.2 xGD to +0.9 xGD. That is a 1.1 xGD swing and may be proof that “the process” is working.
Why was I so upset yesterday? Because it was the worst match I’ve seen from Arsenal (attackingly) in years. And something about this Emery attack just doesn’t feel right. My gut said that he just doesn’t seem to be getting the forwards to click. So, I went back to the start of last season and looked at the data using the same three match rolling average:
I think the reason why my gut was so inflamed after the Albion match is because as good as it has been over the last few weeks, Arsenal still aren’t anywhere near what Wenger was able to get out of this team at the start of last season, which was Wenger’s worst ever season as a manager. The chart above is shots but the expected goals chart is the same:
What’s weird about this chart is that it’s basically matchday 16 last season (almost one year ago) where everything goes crazy. Wenger’s tenure at Arsenal caused a lot of heartache but the one thing he was exceptionally good at was playing the averages. His team’s consistently outshot and out xG’d the opponents, but after matchday 15, the offense just dried up and the defense went off the rails.
Matchday 15 was the loss to Man U. That’s the giant spike in the xG. In the run up to that match, Arsenal were putting up some crazy xG numbers: 4.33 against Everton and 4.07 against Man U. But those excellent performances were followed by some crushing games: Southampton, West Brom, Tottenham. It didn’t help that Ramsey got injured and Wenger turned to Wilshere to pair with Xhaka in midfield. That was the worst midfield pairing since Song-Denilson. It also didn’t help that Arsenal traded Alexis for Mkhitaryan. As much as it pains me to say it (because he’s such a prat) Alexis was Arsenal’s most creative force last season.
If I step back from the Albion match and look at the data over the last 18 months, I guess what really bothers me are my expectations. I’m not saying I was wrong yesterday – Arsenal’s attack is still underwhelming. What I’m used to seeing at Arsenal is a much wider difference between attack and defense. So even looking at this small 7 game set, where Emery has sort of turned things around, we still have a ton of work to do to get this team back to where it was 18 months ago.
Also, what is apparent from the data is that this club was a hot mess after January last year. Which we all already knew. But here we can see exactly how much work “The Process” has left to do to clean up Wenger’s mess.
*Chaotic good
He has the players putting in more effort, which is not really praising the team for running a lot, but it means we can’t complain about not working hard enough. We can now just focus on the tactics frim the coach and the abilities of the players.
There’s a lot to be said for the adaptation period, going from one system to the next, not only in terms of the players learning where the manager wants them to be consistently but also in terms of having the players to execute the new vision. Wenger had a long time to get that squad to be the exact version that he wanted to see and it still wasn’t working; a good half of a season doesn’t keep anyone in a job these days. Emery is just starting his “process” and doesn’t really have the squad he wants yet. To me, that’s why we aren’t where we were this time last year.
Wenger’s teams were plagued with injury every year, every two years or so he lost major components, and he had to rebuild every year it seemed. As much as I agree that we need to “trust the process” I also see the reason why people are frustrated. Emery is getting worse performances from the same team that Wenger got his worst career performances from. Maybe we need to get worse before we get better, I dunno. But I get both sides of this story, the people who say “give him 2 years” and the ones who say “this is kind of frustrating.”
I should also be clear that NO ONE is saying Emery needs to go.
Yeah I get it too, to a point, but what did most people expect? The competition and level of difficulty increases every year with all the money pouring into the league and Emery is replacing a one man, 25 year institution after what was easily his worst season in charge for all those years. It’s easy to panic after we play so poorly as we did against Brighton and say nothing is working, but as you point out, the body of work paints a different picture thus far and even if it didn’t, I would still be saying it’s far too early to pass any kind of real judgment. The injuries are hitting this team pretty hard as well and that definitely is a contributing factor to the recent down turn in form.
Emery needs to go……
and strengthen in January 🙂
Going with a simpler explanation- no solid D.
Everytime the Arsenal have started to get their act together someone on the backline goes out injured for a while or longer. Just this year alone, when Bel, Must, Sok and Hold were healthy a solid run of no losses appeared. When those guys went out-it does not matter who coaches, pup, moan or klopp, the losses and poor form will become the norm.
