Arsenal were back at home and back playing at the classic 3pm kickoff time, with it they were back to their suffocating best. There are no easy matches in the Premier League, we repeat this all the time, but against Everton, Arsenal made it look like it was.

This was a rotated side coming off of short rest following a big Champions League match away at Bayern Munich. They delivered one of the most complete matches of the season that saw Arsenal move back into a tie at the top of the table.

Let’s break it down.

Arsenal vs Everton: The Graphics

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Arsenal vs Everton: The Debrief

Arsenal return to dominance

49 - Touches in the box for Arsenal (the most this season), compared with 22 for Everton

55 - Touches in “zone 14” for Arsenal, compared with 25 for Everton

35 - Touches in “the shooting zone” for Arsenal, compared with 18 for Everton

244 - Touches in the final third for Arsenal, compared with 130 for Everton

It feels good to write something and then have the team go out and basically back it up for you in the next match. On Friday I made the case that Arsenal’s attack is much better than it is often talked about. No it isn’t elite but it’s also quite good and the tactics that Arsenal employ are optimized for Arsenal to max out their points totals.

To quote myself here is how I described Arsenal’s philosophy under Arteta:

Arsenal under Arteta have not been defensive, at least not in the classic sense of how we would think about a “defensive” team. Arsenal rather employ what I think of as the anaconda attack; they want to squeeze the opposition and ultimately suffocate them, creating overwhelming pressure that leads to them breaking through scoring goals.

I feel like that is exactly what we saw here in this match.

Of the 1281 total touches combined in this match 35% of them came in the third that Arsenal were attacking, with just 22% coming in the third that Arsenal were defending. The field was truly tilted and that led to a really one sided match for Arsenal.

With all of that possession and control, Arsenal were still able to generate their best attacking day in the Premier League this season.

20 - Shots taken by Arsenal - the most this season

2.38 - Total xG in this match (it is 2.29 with the conditional adjustment for shots in the same sequence) - the most this season

On the Everton side, they wanted to try and counter attack but couldn’t get anything going all match long.

Their best chance came off an Arsenal mistake, outside of that they didn’t register a single shot that was worth more than 6% at being scored.

A good day at the office for Arsenal.

Declan Rice is a machine

63 - Pass attempts (2nd on Arsenal, 2nd in the match), 55 passes completed for 87.3% pass completion percentage with a 108.4% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

6 - Progressive passes completed (tied 1st on Arsenal, tied 1st in the match)

9 - Final third entry passes completed (2nd on Arsenal, 2nd in the match)

4 - Shots assisted (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match), worth 0.51 expected goals

8 - Shot creating actions (the two actions leading up to a shot) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

4 - Passes completed into the shot zone (the central area in front of goal) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

7 - Passes completed into the penalty area (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

9 - Buildup actions (touches in a shot move, not counting the shot or the pass that set it up) (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

1.50 - Expected goals buildup (the xG of shot moves he joined, excluding the shot and the assist) (1st on Arsenal, 1st in the match)

Rice delivered a masterclass in midfield control and progression against Everton. He dovetailed excellently with Martin Odegaard and the two of them made it so that Arsenal suffocated any hope of a result for Everton. This wasn’t the classic Rice game, he didn’t need to be everywhere defensively (he was actually kind of quiet on that front) but he did provide the progressive spark that Arsenal needed in this match and was involved in everything.

Arteta has talked about how his role will be changing this season and if it is to be doing this week in, week out, we should be thrilled.

Gabriel Magalhães shines

53 - Pass attempts (3rd on Arsenal, 3rd in the match), 47 passes completed for 88.7% pass completion percentage with a 105.3% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

5 - Progressive passes completed (tied 3rd on Arsenal, tied 3rd in the match)

3 - Final third entry passes completed

2 - Shots, worth 0.60 xG, and converting 1 into his first goal for Arsenal this season

4 - Tackles attempted (tackles, challenges, and fouls tagged as an attempted tackle) (tied 3rd on Arsenal), 3 won for a 75.0% tackle success percentage

0 - Times he was dribbled past

2 - Interceptions (1st on Arsenal, tied 3rd in the match)

1 - Blocked shots (tied 1st on Arsenal)

8 - Clearances (1st on Arsenal, 2nd in the match)

It is really nice to see Gabriel’s name back on the scoresheet and his performance in this match fully deserves it.

He’s performed at a high level all season long and he has built up a real nice partnership with Ezri Konsa. It would have been understandable if Arsenal’s defense took a step back in the absence of William Saliba but the duo of Gabriel and Konsa has been able to maintain the incredibly high standard that is expected at Arsenal.

🎯 The main takeaway: Arsenal’s depth shows it’s value

Arsenal made five changes from the team that drew against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Normally I’d feel pretty concerned at that level of rotation for what could have or should have been a tough test in the Premier League but Arsenal’s depth really shown brightly here.

Arsenal changed both full backs, made a change in midfield, and had two changes (less so but still no Saka) in the attacking band. That is the level of change that can cause a disruption but instead we say an Arsenal team that looked fresh and ready for the challenge.

Arsenal have not been the quickest starters this season, before this match Arsenal had not scored in the opening 10 minutes and had just a single goal in the opening 20 minutes of matches. Here they started with intent taking 4 shots in the opening 10 minutes and finally breaking the seal with an early goal and a corner.

After the goal, Everton had a spell of possession but Arsenal were able to wrestle it back and then just about never let it go all game long. They had a number of decent looks where they had the sights on the goal but it took until later in the second half where the other half of the center back pairing got on the score sheet.

After what has been a tough week where Arsenal played three times in the span of 6 days, they played a dominate game start to finish. Arsenal have built a deep squad exactly for these situations and it paid dividends here.

Friend of the newsletter Giant Gooner posted this meme on bluesky and I think it nailed some of the feelings when this lineup was posted:

We all want rotation until we see our favorites dropped from the squad and then we become trusted 11 truthers. I think that all of the players that rotated in played quite well and Arsenal put together one of the best overall matches of the season, hopefully this gives some grace when the next big rotation match comes up.

This win also saw the team move into a tie at the top of the table, taking advantage of Manchester City losing away at Aston Villa.

It was a good start to the weekend.

📈 The positives:

• SET PLAY FC IS BACK!!!

  

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Arteta possesses a relentless focus on pulling all of the levers to eek out marginal points. His tactical philosophy and game model has landed on territory control/dominance, world class out of possession defense limiting opposition transitions (even if that limits Arsenal’s as well), and a focus on creating high-probability chances over volume.

It is hard to argue with the results and Arsenal find themselves experiencing their best period since the early 2000’s.

This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cause some frustrations within the fan base, many of us have the memories of Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal burned into our minds. Those teams played innovative and exciting attacking soccer, even when the team dropped into the “top 4 is a trophy” era, we could still hold on to seeing great attacking teams. This is the modern heritage of our club and it is important basis for why Arsenal were able to grow into one of the largest clubs in the World. There is probably some rose colored memories here and the rough edges of the defensive fragility sanded off but I understand the frustration that what Arteta has Arsenal doing now, favors other priorities.

Compounding the worry from historic comparisons, there is some justified worry that in the summer Arsenal got weaker in attack. Arsenal lost attacking depth and talent losing Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli, and Gabriel Jesus while they only brought in Christos Tzolis, failing to get the marquee attacking player that they hoped for.

With frustration comes exaggeration and a focus on any negative data points.

Where does the actual truth lie?

What the numbers say

This season Arsenal haven’t exactly lit the world on fire in the Premier League from a pure scoring standpoint.

Their 11 goals still put them above average ranking tied for 5th, with the overall numbers looking like a team that is much more in that above average rather than excellent category.

