Brighton are currently in 6th place with 13 points from their first 6 matches, while Arsenal are in 10th place with 9 points from their first six matches. Brighton have won 5, drawn 1, and lost 1 and for many it’s tempting to say that this is a team in good form or that (even more exaggerated) that they are finally getting the results that their performances last year deserved.
Brighton finished 16th last season with 41 points on 40 goals with 46 goals against, a -6 goal difference. However, using expected goals (shot quality) Brighton were expected to score ~52 goals which was good enough for 12th and they had the third best xG defense in the league, where they were expected to only concede ~38 goals. Their overall expected goal difference was ~14 meaning that they had a 20 goal (negative) swing from expected goals to actual goals.
Last season was probably a case of underperforming but this season they are not “reverting to the mean”, because Brighton are overperforming their expected goals. They are 17th in the League with 6 xG and 10th in defense with 7.3 xGA. Overall, they are 11th in expected points, just above Arsenal.
What’s going on with Brighton this season is that they have played the easiest schedule of almost any team in the League and they aren’t even playing that well based on the metrics. For example, they have created and conceded 9 big chances each. That’s not what you’d expect for a team in the top six. And worse, 6 Brighton’s big chances created were in the first two matches against Burnley and Watford which were the only two matches this season where Brighton had xG superiority. They have only managed three big chances in their last four matches, two of them against Leicester and one of those was a penalty.
When you tell me that a team are in good form, I expect to see a team that is dominating xG in their matches. But Brighton have barely held on in their last four games with a combined xG of 3.2 and an xGA of 5.4 and failing to have xG superiority in any match.
Their home matches are also interesting as they seem to be much more open games. At home they have generated 3.9 xG in three matches but have also conceded 4.2 xG. In away matches they have 2.1 xG and 3.1 xGA. So, it looks like the home matches are much more about going for it while the away games are about control.
Arsenal beat them twice last season, and critically they got an away win in December when the team were playing some of their worst football of the season. Brighton created 13 chances that day but a lot of them were headers off corners. There were no big chances for Brighton in that match and Arsenal won 1-0 with an xG of 1.3 to 0.8.
That match was also one of the games which saw Arteta field the Smith Rowe and Saka partnership which has proved so crucial to our success (what little we’ve had). Tomorrow, we will have Smith Rowe, Saka, and Ødegaard which is our best attacking trio and we have played our best football when all three are on the pitch.
The reason for this is pretty clear in my mind: these players create chances.
Arsenal’s chance creation had been in a steady collapse for two years after Wenger was fired by Kroenke. It picked up again last season a little bit but six games in to this season and we are back up where we once were, picking out about 11.5 key passes per game. Obviously key passes only tells us how often a pass leads to a shot and not whether it was a good shot (which is where xG comes in) but the fact that we are generating more key passes means that the team are at least more willing to shoot. That usually indicates that the team is in shooting positions.
Arteta’s attack isn’t the most beautiful in the world, and has often been stultifying for the players as he typically requires his players to make certain moves before they can take a shot. However, this season Arsenal are 4th in the League in key passes and 5th in shots which means that Arteta’s team are getting into shooting positions more often.
The only knock is that while we are shooting more, the shots aren’t good and we are 13th in xG per game. This is where the coach earns his corn and where Arteta needs to improve. Arsenal have created just 6 big chances this season and just 1 in the first three games. He not only needs to get us into shooting positions, he need us to get good shots; shots with fewer defenders, closer in to goal.
That’s almost pithy of me to say because the opposition has scouting networks and game analysts who go over every detail. And if you have a coach – like Arteta – who is limited in his attacking approach the opponent will know what to look for and will have a plan to try to stop it. You can bet that Brighton will have a plan tomorrow.
Arsenal have been hit by injuries a bit, with Xhaka picking up the first major injury of his career. Granit will be out for three months and no matter what you think of him personally, his absence leaves a huge hole in Arsenal’s midfield.
Gooners have asked for years to see what the Arsenal midfield would be like without Xhaka and we are about to find out. Albert Sambi Lokonga should get a fair number of starts and Ainsley Maitland-Niles will also get a lot of minutes, I expect. We should be able to judge these players after December and we should see how much of an effect Xhaka had on our play both offensively and defensively.