If Emery can get some continuity and stability in the backline then 1-0 to the Arsenal can become the norm again in tough away games.
All it takes is an Auba or Laca goal then grind out the win, but if no defensive consistency than forget about it.
You need to get shots to get those 1-0 wins. Also, Wenger had tons of injuries to his defenses over the years and never had this problem.
Yes, he did and that is why he eventually stepped down.
Emery-no matter how you slice it is above Arsene’s point total in his last year. That should be the starting line for Emery, everything else does not matter to me.
If Emery gets his defense settled, the Arsenal can go on another run, but he has to buy in the window or forget it.
Bellerin’s injury was such a big loss for the way Emery likes this team to play and Rob Holding was such a big loss for continuity and quality in the back line. The improvement of those two players alone this season can be seen as a bellweather of Emery’s influence on up and coming players in this squad, and then we haven’t spoken about Guendouzi or Torreira who may be new transfers but still had to integrate into this squad and into Emery’s system at the ages of 19 and 22 respectively. Then there is also Iwobi who I don’t think it can be doubted is having his best season in Arsenal colors even if he has been inconsistent and ineffective lately.
Hey guys, new to commenting here. Miss your column at Arseblog, 7am, and also of late, was getting fed up with the Emery Out brigade and thought, “sanity needed.” Lots of good stuff here so far.
I’m a big picture guy for the most part. I enjoy hearing some of the more micro-level explanations. I’m not a huge believer in the inferential stats, e.g. the logic behind xG, but I like getting fine grained descriptives that show new dimensions of the situation.
Anyway, Aaron: I agree. A soft defense plays on the minds of the offense. But the whole side are training and playing harder, potentiating (not necessarily causing) fatigue and injuries, and why (lazy under Wenger, out of shape?) is another discussion.
The injury and fatigue have made it really hard for Emery to gather and maintain momentum. Let’s face it, we stumbled through much of that unbeaten streak.
The second aspect of this is that we lack quality and depth in key positions.
Big picture, here are a handful of key factors, I think: 1) I think Laca is a very streaky player, he’s had an injury to knock him off momentum. 2) We haven’t had Bellerin to help Kolasinac draw people out wide to create enough chaos in the middle for us to get things going there. 3) Xhaka has been pulled out of his midfield duties because of defensive injuries. And finally, (4) those injuries: Bellerin as mentioned, Sokratis just returned, but we have Holding out Mustafi out, not to mention Monreal who has been a key player for us in recent years. Not even going to list Welbeck’s absence, a more serious version of Ozil’s usual ghost act, and Ramsey’s touch and go status, but all important as well.
Amid all this Emery is building a new system and having success, but it’s like a house of cards that keeps getting knocked down by the odd injury, lack of depth, fatigue and bit of bad luck. Sometimes it’s really not much more complicated than that.
How’s does this all come together? Here’s an illustration. That lineup vs. Spurs, after a trial run vs. Bournemouth then adding Laca, could be kicking the shit out of most teams. But here we are not even a month later w/o Bellerin and Holding who were really coming into their own (I’ve long predicted great things from Holding and was really happy to see him bloom).
LOL. It’s all Wengers fault. Get over yourself.
Emery has done well so far. Injuries aren’t helping him, especially in defence.
Arsenal won’t be able to stop Liverpool. I fear a drubbing.
Let’s see how good Emery really is. Can he come up with a system to quell Liverpool. Enough with the Wenger bashing when Arsenal fail to win. Move on.
No one said it was “all Wenger’s fault”. What’s interesting about these graphs is that they show a certain oddness to this team. It almost looks like Arsenal’s players were downing tools. Though I wouldn’t say that/
We were supposed to get a drubbing from Liverpool in a game we should have won a couple of months ago. Everybody should chill.
We had more players available then, and we played them at home. This is Anfield, and we go there with an injury-ravaged squad.
Out come the Wenger apologists. All it took was a mention in the title. Did you even read the post?
I think we can all admit that the title is a bit misleading.