If we expand the sample size to add in the matches that Arsenal have played in all competitions the numbers improve and Arsenal look much closer to a “good” attacking team.

Looking at the bigger and longer term trend backs this up and counters the idea that there is a systemic issue with Arteta’s ability to be able to coach a team that can generate a good attack.

Over the past five season’s Arsenal’s numbers look quite strong and even the harshest critic would have trouble supporting their position that this is mediocre or only average.

If you were bullish you could push that they have been consistently 2nd or 3rd best, if you were tougher maybe you’d say more like 4th or 5th, regardless this sticks them in the upper quartile of attacking teams in the strongest League in the World.

Arteta’s obsession with control is correct

Arteta’s style makes an explicit sacrifice that has a direct effect on the team’s ability to generate more scoring opportunities. He willingly makes the trade-off to favor more control and have his team set up to stay in their structure to prevent the game that Arsenal play turning into a transition heavy vertical game.

Team’s look to set up to be able to defend and counter against Arsenal and during Arsenal’s run here at the top, even with this being the dominate strategy that teams employ against them, they struggle to find any success doing so.

This helps feed into Arsenal’s awesome defense but it comes at a cost.

Arsenal under Arteta have not been defensive, at least not in the classic sense of how we would think about a “defensive” team. Arsenal rather employ what I think of as the anaconda attack; they want to squeeze the opposition and ultimately suffocate them, creating overwhelming pressure that leads to them breaking through scoring goals.

This is visible in a number of metrics, Arsenal dominate field tilt, they force teams deep into their own half with very low defensive line height faced, they attack with patience with slower ball progression speed up the field and more passes needed to generate shots, they hunt good shots over relying on volume, and they generate tons of set play opportunities and chances.

Friend of the newsletter wrote up some very interesting and persuasive experiments on the tradeoffs between attack and defense and which ones actually help you win more.

In part one, he made the case that you’d rather have the strong defense.

The plot tells us that the better your defence is, the more points you can expect to get. The flattening curve emphasizes that limiting xGA matters more than increasing xG. Although, it’s worth remembering that this is within the context of maintaining the same xG/D - a team with +2.0 xG/D with 2.75xG/0.75xGA is going to outperform a +1.0 xG/D team with 1.5xG/0.5xGA.

I found this to be a bit of a counter intuitive finding but the experiment and the data were hard to argue with. The missing portion that I think people (including myself) missed here was that the stronger defensive team was outscoring the opposition by 3 times as often, while the better attacking team was only doing so at a 1.6 times rate. A higher scoring rate than the opposition is superior for accumulating points.

In part two of the series he took the analysis a step further, here he further refined the experiment to more closely resemble real life and gave us estimates of the marginal values of moving between different trade-offs between attack and defense.

On average, an +0.1xG increase is worth 1.92 points, whilst a -0.1xGA decrease is worth 2.52 points. This means that the ratio is 1.31x - lowering your xGA by 0.1 is 31% more valuable than increasing your xG by 0.1.

In addition to this, a lower xG allowed leads to less volatility in outcomes and more certainty.

The overall conclusion to be taken from this is that Arsenal’s and Arteta’s choices are actually following the optimal path. A team should be trying to maximize the overall difference (duh) in total chances in a match, but they should do so while trying to keep their defense as strong as possible.

Final thoughts

I don’t outright dismiss people that have frustrations about Arsenal’s attack. It is fair to say that it is not the strongest, nor is it the best. In the Premier League Manchester City and Liverpool have been consistently better, in Europe Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern have all been stronger as well (with some caveat for the opposition they have faced). Arsenal have been in the tier below these teams, where they are a good attack but not a great attack.

Part of why we watch this sport is that it is entertainment. We want to see teams produce goals and fun attacking moments are more entertaining than great defense or pitch control. We also want to see our team win more often and to lift silverware.

For a coach/manager, their priority is almost entirely on winning and the entertainment factor is at best secondary to the first goal.

For Arsenal and Arteta, they believe that the mix of attack and defense that they have landed on gives them the best opportunity to win points and trophies. I am sure that Arteta would be happy to see Arsenal score 3-4 goals a match but not if that meant that it was at the expense of conceding more good chances.

Arsenal want to be the team that maxes out the difference over the opposition but looking at this graphic below, they would rather be favor being in their current position than being out to the right side.

An attack that can produce 1.6-1.8 non-penalty xG per match alongside an elite defense that holds teams under 0.8-1.0 allowed is a recipe for winning a lot of matches. We’d all love to see the attacking number go higher, but as we have learned we don’t want to see that at the expense of giving up more opportunities to our opponents.

It would be ideal to marry an elite attack with an elite defense, but the next best outcome is to have a very good attack and an elite defense and that is exactly where Arsenal find themselves.

Arsenal suffered a blow Wednesday, when Bukayo Saka left the match against Bayern Munich early in the first half. He felt a sharp pain in his quad/thigh area and couldn’t continue. Mikel Arteta didn’t give us any comfort with his comments after the match saying, “It does not look good at all. They [Arsenal medical team] are a bit concerned. A player who has to come off with a really sharp pain is never good news but we have to wait and see.”

There has been frustration and worry about Saka this season; I think that most of it has been misplaced and overblown but it has still been there in the fan base. Now that Saka is looking at at least a few weeks and potentially a couple of months out, the realization of what it means for Arsenal to play without him is hitting people. I guess there is nothing like an absence to get people to reevaluate a player’s true impact.

It is still very early so we don’t have a good estimate for the time that he will miss. I think optimistically it would be 3-4 weeks and a more worse case might be more like 8-12 weeks. Here is what the next 2 months look like for Arsenal for what they will face over this time.

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🎯 The main takeaway: An UGLY win still counts as 3 points

I don’t think that I am going to have the stomach to re-watch this match. Honestly trying to put into words anything beyond this was an ugly match for Arsenal is pretty tough.

Arsenal huffed and puffed, and looked like a blunt butter knife trying to fashion any sort of chances against Nottingham Forest here.

It was an off day from all of the starters and even the subs who came on and did better, were really only better in the relative sense compared to the guys that they replaced.

We should give some credit to Forest here, they have been the second best defensive team on xG in the League and they showed way in this match. They just do not let you have access into dangerous locations and put tons of bodies in the way to leave little sight at goal.

Arsenal dominated the territory in this match but that didn’t turn into much ability to get the ball into good locations or to create genuine scoring chances at all.

That will be a concern and something that Arsenal will need to improve upon.

You’re not going to win too many games where you are only able to generate 9 shots and under 1 expected goal.

I will take it today and hope that it was just a bad day at the office.

📈 The positives:

• Noni Madueke’s the chaos agent bears fruit.

  

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Arsenal have won just once since 2022 away in this fixture and have failed to score in 4 of the 5 meetings over that span. Last season, this fixture was one of the more frustrating matches of the season and fell in the middle of what was probably the nadir of last season.

This will present Arsenal the chance to pick up points on last season’s results and right a bit of that wrong. Arsenal created the chances to win, but ended up on the wrong side of a footballing.

That match seemed to come at the wrong time for Arsenal, and now maybe the turntable will have flipped and Arsenal will have caught Forest while they are still getting used to things under new manager Oliver Glasner.

The tale of the tape shows that things favor Arsenal. Hopefully, that plays out on the pitch as well.

Let’s get into what the stats say on Arsenal’s next opponent.

Nottingham Forest Performance

Forest sit in the upper portion of the weighted xG table, with the 6th best tally.

The surprising thing about this is that they are actually sitting in 3rd for the expected goal difference, and have been dragged down significantly by the actual goals scored. Looking at the longer term, on the rolling xG they are starting to edge back towards the positives here after a rough end of the season under Vítor Pereira.

