1 win in the last 5 Premier League games has left Arsenal's championship ambitions in tatters. With the goals drying up and the Gunners looking short of ideas, Adam Clery looks at the number to work out where it's all going wrong. The answer, for Mikel Arteta, is one that should have him worried.
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00:00 All right, so first off, this is not the Arsenal side that started against Fulham.
00:05 Arteta had done a little bit of rotation up front and in defence, but this is pretty much
00:09 the Arsenal side we sort of expect in most of the games this season.
00:12 And the thing is, it's not too dissimilar from the Arsenal side of last season.
00:16 Obviously David Rye instead of Ramsdale, that feels like a big change.
00:19 Declan Rice is a huge addition.
00:21 He starts whenever possible.
00:22 But other than that, in pretty much all the major areas, you've got the same key players.
00:26 The main difference though is not in the personnel, it's in what they're trying to do.
00:30 Arsenal last season were probably the best team in transition in the league, if not in
00:36 the entire world.
00:37 They would win the ball back absolutely everywhere.
00:39 They would play immediate, quick, incisive balls, getting behind the opponent and score
00:43 goals that way.
00:44 The only problem with that though, and almost certainly the reason they didn't go on and
00:47 win the league, was they lacked the ability to really control games of football.
00:52 Sometimes it was too open and too frenetic and they would concede goals when they really
00:56 shouldn't.
00:57 And that's the difference between finishing second and finishing first.
01:00 So that's the watchword for Arsenal this season.
01:02 They are trying to control games a lot better.
01:05 They're trying to see more of the ball.
01:07 They're trying to have more possession.
01:08 They're trying to have more territorial dominance.
01:10 They're trying to not be as open at the back.
01:12 And that is absolutely working for them.
01:16 And if we look at the numbers this season, they have the third highest possession in
01:19 the league.
01:20 That's way up on last year.
01:21 They've got the highest number of touches and the highest possession in the attacking
01:25 third of the pitch.
01:26 Nobody is penning teams in better than Arsenal are currently.
01:29 They've even got the highest number of touches in the opponent's penalty area this season.
01:34 So not only are they really good at boxing them in, they're really good at, I don't know,
01:38 turning the noose, tightening the screw, whatever the phrase is.
01:41 So that's great then, surely.
01:42 They want to be a team that controls games better.
01:45 And not only are they doing that, but they're controlling games in the best possible area
01:50 of the pitch.
01:51 So why are they not winning more?
01:53 Well, and this is going to be the through line of the entire video, Arsenal create absolutely
01:58 loads of chances now, but Arsenal don't create good chances now.
02:02 So this is the boring statistical way of looking at all of this, right?
02:06 First of all, put aside the set pieces.
02:08 Arsenal are brilliant at set pieces.
02:10 They score loads of goals from that.
02:11 But set pieces aren't going to win you a league.
02:13 It's the goals you make from open play that are.
02:16 So from open play this season, Arsenal have created 450 chances.
02:22 That is, that's amazing.
02:23 That is second in the league.
02:25 Only Liverpool are creating more chances than them.
02:27 That is title winning stuff.
02:29 But in terms of open play passes that have led directly to a goal, so either they are
02:34 the assist or the ball before the assist, they've only had 35.
02:40 That is pathetic for a title winning side.
02:42 That's 11th in the league.
02:43 It sandwiches them between, I think, Forest and Crystal Palace.
02:46 Like that is an absolutely enormous disparity between the amount of chances they're creating
02:51 and how many of those chances are leading to goals.
02:53 So what's the problem?
02:55 Is it just that they're not taking these chances?
02:57 Are their strikers not very good?
02:59 I think Jesus has only got like three goals in the league this season.
03:01 Martinelli's only got two.
03:03 Are they the problem?
03:04 Well, if you want to answer that question, it depends absolutely on how much you care
03:08 about XG.
03:09 Arsenal's XG, which if you just haven't heard this term still, it's basically like a measure
03:13 of the quality of the chance.
03:14 And what is the probability you should score each and every one of them and you total that
03:18 up and that should tell you how many goals you should have scored.