For me there’s a real worry in midfield however: what happens when Thomas Partey picks up another injury? It’s not if, it’s when: he has a long history of minor injuries both at Arsenal and Atleti. At that point, Arsenal are either playing a midfield duo of Lokonga and Elneny or some mixture that involved Maitland-Niles. I’m not going to slam these players because they are all decent enough professionals – and even just losing one of Xhaka and Partey shouldn’t be enough to throw the club into a tailspin – but it’s a pretty big drop in quality if you’re starting AMN and Elneny.
There is an option to use Ødegaard as a number 8 but he’s pretty lightweight for a Premier League midfielder. I guess we will have to see what Arteta does over the next few months.
One last thing: Welbeck plays for Brighton and scored against Leicester two matches ago. He’s always a handful and he’s better in the air than people give him credit. He also LOVES to score against his former teams and he’s a “big game” player. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him pick up a goal. If he does score I think a draw would be a good result for Arsenal.
538 has this basically a draw (with a slight advantage to Brighton). I think Arsenal will get the three points, 2-1. The match is on Peniscock and NBC tomorrow.
My money is on the Boys to keep the good times rolling…
Totally uncharacteristically I did a bit of research on Brighton as well and have the following non-scientific or data based observations to contribute:
Brighton have scored two goals in stoppage time, earning them a total of 4 points. One was a 90th minute winner against Brentford and the other was a 90th minute equalizer against Palace. They also came from behind to score two goals and win against Burnley after going behind in the second minute of their season opener. These guys have a lot of spirit, though they’ve also been fortunate to score so late. Once they have a lead, they don’t concede much. The first goal will be especially crucial.
The Palace match was their most recent in the league. They had key defensive stopper and captain Lewis Dunk sent off in that match and he will be suspended against us. That’s a big miss for them and a good opportunity for our attackers to test his replacement.
The mainstays in the Brighton team seem to be Duffy and Dunk at CB, Bissouma and Lallana in midfield, and Maupay and Trossard in attack. The Bissouma-Lallana partnership seems like a really nice tandem and a lot will depend on us winning the batle against them. Bissouma will probably feel like he has something to prove in this match given all the noise coming from his camp this summer.
Potter seems to like using his whole squad. He has been switching between a 4-4-2 and a 3-5-2 formation thus far this season and I don’t think he’s selected the same 11 players for consecutive games even once. That makes it hard to predict how they will line up or even who will be out there besides the regulars mentioned above. I suspect he will opt for a 3 CB defense in order to mitigate Arsenal’s press and keep numbers ahead of the ball.
Bissouma may be out injured, which would be bad news for them
Welbeck got injured (hammy) in their game against CP, and is not expected to return for another couple of weeks. So I’d say chances of him scoring against us tomorrow are pretty much zero 🙂 . They still have enough though to push us to the limit. And Potter is a decent manager who will definitely have a plan and have his team prepared.
Great preview Tim.
I am confident we will get a win. Hopefully score more then 1 goal and keep a clean sheet.
This summer we were discussing the importance of getting more shots and we have done that. I am not sure how Arteta can improve the Xg of the shots we take. The players need to be able to create those opportunities. No one blamed Arsene when his team played with the handbrake on or when Fergies teams outscored us 8 years in a row or when Spurs and Leicester outscored us in 2015/16. No one blamed Arsene in the 3 seasons from 2013-16 when he had Ozil in his prime, Cazorla, Wilshere, Ramsey, Arteta, Alexis Sanchez, Giroud, Kos, Mert, Nacho. Those teams were loaded with attacking and passing talent and had as many high level creative players then any team in the world and yet they only averaged 68 league goals/season. I am not suggesting managers don’t matter because that is clearly not true. However, there is only so much any manager, even a great one like Arsene who had an incredible amount of attacking talent at his disposal could do.
“No one blamed Arsene when…”
Sorry Bill but pretty much everyone blamed Arsene. I’m not even exaggerating. There were the people out there who were “Wenger till I die” and there are the truly odd folks who never criticize the team and shout at you when you raise even a small criticism (the team shills) but apart from those two minorities, everyone put the blame for what we saw on the field week in and week out on Arsene.