One thing that jumps out on that chart, is just how trigger happy they are firing a coach. After a slow start on the actual results, you wonder if the seat under Glasner is getting a bit warm.

The next few fixtures for them are going to potentially be a real test with a couple tough away matches and then Manchester City before the next international break.

Overall, it’s been a disappointing start and that is probably more bad luck than bad play. Looking at what they did last season and they are 5 points off the pace, even though the underlying numbers are actually positive.

This puts them probably just on the edge of staying up but they can’t afford to drop off too much more without getting dragged into the relegation race.

Nottingham Forest Form

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I don’t think we need a ton of preamble today. We are not short of topics after a long international break. Let’s get straight into it.

Arsenal vs Leeds: The Graphics

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Arsenal vs Leeds: The Debrief

The first 60 minutes were not good

All stats here are for the opening 60 minutes

5 - Shots for Arsenal, compared with 10 for Leeds

0.48 - Expected goals for Arsenal, compared with 0.63 for Leeds

14 - Progressive passes completed for Arsenal, compared with 12 for Leeds

18 - Touches in the box for Arsenal, compared with 11 for Leeds

159 - Touches in the box for Arsenal, compared with 71 for Leeds

The early match on a Saturday can sometimes take a while to kick into gear, especially when it is the first one after an international break. Arsenal against Leeds really took that and exaggerated it.

The majority of the stats would have said that Arsenal were playing pretty well in the match to start it out, they had more of the ball, they had more of the territory, they were winning the duels. Except they were really struggling to turn any of that into anything of note.

There were flashes of competency but the team just could not put together any sustained pressure or build up the head of steam where it felt like a goal was an inevitable outcome.

Thankfully Arsenal didn’t get the full punishment and were able to find that higher gear but it should be a warning that their are no easy games in this league and you can’t expect teams to just roll over for you.

The goal scored by Leeds and then the subs changed the game for Arsenal and they come away looking fairly solid winners but if the team is capable of this, they need to show it more consistently and not need to end up down a goal before they turn it on and start playing.

Bruno Guimarães shines off the bench to power Arsenal to a win

1 - Shot, 1 goal. Off of a 0.11 expected goals chance.

21 - Pass attempts, 20 passes completed for 95.2% pass completion percentage with a 115.2% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

4 - Progressive passes completed (tied 3rd on Arsenal, tied 3rd in the match)

3 - Final third entry passes completed

2 - Passes completed into the shot zone (the central area in front of goal) (tied 2nd on Arsenal, tied 2nd in the match)

36 - Touches

3.23 - Progressive distance gained per second on the ball

73.7% - Share of his passes released quickly

11 - Duels contested

7 - Duels won (3rd on Arsenal)

When I think of what the platonic ideal of a match is from Bruno Guimarães, it is essentially this.

He was an instant shot of impact for this match. He brought intent and progressiveness. This is a bit of the flip side of his game compared to Brighton, there his risk taking didn’t yield results and seemed to throw Arsenal off their game, here he was sharper and the risks he took paid dividends and propelled Arsenal forward.

There was an argument that he would be the most impactful player that Arsenal could sign to improve their attack and I think a match like this would be evidence to back that claim up.

The Manchester City Cloud that hung over the weekend

I had a bit of anxiety anticipating the matches this weekend. It was a long international break but it ended up full of news that shook the Premier League. It was the biggest story of the season and it broke containment outside of the normal silo where even people who aren’t soccer fans were hearing about it.

I anticipated things would be a bit surreal this weekend but the reality ended up feeling so much worse.

I thought because none of this was really “new” information and it was confirmation of what was long suspected but never able to be formally proven it wouldn’t be all that different. I was so wrong.

It felt so hollow and a bit depressing watching things play out like nothing has happened. I can’t really blame anyone but City here for this because it is their systemic cheating, and then delay tactics and non-cooperation that have dragged it out to this point.

The actual match felt like a weird non-event. Sure it was loud but I didn’t feel any emotions in it for myself. The commentators tried to acknowledge it but ultimately it felt like they were still talking about it like it was not proven or still just an accusation, rather than a finding and decision of guilt.

The match ultimately was aided by Liverpool being struck by the injury bug and then another controversial call that ended up in Manchester City’s favor, called by a referee from the Manchester area. Then post match the official Premier League feed is glorifying the team that they have spent the better part of a decade investigating and had just proven the charges against them.

This is a team that has been found guilty of cheating for a decade, the only reason that it wasn’t shown to have gone on longer is that the investigation has to stop somewhere and the actual charges brought. Even if (and I don’t believe it) this team is perfectly on the up and up, they were built on the foundation of flagrant flouting of the rules.

This has really hardened my opinion that they are deserving of the strongest sanctions that are available to them. Give them the death penalty and have them start again rebuilding from the very bottom.

I wouldn’t have previously fully supported this. It would be a drastic measure and unfair to punish the fans, players, club employees that didn’t take part in this cheating but after seeing weeks of former players/coaches not do any sort of soul searching or ownership of what happened that started to melt away.

The final icing on the cake was the embrace of the cheating by the match going fans. They would be the ones that would be the most sympathetic here and they lit that on fire with their chants and banners in support of the ownership and the embrace of cheating.

People might ask, “well what are they supposed to do? Abandon their club?” and that is just a silly question that tries to avoid the point. Fans have a long history of pushing back and protesting their ownership. If there was ever a time that justifies it I can’t imagine it would be any other time than now. The actions of this ownership group and management put the club in the situation where they are facing the most serious potential charges up to and including literal expulsion from the League and a tumble down the pyramid.

I understand that there is a process that needs to take place to protect fairness, it just makes everything feel like a farce. Manchester City’s actions and lack of cooperation make it so that they probably don’t deserve that, but we still need to stick to our principals and be better than they have been.

I hope that justice can move as swiftly as the process allows and that we get resolution sooner than later. I don’t know if I can take a full season of this and still have the same passion for this game and league.

Bukayo Saka is under the microscope

I feel like I have done nothing but write about Bukayo Saka lately. That wasn’t really my plan but the way that the overall discussion has gone has left me feeling like I have no other choice but to chime in.

Like so many things in modern life, it feels like current events need to be magnified and taken to the extreme. Saka has an off game (honestly I don’t even think it was bad) and that turns into that he is shit, he is washed, it was a mistake to extend his contract, he should have been sold in the summer, etc.

None of this really matches the reality of the situation.

I would be happy to say that he didn’t meet the high expectations that I have for him (and I have spelled out exactly what those are here) but I really can’t get behind the extreme opinions that I have seen online in the fan base.

Even in this match he was third in total attacking contribution, having involvement in 9 of Arsenal’s shots with 5 buildup actions, 2 key passes, and 2 shots. He was second in goal probability added in this match. He was second in expected threat created. He was third in total xG chain contribution in this match.

This was an off game for Saka and he still contributed in a massively positive way in a match that ultimately had Arsenal come away deserving winners.

I understand that there is lingering concerns about his injury and if he will ever get back to his previous level physically. He is the face of this Arsenal attack and there is significant doubts if it is good enough. He is the highest paid player in the team and that brings with it expectation and examination. I am just struggling to see a real connection from what is happening on the field and in the stats matching what is being said about him.

It unfortunately feels like there must be one player on the Arsenal team that ends up in this zone and right now that is Saka. I think that we need to have the ability to have more grounding in reality and nuance in our discussions but maybe this is just me tilting at windmills like an online Don Quixote.

Correction: it was previously written that Arsenal had 0.12 Expected goals in the opening 60 minutes, this was incorrect and the right value was 0.48. This has been corrected above and I apologize for the error.

