Some random stats for today, courtesy fbref.com and their new feature which allows you to toggle between a team’s “for” and “against” stats.
| Stat per game | Arsenal | Opponents |
| npxG | 1.1 | 1.3 |
| shots | 8.9 | 11.5 |
| on target | 3.3 | 3.9 |
| Progressive passing | 2380.5 | 2603.5 |
| Final 1/3 | 32.8 | 32.1 |
| Passes into penalty area | 7.4 | 7.6 |
| Key passes | 6.3 | 8.8 |
| Passes under pressure | 80.0 | 56.4 |
| Shot creating actions | 14.3 | 18.6 |
| Goal creating actions | 1.8 | 1.9 |
| Final third tackles | 1.3 | 2.0 |
| Tackles won v. dribbles | 4.0 | 5.6 |
| Pressures | 119.8 | 134.1 |
| Final third pressures | 27.0 | 40.3 |
| Blocked passes | 13.6 | 12.6 |
| Interceptions | 5.3 | 3.3 |
| Touches in the final 1/3 | 142.0 | 170.9 |
| Touches in the penalty area | 19.1 | 22.4 |
| Progressive distance carried | 1504.5 | 1108.5 |
Some things stand out.
The first is that when it comes to attacking metrics our opponents either match us or outclass us. So, for example, looking at Man City, they only allow their opponents 18 passes into the final third per game and 5.7 passes into the penalty area per game. This helps them keep their opponent’s shot creation actions down so where Arsenal give up 18.6 SCA per game, Man City are giving up 14.4. Interestingly, Brighton lead the league in that category allowing just 10.75 SC. Liverpool are 2ndm, Southampton 3rd, City 4th, Chelsea 5th, Tottenham 6th and Arsenal are 11th – giving up about the same number of SCA as Leicester, Wolves and Fulham.
Where Arsenal go REALLY bad is on the offensive end. Arsenal create just 14.3 SCA per game, which is 5th worst. So, not only do we have a deficit in terms of shot creation but we are hugely off the pace of the top clubs. Even Fulham have a superior SCA to Arsenal.
One side note here, I think there’s a very real possibility that Leicester are a massive fugazi. They have only taken 65 shots this season, third worst. And more importantly, they have been awarded 8 pens, that means 12% of their shots have been pens. If Arsenal had been awarded 8 pens, they too would have an xG of over 15 and we would be talking about them finishing in the top of the table with ease. It’s hard to just discard penalties because they have such a huge impact on how a team plays, so we don’t know how Brentan’s team really plays and won’t know until they stop getting handed easy wins from the elf-meter.
Back to Arsenal. The issue for me is the sheer passivity of Arsenal. It’s really important to know that Arsenal don’t have a major pass superiority over our opponents: we average 584 passes per game and they average 547 passes per game. That’s actually 6th most passes against. Man City allow just under 409 passes against, Leeds, 388! Even Aston Villa only allow 475 passes per game.
That stats explains why the opponent has such an advantage in progressive passing, our opponents pass the ball forward on average 220 more yards per game than Arsenal do. That’s horrible.
And what makes that possible is that we don’t pressure. They (the opposition) only make 56 passes per game under pressure and they press us in passes 80 times per game! As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t control possession, and you don’t press, you’re not playing defense. And once again, this makes me question what exactly we are doing in training. Especially when you hear Arteta constantly barking instructions to his players. What have they learned in the last year under Arteta?
Again, this is all very disheartening and I don’t know where we go from here. We are a team that doesn’t press, that doesn’t do any proactive defending except interceptions and blocks (which is what you do in the low block), we let the opponents have the ball in our end of the pitch, and we invite their pressure on us in the low block!
And the thing about all this is that it can go south VERY quickly because we are living off such small margins. Letting the opponent control the game against us, letting them have the ball in our final third, not trying to win the ball back, and then not really being an attacking team is way too dangerous. The stat that proves that there is that we have lost every game in which the opponent scores first.
Goes back to hiring. It’s not his fault (arteta) but what exactly did the board or CEO interview him for or about. What is the outline besides points that they use to say you have made us better? They hired a guy because he worked for a big company, without due diligence. We did the same with emery. No due diligence of how will he cope when things go south. They dint look at how his teams lost when leading matches. He came spoke about Ramsey and got the job.
You’re the bees knees, part of the most successful football team seen in English football. You’ve had a plan to get you to the top and you land your dream job. A real big hitter role at a former club where you have a lot of love and affinity. Time to put into practice that philosophy you’ve been constructing taking the best insights from some of the world’s best operators…..