Everything was criticized: his spending, his team construction, his tactics, his training methods, his defense, his attack, even how he managed the day-to-day affairs of the club.
And not just “toward the end”, it was constant from the day he took over the club until the end.
Well, maybe so but I remember in Arsene we trust and so on. Think it was after the 8-2 debacle, 15 years in his tenure, we begun to realize that things weren’t all that rosy.
Thanks Tim for another great preview
Your Spurs one had surprised me, and with my scepticism of Arteta I found it hard to be as optimistic as you seemed to be. I was over the moon to be proved wrong.
Brighton similarly I was one who assumed that their points this season were simply a factor of them reverting to mean after relative underperformance last season
I’m still finding it a struggle to be optimistic but actually for this game it will be more about how we play than the result which will determine my outlook going forward. Another 1-0 game like Burnley, with attack played at pedestrian pace, will not go far towards convincing me. Play with the ‘handbrake off’’, speed and fluidity of attack, and then get caught from a good corner… I’ll be far more optimistic for the rest of the season
Brighton, as a club, seem to be on the way up. They are not renowned as a “football hotbed”, but even their youth sides are doing well.
I went to watch the U23 game last night. Arsenal won 3-0, but Brighton weren’t hammered by any means.
Surprised to see Gunnersaurus at the game. I thought he had died and gone to dinosaur heaven.
Also surprised to see Balogun turning out on the left wing. Hadn’t he left the age groups behind? He earned and converted two penalties. A great bit of skill for the 2nd one. Not particularly well taken penalties though.
I was keen to watch Patino perform for 90 minutes. What’s special about him? Mainly, he has a very soft touch on the ball, which usually distinguishes good footballers from the rest. Think Mesut Ozil with regards first touch. He played left midfield and sees the pass forward very quickly, which is a good skill to have. With Xhaka out for 3 months at least, some have suggested throwing him in. Is he ready? I wouldn’t have thought so. One thing I noticed was him berating the other players, when they misplaced passes. He will need to lose that habit quickly. Is he similar to Jack Wilshere? He reminded me more of a latter day Liam Brady.
The rest of the team I hardly recognised. Unless there has been an influx of players, I can only assume they were schoolboys. Karl Hein played in goal. He’s already a full international with Estonia. If Leno goes, as is predicted, he might get a run as back up keeper.
I liked the look of Biereth. Strong, quick and plays like an out and out centre forward, off the shoulder of the last defender. I remember Alan Shearer making his debut for Southampton against Arsenal as a 17 year old. He scored a hat-trick! A similar type of player. He’s well down the pecking order of forwards, obviously, but if he did manage a game, he wouldn’t embarrass himself. Got a hatful of goals for Fulham, who were sorry to lose him. One to watch.
Thanks for this great scouting report!
One guy who deserves more praise and mention is Per Mertesacker. The glut of talent coming out of the academy and into the first team lately has been awesome. Not just Saka and Smith-Rowe, though obviously they’re the crown jewels, but also Joe Willock, whose move to Newcastle helped fund Odegaard, Maitland-Niles, who played a key role in our FA Cup run, Nketiah and Balogun who can both score at this level, and names like Patino and Azeez who are tipped for big futures as well. This isn’t a coincidence and the Big Friendly German is a big reason for it. Alles gut and vielen dank Per!
Doc,
Per was a very good appointment. The Arsenal academy has punched below its weight for a good many years. A lot of top young talent has ended up elsewhere, most notably Chelsea. He’s given a number of interviews in the press recently, which have made interesting reading. He almost fell into the job accidentally, but discovered he was ideally suited to it. He comes across as a man who is a stickler for “standards”, but at the same time has a warmth and empathy, which is important when you’re working with youngsters. It’s easy to forget how young these kids are. ESR was sitting a couple of rows in front of me on Friday. I assume he was there to see his mates play. Has he started shaving yet? He looked like a kid who was bunking off school. See them out of their Arsenal kit and in their everyday street clothes and you would be amazed to see them for what they are. Kids, basically. They do need support. (Please note, Bill.)