🎯 The main takeaway: A pleasant finish but an ugly start

We got this comment in the discord and I thought it was just about perfect, “Let’s pretend the first 60 didn’t happen.”

Things can always be a bit funky coming back from an international break, especially considering that this was an abnormally long one, I don’t think that is good enough to explain just how poor Arsenal were to start this game but it sure looked like everyone was knocking off the rust here.

In the lead up to Leeds goal things were quite ugly. Leeds were beating Arsenal on shots 8 to 5, with the xG closer but still not great from Arsenal with it tied at 0.4. Arsenal had more of the ball, but Leeds looked like the team that had been more threatening. When they scored it didn’t feel like a shock or something that was against the run of play.

Thankfully that was something that seemed to wake Arsenal up.

After Leeds took the lead, it was all Arsenal after that. They equalized through Calafiori and then kept adding on. The second goal was a beautiful sequence from Arsenal and made you wonder if they secretly switched out the players during a break because the team from the first half was not capable of that at all.

There were a few more opportunities after going a goal up to make it more comfortable but the finishing gods weren’t on Arsenal’s side.

There will be things to improve on for sure from this match but the ending was positive and Arsenal were able to get back to winning ways against a Leeds team that has shown that they are hard to beat this season.

📈 The positives:

• There were a few surprises with the lineup today and none was bigger than seeing Noni Madueke getting the start on the left wing. I had expected that Eberechi Eze would get the first crack at the position with Tzolis out injured but Arteta went with Madueke. I think that he repaid that trust and put together a very good overall performance, with 3 shots, 3 key passes, 6 progressive passes and 9 progressive carries.

  

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A little less than three years ago, I wrote a piece titled Mikel Arteta Doesn’t Play Youngsters Much. Should We Care?.

At the time, Arsenal had just finished a Champions League group stage match at PSV without giving a single minute to Reuell Walters, Ethan Nwaneri or Myles Lewis-Skelly. The reaction was, predictably, one of considerable frustration.

Arteta was blocking the pathway. He didn’t trust young players. Arsenal were risking the futures of their best academy prospects by refusing to give them opportunities.

My argument then was pretty simple: An academy exists to serve the first team, not the other way around. And if the young players are good enough, they’ll eventually find their way into the team.

I think we’ve gotten a pretty compelling demonstration of that principle in the years since.

His name is Myles Lewis-Skelly.

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The first break of the season always sucks and this one was not an exception. The obvious big story here was that the whole Premier League landscape was shaken up with Manchester City’s years long cheating finally turning from an allegation to an actual finding.

This is huge news and unfortunately, I am concerned that it will hang over the rest of this season like a fart in an elevator. Even if Manchester City can’t fully tie this up in more lawfare and delay the process, the best case scenario is that this will still take months to resolve. We will have almost certainly have the majority of this season played where we know that a team has cheated but everything just goes on like nothing happened. It is going to be weird.

Then we have the normal international break stuff. I took the opportunity to totally disconnect so I didn’t watch a single minute of any of the action but I have seen the injury reports and it is typically ugly.

For Arsenal we have seen Christos Tzolis lost for several weeks, Kai Havertz injured and Ezri Konsa pick up a knock. The Tzolis and Havertz injuries look like they will keep the players out for Arsenal matches and test the depth. Hopefully the Konsa injury isn’t one that will see him miss any time but that is not what is needed when you add it to the already stretched right sided defender depth chart for Arsenal.

I am thankful that this is over now and that we can get back towards a bit of the more normal schedule and that will start with looking at Arsenal’s matchup as the first match of Premier League’s round 6 against Leeds United.

Let’s breakdown the stats for this matchup.

Leeds Performance

Leeds were not as flashy as Sunderland where they finished last season, but they might have actually performed better last season than them. So far this season they have been able to carry that over. They have not lost yet this season in the Premier League and sit tied for 4th with a bunch of teams on 9 points.

They have the 4th best goal difference at +4 and the 9th best xG difference in the League. This puts them solidly in the upper part of the table for the weighted xG difference here ranking 7th (Arsenal are 4th).

Looking at their 10-match rolling average over the last two seasons really shows how strong and consistently they have played. The early numbers last season carry over the performances from the Championship but even when those aged out they never looked like a team that was riding their luck to stay up.

So far this season they have played a pretty balanced schedule against the other mid-table teams but this will be their first test against one of the “Big 6” in the Premier League.

For the same fixtures from last season, Leeds have picked up the second most points from last year. They are +4 and have done so with a +6 swing in goals and a +3.0 improvement in expected goals.

Arsenal had Leeds number last season, winning by a combined 9-0. It would be excellent to see a repeat of that in this match.

Leeds Form

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I don’t see any reason that the target’s for this season should change from what they have been these past few seasons. I expect Arsenal to fighting to win the Premier League and the expectations are based on what other teams who have won the league before them have done.

There is a slight change this season from the past, and that is because I have more seasons of data here to pull from. Instead of only going back to 2017-18, this now goes all the way back to the 2010-11 Premier League season. This will make it so that if you look at previous versions of this the targets will be slightly different but I think that is better because it will be including more teams that didn’t use sham contracts to flagrantly break Premier League rules.

I will continue to use the same set of stats to measure as I have in the past (points, goals, xG, shots, deep completions, and field tilt), I think that these cover overall performance well and help paint a picture of what a team is doing well/poorly at for overall performance.

My grading will be somewhat subjective here but it will be tied heavily towards how the team is performing or trending compared to the targets set out here. I will look at the overall season level while also keeping an eye on how the last 10 matches are going. This will be primarily for the Premier League only, but I will take into account a bit more of a holistic view for the overall season with a bit of a view for how the team is doing in the Champions League and a tiny bit for the domestic cups.

Let’s get into it.

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Points

Season Avg: 2.40 per match

Last 10 Avg: 2.70 per match

Season Goal: 2.35 per match (89-point pace)

↗️ Arsenal are on second in the table to start the season. They have 4 wins and a loss out of their opening five matches.

This puts them on a 91 point pace. It was a real bummer to lose the last match going into a long international break but there isn’t too much to complain about from a results perspective to start the season without coming across as a bit of a dick.

We all hate to see the team drop any points but I’d be quite happy to see Arsenal win 91 points this season and to repeat this same five match run over and over the rest of the season.

Non-Penalty Goals

Goals For

Season Avg: 1.40 per match

Last 10 Avg: 1.50 per match

Season Goal: 2.08 per match

Goals Against

Season Avg: 0.80 per match

Last 10 Avg: 0.50 per match

Season Goal: 0.77 per match

Goal Difference

Season Avg: 0.60 per match

Last 10 Avg: 1.00 per match

Season Goal: 1.31 per match

↘️ The goals here is a bit mixed but I am going to say here that I think that I expect more from this team.

The goals allowed numbers are totally fine. There is a bit of a blemish from the 3 goals allowed to Brighton but that is an outlier for how good this defense has been. Even with that the defensive numbers stack up strongly against other title winning teams.

The other side of the ball is the obvious talking point and weakness. Arsenal are just over 1 non-penalty goal per match so far this season. Last season Arsenal had the second lowest non-penalty goals scored tally for a league winner since the 10/11 season and while they certainly can win the league that way again, I think that we would all like to see Arsenal score more.

If the team stays healthy (maybe a big if) it is a reasonable expectation to expect more end product from this team.

The strong defensive numbers provide an excellent platform for the goal difference, which is ultimately what matters most for points, but it will be something that will be watched closely this season.