03:21 Their XG is 36.4, right?
03:23 Now that's pretty low for a team with title aspirations.
03:26 Put some like fifth or sixth in the league.
03:28 But crucially, it's bang on because Arsenal have scored 36 goals this season.
03:33 So while it probably does feel easy to blame their strikers because they haven't scored
03:37 a lot of goals, they're also not exactly being wasteful.
03:41 Like if you really want to go down this XG route, then Martinelli and Jesus are pretty
03:45 much bang on for their XG.
03:47 They're slightly underperforming it.
03:49 So they should maybe have one or two more goals this season based on the quality of
03:53 chance, but not so much that's going to have made a massive difference.
03:56 So the problem isn't the strikers.
03:57 The problem is this level of control Arsenal are trying to have because it's changed who
04:02 they are as a team.
04:03 And as a result, it's changed how other teams play against them.
04:07 And they're struggling against that style of play.
04:09 But again, just to go back to last season, Arsenal were great in transition.
04:12 They would get the ball, whether it was in their own third or in the final third, and
04:15 straight away, they would try and play a killer pass and it would make great chances as a
04:19 result.
04:20 It was so exciting to watch.
04:21 I went back and I watched all of Arsenal's goals last season, and this one near the end
04:25 of the season jumped out at me immediately.
04:27 This is Zinchenko on the ball here.
04:29 And what you'd probably say has become the quintessential Declan Rice position for Arsenal
04:33 this season.
04:34 They've made that box midfield.
04:35 He's the deeper two and he's on the left hand side of it.
04:38 And he's got the ball and nobody's pressing him.
04:39 There's a sideways pass on to him here.
04:42 There's probably a nice easy ball that plays it forward to Martinelli here, but he doesn't
04:45 do either of those.
04:46 He does this brilliant through the lines pass to Granit Xhaka that opens the whole game
04:51 up.
04:52 He immediately does one little layoff and all of a sudden, Arsenal have three or four
04:56 players between the defensive lines that are going at goal and they score from it.
04:59 And that goal really jumped out at me because not only can I not really remember seeing
05:03 that pass from Arsenal this season, I can also never really remember seeing it from
05:08 Declan Rice.
05:09 Like, just to clarify here, this is not going to be a video where I say the whole problem
05:12 with Arsenal is Declan Rice, by the way.
05:14 He's an absolutely fantastic player.
05:15 If you can't get a bargain at 100 million, he absolutely was it.
05:19 He's the reason they're so able to control these games like they want to now.
05:23 But there are one or two things he doesn't do as well as they would perhaps want him
05:28 to.
05:29 I'm just going to show you all of his relevant FB ref numbers from this season in the Premier
05:33 League here, right?
05:34 And this paints a picture to me of one of the best central midfielders in the world.
05:39 He's just fantastic in possession here.
05:42 He passes the ball brilliantly.
05:43 He progresses the ball brilliantly.
05:45 He carries the ball brilliantly.
05:46 You don't even need to see how well he wins the ball back because that's kind of like
05:50 one of Declan Rice's big things.
05:51 He's exactly who you'd want at the base of a midfield three if you're the kind of team
05:56 that wants to control games.
05:58 Two numbers that should jump out at you immediately as a problem here are these.
06:03 Key passes and through balls.
06:04 Now, don't get me wrong, when you're in one of the deeper midfield positions, the onus
06:08 of chance creating is absolutely not on you.
06:09 I'm not saying you should have loads of assists or anything like that.
06:12 But those are the two stats that probably best measure how incisive your passing is.
06:18 Like key passes is anything that leads directly to a shot.
06:20 You effectively make that chance even if you're not necessarily laying it on.
06:24 And through balls is just any pass that goes between the defenders and in behind.
06:28 And those are the two things he's not currently doing.
06:31 Like, they're the only two things he's not doing.
06:33 I hasten to add he does everything else superbly.
06:36 But the problem is Arsenal really need somebody who's going to do that.
06:40 Like case in point, here are Oleksandr Zinchenko and Thomas Partey's numbers specifically
06:45 from last season.
06:46 But in through balls and key passes, while they're not drastically higher, they are definitely
06:51 higher.