The big difference between the Brighton and Spurs games was that Spurs gave us acres of space to play in and Brighton didn’t. Simple as that, really.
Wow such a tough game. We were all over the place in the first half, spacing was all wrong, not pushing up as a team, standing off of them, and there wasn’t enough fight or quality on the ball. Our defenders just about held it together for us even though Tomiyasu was outplayed and outnumbered on his flank by that bloke with hair like a curtain and that other bloke who made Ramsdale look small when they stood next to each other on their corners. Trossard seems like a heck of a player and gave us a lot of trouble with his close control and movement off the ball. Tomiyasu and Lokonga in particular seem to be unaccustomed to the speed of play in the PL, but that will come.
Brighton were the better team today, there’s no doubt about that. More than anything they won the physical battles everywhere except our own penalty box, and they had enough quality to punish us for slack/disorganized/undermotivated “pressing,” moving the ball between our lines with ease at times. It would’ve been even worse if Bissouma had been available for them. Arsenal got away with one here. The weather didn’t help matters and our attackers made poor touches time after time. The injury to Saka at the end is another cruel blow after losing Xhaka last week. I thought his absence was felt today and we missed his leadership.
On the bright side, (and I’m really digging deep here) this feels like a game we would’ve lost last season so to claim a point and a clean sheet feels like a small victory. It’s not where we want to be as a club, but there’s something to be said about not losing a game where you’ve been second best. Ramsdale and Gabriel were immense again. It’s not surprising to see a young team struggle in this type of environment against a really good team and after such an emotional derby day win, but this is the kind of challenge they’ll face week in and week out, and this is the bar they will have to learn to clear together. We are some ways from there yet on this evidence.
That was my take on this game – one we would have lost in previous seasons. Also that it was one that suited Lacazette. Anyway, I am simply relieved that we walked away with a point.
More or less sums it up, Doc.
A filthy night on the South Downs. I think if you were sitting on the bench, you’d be doing your best to avoid the manager’s eye. Having said that it’s the same for both sides. The problem was, we kept giving the ball away. If you do that, all they do is keep coming back at you. Fortunately, there wasn’t a single Brighton player who could hit a barn door with his nose against it.
It pains me to say this, but I think we missed the Swiss Tractor. Tractors in Europe are made by Lamborghini, believe it or not. In the Spurs game it looked like they’d sent as an upgrade. Busy, energetic and above all else quick. I take it all back, Granit. I like Lokonga, but it felt like the balance in midfield was all wrong.
Like you say, Tomi got found out. He got all his positioning wrong. I’m sure they can work on that. Ramsdale and Gabriel saved the day.
Doc
How many times in the last 15 years have we talked about the glut of talent coming thru the academy? Every year there has been a different set of can’t miss prospects. Suggesting that Nketiah and Balogun can score at the PL level is a gigantic leap of faith. We were very lucky Willock had that great run last season and we were able to sell him at the top of his value. He has not scored in over 500 minutes of playing time this year.
I have seen concern about our team defensive stats but I think the clean sheet today a testament to how much Arteta has improved our team defense compared to where we were in the last part of the Wenger era and Emery era. With the exception of a couple short runs of bad form we done really well since Arteta became manager in terms of preventing the opposition from scoring and that team defense is going to have to carry us this season.
Today was the same manager and the same attacking players, same formation and I assume similar tactics as we used against Spurs. The difference was we executed the game plan very well against a struggling Spurs team and today we were out executed. I think the idea that last weeks game was that start of something better and and we would end the season scoring 60+ goals was a bit overly optimistic. Ups and downs are an inevitable part of football and they usually balance out. Last weeks good form game is balanced by this weeks not so good.
Bill,
There isn’t defensive improvement. The last three league games:
Burnley v Arsenal 18:13 shots
Arsenal v Spurs 12:10 shots
Brighton v Arsenal 21:8 shots
51 opposition shots allowed in the past 3 games against teams who currently sit 5th, 12th and 18th. XG also favoured Burnley and Brighton.
Was that reversion to the mean? Definitely a point gained.
Brighton are well coached but were profligate. Arsenal kept a clean sheet but didn’t look like scoring.
What needed fixing in the Summer? Five goals in seven games is inexcusable.