Expected Goals

Non-Penalty Expected Goals

Season Avg: 1.52 per match

Last 10 Avg: 1.66 per match

Season Goal: 1.87 per match

Non-Penalty Expected Goals Against

Season Avg: 0.68 per match

Last 10 Avg: 0.70 per match

Season Goal: 0.81 per match

Non-Penalty Expected Goal Difference

Season Avg: 0.84 per match

Last 10 Avg: 0.74 per match

Season Goal: 1.06 per match

↘️ The expected goals numbers track similarly to goals so this rating will generally be very similar. Right now, the bounces have generally gone against Arsenal and the expected numbers look a bit better than the actual numbers.

Open Play Shots

Open Play Shots For

Season Avg: 9.60 per match

Last 10 Avg: 9.20 per match

Season Goal: 12.54 per match

Open Play Shots Against

Season Avg: 7.60 per match

Last 10 Avg: 7.00 per match

Season Goal: 6.89 per match

Open Play Shots Difference

Season Avg: 2.00 per match

Last 10 Avg: 2.20 per match

Season Goal: 5.66 per match

↘️ Continuing the trend here from goals and expected goals we have shots.

It has been an on going talking point about Arsenal’s open play production now for a few seasons going. It is not something that I anticipate will be going away anytime soon (even though Arsenal have not scored a non-penalty set play goal this season).

It’s early on and there is still lots of noise in the numbers, but Arsenal are slightly below the league average on generating shots from open play.

In the Premier League Arsenal have taken the following open play shots in each of their matches this season 14, 4, 14, 9, and 8. The number of times where Arsenal have been in the single digits for shots here is a something that is bordering on a concern.

If Arsenal were killing it generating looks and goals from set plays I would be more willing to let this pass by but that hasn’t been the case this season. This will be something that I continue to watch.

Deep Completions

Deep Completions For

Season Avg: 27.80 per match

Last 10 Avg: 25.50 per match

Season Goal: 27.01 per match

Deep Completions Against

Season Avg: 11.40 per match

Last 10 Avg: 11.30 per match

Season Goal: 12.51 per match

Deep Completion Difference

Season Avg: 16.40 per match

Last 10 Avg: 14.20 per match

Season Goal: 14.50 per match

↗️ After a few negative sections, we do finally have a positive one!

This one is in the green all the way around with Arsenal beating the target in attack, defense, and in the overall difference.

Last season, Arsenal did well at keeping teams out of this area and were at target on the difference but struggled on progressing the ball into dangerous locations in attack. This season they have bounced back and currently rank second in the League for total deep completions. A big part of that is the return of a healthy Martin Ødegaard.

I think that this tends to be a bit of a leading indicator for shots and xG, so even though those aren’t so hot right now, the team’s ability to get the ball into dangerous locations gives a reason for optimism that it will improve.

Field Tilt

Season Avg: 59.82% per match

Last 10 Avg: 61.98% per match

Season Goal: 64.45% per match

➡️ Not a lot to say about this metric. Arsenal are a bit below target but basically hitting the expectation.

Arsenal have done well to have more of the ball in the opponents final third this season. They can do a bit better and are still a bit below target but I am not overly concerned about this one.

Overall

It is still early and the numbers are still in the small sample size realm where we can’t be making too large of conclusions from them. That being said, I don’t think that there is anything that we have seen watching Arsenal or in the underlying performance data that would cause us to move off of the prior that Arsenal are one of the strongest team’s in the League and a favorite for the title again.

That doesn’t mean that there are things that they can improve upon but the big picture is still very positive about this team.

One of the other things that I am going to track this season in these updates is how the team is doing compared to last season. So far the team is +2 on points with overall very similar underlying performance.

We will be back to check on this next month.

With the international break giving us a brief moment to breathe and take stock that also is a perfect opportunity to rank teams for the first time this season.

7. Tottenham

There was no one else here who deserved this spot more than Spurs. They have spent huge in the summer looking to improve on a disastrous season only to find themselves in roughly the same spots that they were before.

In fact, they are actually worse off than they were last season from the same fixtures by 2 points and have scored 1 fewer goal while allowing 1 more goal than last season.

It is always hilarious to see Spurs struggle and that they have not been able to escape the bottom of the table, but they do probably “deserve” to be a bit higher up based on some of their performances this season.

On expected points they should probably be closer to mid-table than in last place, but that would still put them in a disappointing situation given their spending and stature as a “big” club.

It isn’t just the expected points that would put them in a better position; looking at how they rank on creating/allowing high-quality chances, shots, field tilt, and touches in the box all point in that same direction.

Don’t get me wrong here, this is still well below what you’d expect from this team after that summer, but it is certainly not dead-last caliber.

I am not going to worry too much about it because it is fun to see them at the bottom of the table (and these power rankings) for as long as possible.

6. Brighton

I almost had the guts to place Brighton higher than this position, but for now I think that they might be running a bit hot to where I am not sure that they should be in the actual top 5 for the power rankings.

We are firmly in small sample size mixed with red cards playing a huge role. That is especially true with Brighton, who have played the fewest minutes at an even 11 vs 11 this season.

This makes a pretty big difference for their numbers.

They look like they might be the best team (they would at least be in the conversation) looking at the overall weighted xG numbers this season, but when you look at the time where they are at even state that drops down to where they look good but not quite in the elite range.

This is also the case for them and the overall game states that they have found themselves in. They are a team that has a hard time playing a normal close game this season! They have matches that have finished 5-0, 4-0, 3-0, 4-3 (where it was a +3 game state for a long stretch). They have just the Leeds match that was a 1-1 this season.

This is a good time to bust out using the graphics for different game states. These look at when the match is competitive and when the match is within a goal.

The competitive game state looks a bit better for Brighton, but that still takes off some of the time where they have been able to run up the score. The close game state punishes them quite a bit, moving them back into basically the middle of the pack.

So after all of this what is the takeaway?

Brighton are a weird team and getting a handle on them will take a bit more time. They are selling out to attack, and that has mostly worked for them and it has made for some very fun games to watch involving them.

I think that I personally am willing to give them a bit of credit for the early season performances, but might still reserve the right to put them back into the group of teams that make up the giant mid-table group.

The guys at the double pivot podcast kind of jokingly made the point that that mid-table starts at 3rd and while that is attention grabbing an exaggeration it has a bit of truth to it when you look at the tiers of teams.

I am not willing to go quite as bold, and I think that there is a tier just above mid-table between the title contenders, and I don’t think that Brighton are quite there yet. When I do this next month that might change, but for now they are on my "team that I am watching closely" list.

Now we get to the very tough part and trying to tell apart the next few teams…

5. Chelsea

I am sticking Chelsea here as the lowest-rated team between United, Liverpool, and Chelsea.

I think that I would rather think of this as 3c than 5, but that isn’t how I have ever done these power rankings and I respect the totally made-up and arbitrary ranking decisions I made in the past and won’t change it now.

For now I think you have to stick Chelsea in this spot. They came in with the most questions of any of these teams, and I don’t think that they have been overly convincing in their opening 7 matches that makes you think that the dysfunction that has plagued this club is a thing of the past.

Look at their 5-match rolling average of xG for and against and try and tell me that this looks like we are seeing green shoots?

I can’t do it, and if you can, please let me know what you are seeing here that makes you confident about them.

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Bukayo Saka is Arsenal’s highest paid player and most important attacking player.

Arsenal are often criticized as not having a world class attacker and I think that the term “world class” is not well defined and varies too much person to person to have much meaning but if there was a player that should be in that conversation it is Saka.

Because I believe that he does belong in this discussion, I have high expectations for him. He’s shown in the past when healthy that he can do extraordinary things and I think that he still has more that he is capable of showing on the pitch.

Given that the spotlight is bright on him this season after his new contract, this got me thinking that he would be a good player to put down a public marker for what I want to see from him this season.