…. and this, this is what you have to offer! Excuse my sarcasm but what is going on the training field and the analysis and review sessions that hasn’t screamed ‘clusterfvck’.
…from the end of the previous thread:
love the bass guitar talk. we were talking bass a few months back when tim was contemplating getting one for his daughter. 1nil, i was thinking geddy lee as well. likewise, i believe that a good bassist is like a good cdm for all the points you mention…they dictate the rhythm of play and are often the smartest players, but get very little credit. people don’t realize how important they are until they’re not there.
you guys have made a ton of great points. tom, i agree with you 100%. arteta has to allow players to think…he can’t think for them because the game is too fast. all of that talk from the touch line is frustrating for players. mark, likewise with your talk about more movement than simply vertical runs; attacking players have to be more dynamic. the good points in this thread are endless.
there’s an old saying that a soccer team needs piano carriers and piano players. right now, arsenal have no piano players on the roster to facilitate the attack. arsenal is set up for the front three to score and create everything for themselves and that is unlikely to find a sustainable success. you have to be able to create from midfield. it’s also boring football to watch.
it’s not the player’s fault. the strategy is flawed. it’s unfair to blame lacazette, willian, or aubameyang. likewise, it’s unreasonable to think that throwing young guys into a situation that’s proven difficult for seasoned professionals is the way forward. lastly, aubameyang can’t play with his back to goal…he’s best facing the goal. this is where arteta has to earn his keep. it’s difficult to change the strategy mid-season but arsenal will continue to struggle creating chances if they don’t change. the current strategy is good for cup competition but not for league play.
Reply
So you’re saying we get Geddy in as our CDM? You never know, he might be able to put a shift in there! He’s a little on light side but he could fatten up on, like bacon sandwiches in England. We won’t get him if baseball spectatorship comes back though. He’s usually seated directly behind home plate at Bluejays home games, April to October.
Tim great stuff
If I did the math correctly, In the last 29 games that Arteta has managed which includes 24 league games and the last 5 rounds of the FA cup last season we have conceded 28 goals. That is not a small sample size and on a per game basis it would have been 3rd best in the PL last season. You could argue the advanced metrics suggest that things are on verge of falling apart but before the game against Villa we had conceded the fewest in the league so we have been on an excellent pace this season. I think we can hope that the last game was just a aberration. From a defensive standpoint Arteta has not turned us into a great team but compared to where we were before he came the turnaround has been fantastic.
Oh yeah, for sure the *actual* goals against record is good. But I tend (to my discredit) not to look at that as much as the underlying stuff. And look at what we’ve sacrificed for that stability! We also have only scored nine goals this season and none from open play since October 17th. Plus you look at the scraps that Laca and Auba are feeding off and it’s really bad. I’m very worried. Arteta has even admitted that this is bad. There are ways to play football that get the same defensive result and generate much more offense. Playing Allardyce-ball isn’t it.
Hearing MA saying its very bad is, to my mind, as if i was listening to Trump sitting with his advisors watching the election results coming in. Sadly both are in denial and will not accept their time could be over. I personally believe MA could but won’t accept his way is not working and is too stubborn to try and change but boy i hope I’m wrong
Our utter ineptitude is rather depressing. I do hope that Mikel has a plan because it looks a tall order to turn this shitshow around.
Thanks for this, Tim.
This is pretty damning and discouraging stuff.
A small part of me thinks we should do just enough in the league to comfortably avoid relegation and focus instead on Europe and the domestic cup competitions but then I realize we are just 4 points off top 4.
Small margins, indeed.
If the underlying defensive stats are so bad, why is it everyone thinks we’ve tightened up defensively (in general, bad performances notwithstanding)? I mean apart from the fact that we’ve conceded fewer goals?
Is it just that we go into a low block more effectively now, or is there something else going on that the stats are missing? For me it might be that we get caught in transitions much less frequently. Under Emery it seemed we often conceded big chances and goals directly after losing the ball in the opposition’s final third.
yes, we don’t get caught in transitions because we don’t venture out of our half. it’s utterly ridiculous football.
The statistics are stark and very telling.
I thought that the mainstay of Arteta’s plans was the press, and it seems that we are not doing it.
The absence of any midfield to speak of, creative or otherwise, means that the defence is constantly under pressure and the attack are starved of the ball.
That we have conceded so few goals may be because we are effectively parking the bus for large parts of the game and have enough bodies in line to prevent too many clear shots.
The theory was that Arteta was concentrating on the defence and, once he had that sorted, would then move forward to the midfield and then the attack.
After all this time, and 29 games, is it, he is really no further forward than he was at the start.