We need to get back to where we were 18 months ago;…. yet we were left in a hot mess?;
I know you love stats Tim, but I like to know what players think and their psychology. We lost due to early goals from defensive errors in the 1st half-against Manchester United in match day 15 last season. We attacked but De Gea had a great game. What was the coach’s response to the issues which caused the loss? did we attempt to make ends in terms of recruiting defensive personnel in January ? No.
From there things turned sour, because the glaring issues were not addressed.
Against Brighton we conceded a goal and in the 2nd half they could have created more scoring chances, if they were a better team. Iwobi was asking on the pitch what formation they were playing-the video is on YouTube, and to me, if your tactical game changer is in a psychological muddle then you can’t get an optimum performance from him. I thought Emery was to blame for the draw, but when a player comes on, with all the pre-sub briefing and he still had to ask for clarity about the formation, it reveals a lack of concentration and reduced productivity, so that substitution was wasted.
I remember that Man United game well. I was bullish on this Arsenal after that performance because United had one of the better defenses that season and we forced de Gea to stand on his head to keep the score below three. I thought it was so disappointing that the team unraveled from there. I do think the team had lost faith in Wenger and his methods by the end and although I don’t think they went on strike like Chelsea players did to oust Mourinho, I also think they were just as happy as most fans to see a change in manager this summer. Wenger was capable and lovable but his regime had gone stale and he lost his cutting edge in what has become a super competitive league.
Why is Emery struggling to get the attack to produce at the same level as Wenger?
Probably because Wenger’s style was to create huge overloads in the opposition final third and play elite passers in the front half of the team. That’s pretty much the Wenger philosophy in a nutshell, from day one till the final game of last season.
That worked a hell of a lot better when our overload was Cole/Pires/Bergkamp/Henry all playing in between the opposition RB and RCB. 4v2, with 6 defending against 8.
As soon as that became 8v4 (as it often seemed last season), with 2 defending against 6, things started to go wrong. Yes, that level of overload will create good xG but it will concede a small number of very high xG chances.
Emery really tries to avoid creating such huge overloads in one part of the pitch, his ethos is to try to create isolated 2v1s or 3v2s and then switch play to the opposite flank (as Guardiola does.) No wonder then that we no longer create as much, Emery doesn’t want to take the risk.
Very well summarized!
At what point are we just going to support the team and the (new) manager instead of crying like spoilt, entitled children everytime a game goes wrong?
We all knew that it was going to take a few transfer windows before we could really judge the progress.
Let’s just chill and enjoy the football, good or bad (throwing things at the TV is part of the Arsenal experience, from even before Wenger’s late years anyway.)
We wanted Wenger out. What, so now do we want Emery out? Come on. You Gunners!
Well, here we go. It’s a bad time to play Liverpool, that’s for sure. Lich in a back three, a raw AMN at RB, Iwobi…anywhere. Ah well. Try hard!
My optimistic prediction is not-a-drubbing. 3-1 for Liverpool?
Also, ’cause it’s come up in relation to a bad feeling about the club in the last couple of weeks, I fully support Emery, and have no trouble with giving him two seasons to get us into the top four. Let’s all try to remember Klopp’s first season in charge.
“Let’s all try to remember Klopp’s first season in charge.”
Forget his first season,
Liverpool were ninth in his third season in late October early November after having managed to get blown away at City and Tottenham 5:0, 4:1 respectively,
and dropping points against the mighty New Castle, Watford and other bottom feeders.
What you see from them this season is a direct effect of a world class CB and keeper added in last two TW for a measly £150m.
Last time I looked we haven’t got one of those.
You and I are in a complete agreement here.
People expecting top four this season are either waaay too optimistic or just plain nuts.
Top 4 is a minimum expectation for Arsenal Football Club, and Emery was hired, for the most part, because is expected to deliver on that, and he showed the hierarchy how he could deliver on that.
I’ll listen to anyone who says to temper our title expectations (duh!), but I’m not having this talk about giving Emery 2 seasons to make Top 4. You will have blips against smaller teams in this league, but a blot on Emery’s copybook is that we took zero points from a winnable game against Chelsea, 1 from United and 1 from Liverpool.