Some of the early talk about him has bugged me and I think has missed the mark describing what he has done as disappointing or underwhelming. It is still a small sample which will give you noisy outcomes but even still… his overall production has been damn good.

Narratives can get out in front of reality at the start of the season, and panic over a small sample size is something of a tradition for fans. Rather than getting bogged down in the vibes, I want to publicly plant my flag for what a successful season for Saka looks like.

I have done weekly updates and tracking like this in the past and I have found it very helpful. It helps you to clarify your thinking and it makes sure that you don’t move the goal posts along the way.

I am excited about this so lets get into what would be good enough for Arsenal’s talisman.

What is good enough for Saka?

When I am thinking about this, I wanted to focus on Saka’s scoring output. I have never doubted his ability to create chances but if he is going to take things to the next level, and really fill the need that Arsenal have in attack, the main focus should be on this end product.

I want to see more goals from him but that can be a bit random, so rather than focus solely on goals, I am also looking at shot production and to a lesser extent expected goals numbers. That gives us what we want to look at and now we need to set the levels. For this I think it would be tough to say that he needs to be the best or even at an “elite” level for this but I think that he needs to be very comfortably above average and should be perhaps just below that.

I think that setting the expectation at the 90th percentile for wingers will be the right baseline. That is very good but not so high that he would need to be putting up best ever type numbers.

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I am using the general winger population (so both left and right), with a minutes floor set to 1,200, of which at least 60% came while playing as a winger or wide attacking midfield. I have also limited this to the last 10 seasons and will have it be the combined Domestic League (Big 5 only) + Champions League.

For scoring, this will set our baseline expectation at 0.4 goals per 90 for Saka.

This would be a bit lower than my initial guess or hoped for value of 0.5 but I will trust my instinct here and say that 0.4 is a good reasonable goal. I would be thrilled if he could push 0.5 but that is closer to the 95th percentile outcome for wingers over this period.

In the short season so far there is some concern that his finishing has been a problem, I looked at this already going in depth and think that this is mostly a blip.

If he continues to get into the good locations and get opportunities at the volume that we want this shouldn’t be a problem at all. Speaking of that, let’s set the baseline for how many shots we’d like to see from him.

My initial expectations estimate that I had been going with was at 3.0 per 90 and that was right on the money here.

The baseline of the 90th percentile is just a tiny bit above 3 shots per 90.

This is big but doable

Saka has never quite hit these numbers in his career but that doesn’t concern me.

I want to see him go to the next level here and it is the right amount of an uplift on what he has done in the past. For his career he has been near this mark averaging 0.27 goals and 2.5 shots per 90. Over the last few seasons he has been even closer.

• 25/26: 0.24 goals and 2.94 shots

• 24/25: 0.39 goals and 3.16 shots (basically got it here)

• 23/24: 0.34 goals and 2.83 shots

• 22/23: 0.32 goals and 2.44 shots

This will be setting an ambitious target, but it is based on what he has already shown that he can produce. I am not expecting an unprecedented jump in performance, rather I am looking for him to take a small step from the ceiling that he had already established.

If he is able to hit this over a full season the debate on if he is a “world class” player should be settled and this will go a long way to Arsenal winning the big prizes that they want this season. I can’t wait to watch this over the rest of the season.

Addition added 2026-10-13: I want to also add in what the creative numbers would be and have that tracked as well. I didn’t originally include it and wanted to focus on scoring but after hearing some comments and thinking about it more, I think it makes sense given his game to include this as well.

For key passes the target is 1.92 per 90.

For assists the target is 0.24 per 90.

I will be adding these to the tracking that I do and the overall expectations for Saka.

1,327 days.

That is how long it has taken for the 115 charges against Manchester City to finally reach a conclusion. With a legal process stretching across nearly four years, it was almost impossible to stop cynicism from settling in. The collective sentiment across English football had calcified into weariness: the belief that endless motions, procedural stalls, and sheer institutional exhaustion would eventually run down the clock.

Yet here we are, with David Ornstein of the Athletic breaking the news that the independent commission has found them guilty on virtually every count.

Manchester City have been found guilty on almost all of the charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.

The sanctions have not been decided, with all possibilities remaining on the table, and City are expected to appeal.

This is a watershed moment for the Premier League and honestly I am still a bit shocked and feeling disbelief that we are actually at this point. It didn’t feel like it would ever happen after all of those days since the initial charges dropped dragged on.

We can’t accept cynicism as defense mechanism

Finding Manchester City guilty is great, but it is only half the battle; the sanctions and punishments against them must reflect the institutional damage that they caused with their cheating.

It would be easy to want to protect ourselves from disappointment expecting a toothless or token penalty. They are too powerful with their connections at the state level, the Premier League won’t want to tarnish their brand, Manchester City will find ways to drag this on even further delaying things.

I can sometimes fall into this thinking; we have seen the rich, connected, and powerful escape justice far too often to rule this out as a possibility. If this happened I would be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be shocked.

I think that this situation is so different that even with the high-powered lawyers and the geopolitical power that there will be real consequences. Sporting integrity still matters and sporting achievement is largely zero-sum. Manchester City’s achievements have come at the expense of the other clubs in the Premier League. The other clubs have made hard choices following the rules, they have been punished (sometimes quite severely) for breaking the same rules in a less brazen fashion, and this gives me hope that because the Premier League is driven by the member clubs that they won’t accept a slap on the wrist outcome.

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They attacked the heart of the Premier League

The reality of the Premier League is that it isn’t a government body, it is a collective of the 20 clubs. That means that it depends on everyone acting in good faith and self-policing. The league is not a state regulator with subpoena power, the ability to do raids of the corporate headquarters looking for evidence, or use police power to enforce their rules.

There is a social contract and norms that govern things. It is built on mutual trust that everyone will have honest disclosures, accurate accounting in the books, and actually make admissions when they break the rules.

Manchester City have totally broken this understanding. They didn’t merely spend beyond the allowed limits, they subverted all of the norms, agreements, and expectations of transparency along the way. They have resorted to lawfare just as they promised that they would, rather than comply with the rules of the competitions that they are in.

Khaldoon [Al Mubarak] says he would rather spend £30m on the best 50 lawyers in the world and sue them for the next 10 years than agree a financial penalty

This to me is the largest issue and where I think that the League should feel that harsh punishment is warranted. If they can do this and still come away with just a slap on the wrist, how can any set of rules that the league establishes ever have any real teeth or weight?

If bad-faith obstruction goes unpunished, the league’s entire regulatory structure collapses. If they hadn’t gone to the lengths of obstruction, the other clubs probably wouldn’t have liked it but they would have accepted more of a slap on the wrist punishment.

If the punishment is only financial then it is no punishment at all. They are an arm of Abu Dhabi and even a massive fine wouldn’t move the needle against that.

The only sanctions that would truly matter and would restore faith while feeling worthwhile are sporting. I think that there would be just about any option on the table here and there are some creative options available here including multi-year points deductions or even expulsion from the league.

Flawed rules are no excuse for bad faith

There are legitimate criticisms of the current financial rules that have been put into place. They do protect the incumbents and make it harder for upstarts to disrupt the established order.

The truism that life isn’t fair works here. Manchester City knew about the rules for the competition that they competed in. They had the opportunity to convince the other clubs that they weren’t the right choice, but they were ultimately put into place. For them to unilaterally break them while everyone else operated under the constraints isn’t any sort of principled rebellion to be lauded.

There is no doubt that the coaches and players earned the points and won the trophies on the field. This however can’t be separated from the mechanics of how these teams were assembled. The elite depth, the world-class facilities, the best coaching staffs, the astronomical wages, the ability to attract first-team and youth talent was all built on and financed by the infractions they have been found guilty of.