06:52 They were doing that more.
06:53 Now, again, don't get me wrong.
06:54 I'm not saying this is all Declan Rice's fault.
06:57 But this just inability or possibly reluctance to play that exact kind of pass makes life
07:02 difficult for Arsenal.
07:03 I'll show you what I mean.
07:04 Right.
07:05 So what ends up happening, and I've got Arsenal set up in their box here that they do when
07:07 they're building out from the back.
07:09 Right.
07:10 What ends up happening is instead of being able to find any of these five players when
07:13 they've drifted between these two defensive lines, what happens is you play safe and you
07:18 move up the pitch and the other team gets set into what's known as a low block.
07:22 They get two tight banks of ball with no space in between.
07:26 And what then happens instead is you end up in sort of like this situation where everybody
07:30 spreads out to try and find a bit more room and you pen them into their half.
07:34 Hence why they're having all these touches and all of this possession.
07:36 And what you do is you just go from left to right.
07:40 You pass it round in what's known as the horseshoe.
07:43 You can't get any sort of, what's the word I want, penetration in this area of the pitch.
07:48 So it goes left to right, left to right, left to right, waiting for something to happen.
07:52 You see Man City do this every single week and they are brilliant at it.
07:56 They use this opportunity to start moving players into different positions.
07:59 They rotate, they move the defence around and eventually they find a gap and they get
08:04 a goal from that.
08:05 Arsenal are way, way, way too static to make that work right now.
08:10 That's not their game at all.
08:12 Players like to stay in their positions and yes, they will run and yes, they will make
08:15 changes here and there, but not enough that it breaks down teams like Fulham, teams like
08:20 West Ham.
08:21 Without the space between the lines and in behind, Arsenal really do struggle to create
08:25 good quality chances.
08:26 And without a player at the base of the midfield who's going to make immediate, quick, incisive
08:31 through balls, they can't get that space.
08:33 Or to put that another way, right, Arsenal are struggling because they're being forced
08:37 to play like Manchester City this year when they are not Manchester City.
08:41 What made them so good last year was all the ways they were different from Manchester City.
08:45 And this, right, in my opinion, it means that Michael Arteta has a pretty big decision to
08:49 make in January because this decision to control games better is actually working.
08:54 Like they're not scoring as well and the results aren't really there, but they still have got
08:57 the second best defence in the league.
08:59 They don't look anywhere near as open as they did last year.
09:02 So in that sense, it's been a success.
09:07 But the problem is they're going to keep finding themselves in this situation.
09:09 And if you want to be the kind of team that can still score goals from here, you need
09:14 a different kind of centre forward.
09:16 Like Man City work the ball around brilliantly and they create a small chance for Haaland,
09:20 who himself is occupying two defenders, creating space for his teammates, and they get loads
09:24 of goals that way.
09:25 Gabi Jesus is a great, great centre forward, but he's not that kind of player.
09:29 He will drop out of that space and try and link up that way.
09:32 But you need a more central focal point.
09:35 So he's either got to surrender a bit of this control in order to get the space back that
09:39 they need, or he's got to go shopping again.
09:43 And I don't know if you know much about buying goal scoring centre forwards in the January
09:47 window, but oh my God.
09:49 So yes, I think that's the problem with this is Stone Cold.
09:52 What am I doing?
09:53 This is the problem with Arsenal right now.
09:54 They wished so hard to be a team who could control games, but they know what they say
09:58 about wishing you should be careful of it.
10:01 But I mean, Arsenal fans, you'll probably have a way better idea of all this than I
10:05 will.
10:06 I was barely even watching the Fulham game because Neil Morrissey came into the pub and
10:09 we were like, oh, look, there's Neil Morrissey.
10:11 So let us know what you make of this whole situation in the comments below.
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10:34 But until next time, my friends, I've knocked that.
10:36 I've been Adam Cleary.
10:37 This is 442.
10:38 That's Arsenal, regrettably.
10:39 And I'll see you soon.
10:40 Bye.
10:41 [END]
10:41 Bye!
10:42 Bye!
10:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]