I suppose he is lucky there are no fans at games because the chorus of boos that would great the team every week would be extremely disheartening to the players and to him.
I wanted him to succeed, but I simply feel that he has got it so wrong it may be irredeemable.
I fear that we are worse now than under Emery.
The collective blindness of so many fans who so much want Arteta succeed they are ignoring what they are seeing is almost as painful to watch as the games.
After nearly 60myears as a supporter, I now find myself barely interested and not disappointed in the scores and totally uninterested in seeing highlights, or Adrian Clarkes’ Breakdowns, which I used to enjoy.
Wuithout looking know that he is simply
42 matches and we have scored 76 and conceded 47 in all those matches, however, it’s his record in the Premier League which is not great: 28 matches, 9 losses, 41 goals scored, 31 goals allowed.
The two trophies have really given him time.
Tim
Thanks for the reply. I think actual goals scored or conceded is the single most important stat and should be the final arbiter for any discussion about the effectiveness of a teams attack or defense. However to each his own philosophy. Its possible the defensive stats you describe indicate an impending defensive meltdown but other then the last game that has not happened. If we do start consistently conceding more goals that would change everything.
Right now me the biggest problem is the fact that we have only scored 9 goals. For the last 2 1/2 years we have been heavily dependent on Auba to score and he has been awesome despite the lack of service. However, right now he is in a slump so we are bound to struggle . We don’t have anyone else in the squad who is a legitimate threat to score a goal in any game. A more attacking team ethos might help a little but you simply can’t score enough goals to compensate for a more leaky defense if you don’t have players in the squad who are goal scorers. Arteta grew up in the Barcelona system and played for Arsene and learned to coach from Pep. The idea that he does not know how or would not like to play more aggressive attacking football if he felt he had a team capable of doing that effectively seems unimaginable to me. He has an army of assistant and has watched tens of thousands of hours watching film. I assume he and his staff have concluded that our lack of goal scoring firepower means the best way to win is by making us tough to beat and hit on the counter. We may not like it and it and we won’t accumulate a strong attacking stat sheet but he certainly helped to save something from an otherwise terrible season last year and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I think its going to take time to rebuild a squad that can play the way we want.
sorry, deeply disagree that only goals stats should matter. for example, you cite Auba’s slump and you’re right he’s in a slump, a slump of service. How do I know that? Well, I could just look at the one goal he’s scored this season or I could look deeper and see what kind of shots he’s getting.
Lacazette has had 9 shots this season:
6 of them have been > 0.20 xG
5 of them have been headers
0.3 npxG per shot
Aubameyang has had 10 shots this season:
9 of them have been < 0.20 xG (actually almost all his shots other than his pen are below 0.15) 4 of them have been taken from outside the box 1 was a penalty 0.07 npxG per shot But if you want you could just look at goals scored I guess. Personally, I find the latter a richer discussion.
If our next run of a half-dozen matches go poorly and Arteta gets the dreaded vote of confidence from KSE we may have a different manager in the new year. I would hate to see that happen, but this s$%t ‘aint workin’.
it will be the players who push him out. I think they are already getting sick of the way we play football. If Auba gets upset he will be gone real quick.
The Spuds game will be the key. That said, we’ve got some very competitive fixtures prior to it. I’m actually watching a lot more football this season and really looking forward to seeing how we cope against Bielsa. His side really are fun to watch.
My baseline assumption is that Arteta knows what he is doing and has thought extensively about all of the different things we talk and the concerns we have, and all the potential tactical tweaks we suggest. Time will tell how it all works out for him but I think he deserves some patience and time.
Worth a read
https://www.gunnerstown.com/arsenal/2020/11/11/20th-june-2020-the-day-artetas-arsenal-died-when-mikel-lost-his-nerve/
Thanks for that MATTB recommend every1 should read. Arteta bottle job no doubt.
As with others, I’m certainly worried. You’d think with the team we have relegation would not be a concern, but we’re not far off it.
The defense is better, but the attack is markedly worse. And in a lot of cases, it seems like we’re not even trying. Several times we’ve had free kicks near midfield, and sent them sideways or backwards.
And the bad personnel decisions…Arteta’s got something of a pass on some of the things that happened before he was here. But Willian and Martinez are significantly on him. Hard to tell with Ozil, but I’d be surprised if he had zero influence there.
The FA Cup win and playing decently in EL are giving him some cover. As is the general weirdness of the season. But that won’t last forever. I do remember the 1 nil to the Arsenal days. But what really made me a fan was the football played under Wenger. Not sure how enthusiastic I’ll be if our aspiration is boring mid-table football.