It will without a doubt hurt the brand and potentially dent the commercial appeal of the Premier League to give out a severe punishment here. That shouldn’t stop them from doing what is right here; not acting will do more damage to the league and will taint everything that this team does going forward.

Final thoughts

Personally, I would love to see a big points deduction for them and a multi-year transfer ban. In addition, and this is more symbolic, I want to see them stripped of the titles that they have won since they started cheating. They have to give back every Premier League trophy that they have won and they cannot officially claim any of those titles. I don’t want to retroactively award the teams that finished in second place the title and instead there is just no winners those years. It sucks, but we have to sit with the shame and it will be a constant reminder of the cheating that happened.

Finding them guilty is wonderful news. It shows that even with the immense pressure and fancy lawyers that all the money in the world can buy that the system can still work. It took too long and has been a tough road, but we have gotten here.

This isn’t the end however and there are still some major hurdles to make sure that we get actual justice.

A soft punishment here would essentially codify that the rules are optional if you have enough will and the power to threaten the league.

The legitimacy of the league still hangs in the balance. Does state-backed wealth trump everything, or are there actual limits and rules that must be followed?

I am happy today that we got this verdict and now we wait to see what comes next. Hopefully this existential breach is met with an extraordinary punishment.

There was a time, long ago, when playing in Europe represented a meaningful step up for most English clubs.

An Aston Villa would qualify and suddenly find themselves dealing with opponents they rarely saw. Crystal Palace would be entering unknown territory. Clubs like Bournemouth or Brighton would simply be excited to be there.

Increasingly, it feels like

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Brighton away has never been an easy match for Arsenal and this has been a team that seems to always give Arsenal trouble, even if the team has found a way to get all three points.

Fabian Hürzeler seems like a bit of a dick but there is little doubt that he knows a thing or two about coaching and was able to present Arsenal with a number of problems that they struggled to work out a solution to.

I was cautiously optimistic about this but could help but feel like the level of opposition plus coming as the 4th away match in a row that this would be a tough one for Arsenal. It was all that and more as Arsenal suffered their first loss of the season.

Let’s break it down.

Brighton vs Arsenal: The Graphics

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Brighton vs Arsenal: The Debrief

11 - Shots for Arsenal in this match, with just 7 from open play, this is the third time this season out of five league matches were Arsenal have failed to take more than 11 shots (Sunderland - 11, Aston Villa - 7)

1.5 - Expected goals for Arsenal, including a Bukayo Saka shot that might have been ruled offside had it been converted

1 - Shot taken by Arsenal in the opening 44’ of this match

Overall in this match, Arsenal did end up creating two very good scoring opportunities but this wasn’t a match where the volume of chances was ever remotely high enough for the game state that Arsenal faced.

• At 0-0 it was 4 shots to 1 and 0.2 - 0.02 on xG

• At 0-1 it was 4 shots to 2 and 0.17 - 0.42 on xG

• At 0-2 it was 2 shots to 1 and 0.25 - 0.17 on xG

While this game was competitive that makes this 10 shots to 4 and 0.61 to 0.61 on expected goals. Down 3 goals at 60 minutes isn’t impossible to come back from, but for this match and the way that Arsenal were playing, it was as good as game over.

One of the areas where I think that Brighton deserve a lot of credit for and was a big part of why I think that they looked superior was that they disrupted Arsenal’s buildup significantly. This was especially the case in the opening period but even later when Arsenal started to get a bit more of a foothold in the match they never were able to create the suffocating control that is the team’s trademark.

Brighton were able to win possession consistently up the field and made Arsenal look incredibly uncomfortable on the ball.

They failed to capitalize on this for creating chances but it created so much of that sense of threat and worry that something bad was going to come for Arsenal.

Jon Mackenzie has a great short video on what Brighton did here that was unique that is worth the two minutes if you haven’t seen it.

Hyper analysis of the goals conceded

0.04 - The expected goals value of the Pascal Gross shot. It was from 27 yards out, from regular play, taken by foot with low pressure but a shot clarity rating of 2.

Here is the full video of the shot and the actions that led up to it.

There isn’t a ton in this for me as a massive defensive mistake by Arsenal. I think that obviously they can do better but on the scale of defensive screw up to attacker good execution, this one falls more towards crediting the attacker.

Brighton’s striker had dropped into midfield and that has thrown off the marking a bit. Gabriel Magalhães was marking Gross but he drops off and looks to just cut out space. Riccardo Calafiori has to be aware of the Yasin Ayari run, and Christos Tzolis has to stay with Ferdi Kadioglu.

That does mean that when the shot happens that there is quite a bit of space for him but it is not exactly a clear look at goal at all here or an “easy” shot.

0.06 - The expected goals value of the Charalampos Kostoulas shot. It was from 28.7 yards out, from regular play following a direct attack, taken by foot with low pressure but a shot clarity rating of 2.

Here is the full video of the shot and the actions that led up to it.

This one comes after Arsenal had a great opportunity to equalize from their own transition. That broke down and Brighton took advantage of the broken play to create a transition of their own. Arsenal do fairly well to not get outnumbered here and they stop them from getting a good look at goal.

When Kostoulas receives, Gabriel looks to support Tzolis on Diego Gómez. Both Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa have the opportunity to apply pressure here but neither really does and he has lots of time and space to face the goal

By the time that he has turned to shoot, both Konsa and Gabriel have gotten into position to block the shot and haven’t given him a clear shooting lane.

His shots splits between them going just over their legs and has enough power to beat Raya’s diving attempt to save it.

Overall, looking at these two shots, they have opportunities where the Arsenal players could have or should have made it tougher on the shooter. I also think about these shots and ask myself, “If this hadn’t been scored, would I be thinking we got away with it?” and I think that the answer is a pretty clear no.

These shots are generally low probability events that do not turn into goals very often. You don’t want to allow shots, you don’t want to allow unpressured shots, but if you have to ones like this are not the worst ones in the world to concede especially if you can get bodies in the way to try and block off the amount of goal that you can aim at.

I have seen some people talk about how the actual xG ratings of these opportunities was underrated. I thought that this was an interesting question so I looked up shots that had similar characteristics and wanted to look at the outcomes there. Here are all of the footed shots taken in the Premier League from 25-29 yards out, with a pressure rating of 1 and a goal clarity of 2 that match the shots that Brighton had here.

The conversion rate here is under 5% and the expected goals rating from my model slightly overrates the actual scoring rate by a bit more than 3%.

I don’t think that this is something where the scouting report would have said that either of these players were sharpshooters that you would sell out to go close down.

We have a larger sample size with Gross and he is rated below average with fairly high confidence.

I don’t have a ton of shots from Kostoulas in my database but what I do have doesn’t show him as an amazing finisher before this shot.

Sometimes players catch it just right and the ball finds the back of the net from a low probability event.

That doesn’t take away that for large stretches of this match, Brighton outplayed Arsenal and forced uncharacteristic mistakes. Arsenal had the right combination of being able to recover and luck that many of those situations weren’t punished that maybe on another day does directly lead to better opportunities but didn’t here.

I think that if you play this match back, more often Brighton come away winners more often than Arsenal, this is also a scoreline that flatters them.

There are things that Arsenal must do better after this match but this is not a “normal” 3-0 scoreline where you think that there are fundamental problems that have been exposed or something that makes you reassess how good of a team Arsenal are.