Not only can he make Top 4… he is expected to. This is The Arsenal. A manager earns his corn in the big games. Yes, crippling injuries are mitigating circumstances, but see how he does today.
This is the third time you and I disagree on things that seem fairly logical.
Chelsea , our direct rival for a top four spot, beating City – a “Great” result – Not!
Guendouzi remonstrating against god only knows who after his own fudge- up for the Albion equalizer , and now this.
I’m beginning to worry about you 🙂
Tom, it’s almost like youre new to sport.There are 38 games in a season, and a lot of football to be played.
Sure, at 3-1 dowm, we are playing in our clown shoes. But all Im saying that Top 4 is the minimum fora club of Arsenal’s pedigree, and we hired the former head coach of PSG to deliver that. What’s there to disagree with, except if youre being reflexively contrarian? And who’s counting, by the way? 😀
Absolutely, Tom, though I’m more inclined to say “too optimistic” than “just plain nuts”! 😀
This is something Claude and I have long disagreed on.
Spurs lost to Wolves at home, and Kane got a yellow card for diving.
My day’s already half made. Come on, Arsenal.
20 minutes in and my 3-1 prediction is looking good! Though, it has to be said after watching our ‘defense’, it could get really, really ugly for us today.
Ok! At 30 minutes, we’re 3-1 down. If we can just hold on for the next 60 minutes, I win!
Ah, shoot. 4-1 at HT. Can I change my prediction to 7-1?
Think I’ll stop watching now. Laterz!
😳
Halftime. 4-1.
Wow. Clown shoes defending. Close competition between Sokratis and Lichtsteiner for worst player on the pitch. Tim, forgive those of us who argued you down. You were spot on about Lichtsteiner. That ball back to the keeper from Kolasinac was X-rated.
Xhaka is on course for a sending off, and Emery has to watch that. Note, Unai. Im not suggesting a halftime change 🙂
On a positive note, Iwobi and AMN have looked our bright spots, and Licht has looked better going forward that defending.
Oh, 2 more things. Salah dived. But what was Sokratis doing putting an arm on him and trying to take the ball from behind?
Torreira has been awful. Half paced, 2nd to everything, lost the ball for a counter goal.
Ainsley’s played great, hasn’t he, hasn’t he guys??
Don’t worry, Arsenal will win, we just need to make some half time adjustments.
Minute 72. Granit Xhaka is…. wait for it… trying to HOLD THE BALL UP. In his own box. With Salah challenging. I’m out of words.
I almost always finish Arsenal games but I just can’t. I’m stress eating and breaking out in hives, and I think I may have sprained my medulla oblongata.
😎
Having watched and rewatched both penalty decisions, and the last pen won by Salah in the game against NCU,
I’m beginning to think someone somewhere at the highest levels of the FA and PGMO decided Liverpool wining this season might be good for the PL as a product.
Sure, why not, it’s their turn, haven’t won since 1990, err, do it for Giggsy! Oh, wrong campaign, but same idea.
I was amazed Dixon & Le Saux were so quick to agree with Oliver on the pelanties. Usually the proper football types slate the striker for going down too easily. I thought the first one was a pelanty in real time because of where Sokratis was when the “foul” was committed but on the slow motion it was very apparent that Salah fell over when he felt the contact. The second one I didn’t see at all in real time and even with the slow motion replays I didn’t really see Kolasinac do too much wrong. Maybe that’s my red and white goggles on that one but Lovren certainly collapsed like he was shot and Oliver had no hesitation.
A center back diving??? What will we tell our children about this, a certain concerned citizen in Lancashire wants to know.
What are the commentators supposed to say other than agree with refs to keep the show going so to speak.
Here’s why I have a problem with both pens.
Salah was criticized by former ref Halsey ( amongst many others)for diving to earn his pen against New Castle, so you would think the next pen he’s awarded would be a nailed on kind.
This wasn’t.
If the second one is a pen then there should be about 20 given each weekend.
When was the last time Arsenal got two soft pens in one game , especially against another top six team?
Never.
The fact that Liverpool deserved the win is besides the point.