Adam Clery looks at the number to work out where it might be going wrong for the Gunners.
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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!
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