Until Arteta coaches how to beat a press Arsenal will continue to be outworked, outshot and outhought.
I agree with Arteta that we were poor in possession, and it was mostly down to execution, not set-up. We were set up to break the press but couldn’t do it, and went long too often.
But you could see why we went long, players had poor use of the ball and poor first touch all game – Auba controlling it 10 yards and losing possession on multiple occasions, others including Odegaard was poor in particular, him and ESR resorting to trying flicks and blind passes and losing possession as well, Partey better but still off-colour and even his passing got more and more speculative. A little bit more composure and better decision-making on the ball and we could have taken good advantage of many situations. In general, comparing Brighton’s passing to ours, they always put the ball into the open space and found each other that way, we were trying to hit the man’s feet all the time.
I never thought we were too close to conceding which is a massive positive, and in the end given our lack of penetration and the quality and organisation of the opposition, a point is fine. Not every performance is going to be perfect.
Back before Emery got hired, my top two managers for the Arsenal job were Arteta and Potter (both young, smart and with loads of potential), so it was interesting to see Potter come out on top in this match-up. Also interesting to see that both managers have struggled to get their teams scoring, as have others so far this season. I wonder if that’s where a certain modern style of coaching and management (post-Guardiola and post-Klopp) is getting stuck at the moment.
Yeah man, I was amazed by the number of poor touches. I thought Arteta got his subs right but we didn’t have enough control of the game for them to make an impact.
I thought Partey was pretty good defensively and ok offensively. He made a bad decision to take on shots from distance more than once, including a direct free kick from 40 meters, and I think that’s because it’s something he’s been working on and he sensed his team needed him to produce something special. Unfortunately he didn’t come close with any of them but I would not be surprised if he led us in shot attempts.
I do want to highlight the interplay between Auba and Partey that released Smith Rowe and Saka 2 v 1, one of the only times we managed to execute well against their press. That was the one moment offensively where I sat up and gasped because it was special. That’s the kind of thing we needed and wanted to do but just failed to put together. ESR could and should have played the pass early for Saka but when you’ve defended all game those decisions don’t flow as naturally and I don’t blame him for it at all. In the end he engineered a bit of space with a great little feint but shot right at the keeper.
Tim. Regarding your comment earlier
Fair point. Plenty of fans had lost faith in Arsene in the last couple season especially with regard to his mistakes in the transfer market. The team was clearly on a rapid downward spiral during his last couple seasons which I believe is because his critical players were past there prime and he did a poor job of replacing them and the league was getting stronger. I dont believe his tactical acumen had vanished.
I don’t remember concern about his attacking tactics being wrong or his transfer strategy being misguided during the early part of the Ozil Cazorla Sanchez Giroud era. That squad was loaded with technical and passing skill and most fans were singing the praises of the Wengerball we were playing. The problem was despite all that talent and lovely passing we did not score as many goals as we should have or needed during those years. Our goals per season actually dropped in the first 3 seasons of the Ozil era compared with the number we had scored in th 3 seasons before Mesut arrived and no one blamed Arsene’s tactics for that. I dont believe that Arsene’s tactics were ever the real problem. I believe he did not have enough players who were good at turning the passes into actual goals scored and he couldn’t find a way to make his players more effective at executing and finishing in front of goal. I don’t think there was a tactical solution for the fact that we weren’t scoring as a much as we would have expected or needed during those years. The whole point is there is only so much that even a good manager like Arsene can do
Credit to BHA. They knew how to play us and very unlikely to leave with just a point. Although both teams recorded just two shots on target they had far more attempts than us and were able to produce much more in the final third.
I think missing Xhaka in games like this is telling. He would have been more effective than Thomas who looked totally out of place.
What I didn’t get is why we didn’t even try to break their press. We never looked like scoring on a counter and we seemed to content to be bullied all afternoon on a horrendous pitch.
Matt B
We have been complaining about Xg and poor defensive stats for the entire Arteta era however we have a large sample size now and we have clearly improved our ability to prevent the opposition from scoring. Goals conceded is the only defensive stat which actually influences the result of the game and with the exception of a couple of short runs of bad form we have been quite good at preventing goals conceded. Yesterday was a good example.