Bruno Guimarães struggles in first PL start for Arsenal

40 - Pass attempts, 33 passes completed for 82.5% pass completion percentage with a 92.0% pass efficiency compared to expected passing

1 - Final third entry passes completed

0 - Progressive passes completed

-55.4 - Progressive pass distance towards goal, in yards (backward passes subtract)

2 - Forward passes completed

5.0% - Forward passes as a share of every pass he attempted

10 - Defensive third passes attempted

8 - Defensive third passes completed

80.0% - Defensive third pass completion percentage

0 - Progressive carries

-36.9 - Progressive carry distance towards goal, in yards

1 - Possessions lost on the ball

This wasn’t a day that any of the Arsenal midfielders will think that they played well in but I think that Guimarães might come away feeling the worst here. He was handed his first Premier League start with Arsenal and it was coming on the back of an impressive cameo against Sunderland and he did not play at the required level.

It was also surprisingly uncharacteristic where he really struggled to execute any of the passes where he could help Arsenal get up the field and he seemed to wilt under the pressure that Brighton applied.

He’s a much better player than this and I am sure he will show that this is a one off and not a long term issue but it was something that really hurt the team here today.

Let’s breakdown the stats for this matchup.

Brighton Performance

Brighton have had a bit of a weird start to the season. They have seen goals fly in like crazy for them, they have matches where they have scored, 4, 4, 3, 5, and 3 goals out of their seven match played this season. They have also seen early red card in two of their four Premier League matches (though to be fair they were already ahead in both of them before that).

This makes them one of the weirder teams in the League and when you put them on the weighted goals and xG scatter they stick out in a unique way, as one of the highest scoring teams but also in the out of the ordinary lower right corner.

If we view things only where the match gamestate is still “competitive” (this strips out situations where there is a big lead) they fall back into a more normal position for what you would kind of expect from them based on the priors.

I think that this is a better fit for who and what they are. They are a good team, on their day they can play very well but they struggle to consistently play at the highest level.

Their 10-match rolling average shows this pretty clearly, they have stretches where they look strong but they haven’t been able to put it together for a full season. This has left them over and over just outside of the Champions League positions.

The start of their season has seen them play a bit of a mixed schedule. It is not super easy but they have not started out with the most punishing of early fixtures.

They caught Aston Villa at a great time, where the team was still being put together in the final days of the transfer window. They played away to Coventry, who look like they are still finding their feet plus had the benefit of a red card. They also have faced Chelsea and Leeds where they have dropped points.

Overall, this puts them in basically the exact same spot points wise they were last season against this same fixtures.

Brighton Form

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No one on this Arsenal team drives debate and discussion like Viktor Gyökeres.

Here we are a bit over a year after his signing and there aren’t really Arsenal fans that still sit on the fence about him. The opinions are strong, entrenched, and pretty surprisingly mixed about him.

I know that I can personally get frustrated with watching him play and that will come out in some of the more impulsive or reactive moments but I come down somewhere in a more middle ground between the 'he's crap and unusable' camp and the 'he's great, Arteta's using him wrong' camp.

Looking back at what Adam and I have written about him before he signed with Arsenal, I think he has basically been exactly what we anticipated as the most likely outcome.

Here is what I said about him as it looked like were Arsenal locking in on him as the striker target last summer:

I can’t help but feel a bit mixed today on this news…

Gyokeres ends up as a bit of a weird middle ground. His age isn’t bad but he’s in the middle of his prime and there isn’t probably another level to go to here with him. He’s been great in his domestic league but only pretty good when he has come up against competition that is of the caliber of the Premier League.

If Arsenal wanted a win now option guys like Ollie Watkins or Victor Osimhen were there and probably guaranteed more floor while having similar or better upside…

It does seem that the price is going to be manageable but I am curious to see what sort of wages he will end up on because that will help shed some light on if this is a striker that they expect to be the number one guy (and I’d be nervous about that bet) or if he is more of a rotation option (more comfortable about that).

It is hard to read the future but I am coming from a starting point that this is not a player that I would be expecting to displace Kai Havertz from the starting position.

Here is what Adam wrote all the way back in 2024 when the links first started to heat up after doing a big film study on him:

Gyökeres is a bit of a tough evaluation. Is there a good player here? For sure. Does he offer something Arsenal don’t have in spades? I do think so. His dynamic and chaotic attacking style reminds me somewhat of Darwin Nunez (another player he’s older than).

But my bigger question is simple: what does Gyökeres enable Arsenal to do that they couldn’t do by signing a number 8 midfielder and making Kai Havertz a permanent striker? Not only do I think Havertz might be better (or at least more proven in the Premier League), the money’s already been spent on him, and get this - he’s a year younger than Gyökeres.

The film itself is pretty good, in my view. He’s scoring a ton and assisting quite a bit as well. Sporting are also one of the most talented clubs in their league, and they’re being coached well by a top young candidate for a bigger job.

With this player, I have difficulty shaking the disbelief that so much should have changed between Coventry and Sporting that only now is he worthy of a big English club. And not only that, but he’ll also go for a top-level price.

It is pretty fair to say that we came in with our expectations at a low level and had healthy skepticism about the ceiling of the player.

His first season and change from my perspective has vindicated our scouting and analysis of the player. He’s been a bit above average in the most frustrating ways a striker can be.

If you paid attention to his style of play before he signed you would have known to expect that he is not a high touch player. He had good assist numbers but that was more about his box touches than him dropping into the attacking midfield spots and playing like a midfielder.

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So when I was thinking about him, I basically dropped everything outside of getting shots and scoring goals for what I wanted from him. I think that doing things outside of the box is important and helpful for a striker but I wanted to be realistic and keep things simple. If he added anything else to the team I would view it more as a cherry on top, rather than something that I expected as a selling point.

His transfer fee and wages paint a bit of a mixed view into where the club see him with regards to his standing in the team. His transfer fee puts him as the 10th most expensive forward that moved in 2025-26, with 7 players in the Premier League costing more than him. Wages are murky and unreliable but this points toward him being paid not quite starting striker on a top team money but much higher than a player that is a pure backup. Arsenal didn’t take a massive swing on him, but they have invested heavily in this player and they would have fairly high expectations for that investment.

In that vein, I tried to set my own personal expectations for him. Before the start of last season, I took his numbers in Portugal plus his numbers in the Europa and Champions Leagues and used that to set the level for what I would call a successful season for him. I discounted his Primeira Liga numbers by roughly 30% and added that to his production in Europe to arrive at the figures.

I set my baseline at 2.7 shots per 90 and 0.45 goals per 90, and then I tracked that every week posting a graphic like this showing his overall progress towards these measures.

His overall shot production took a larger fall than I had expected but he did compensate for that by increasing his average chance quality. He ended up missing on shots by 25% but was basically right at expectations for the goals scored finishing with 0.43 compared to my baseline of 0.45.

My expectations here would have put him in roughly the 70th percentile for strikers in both categories, not bad, but not the profile of a player carrying an attack.

He may not have carried the attack but he was still helpful. He scored 11 non-penalty goals, a total only six players have bettered in the entire Arteta era. Four of them broke a deadlock and another turned a one-goal lead into two. In a title race where the margins were thin, he made a real contribution. Underwhelming and useful are not mutually exclusive.

Let’s now put his production in context of what he did compared to his peers in the League. There were 18 strikers in the Premier League that played at least 1800 minutes and spent 60% of that playing striker. Here is where his main stats ranked:

• 2.15 total shots per 90 - 13th

• 1.68 open play shots per 90 - 11th

• 0.43 non-penalty xG per 90 - 8th

• 0.29 open play xG per 90 - 10th

• 0.86 shots on target per 90 - 11th

• 0.9 big chance shots per 90 - 8th

• 4.41 shot zone touches per 90 - 4th

• 5.63 box touches per 90 - 4th

• 16.29 passes received per 90 - 16th

• 0.86 crosses received per 90 - 12th

There isn’t really anything here where he is the worst striker in the League like some of the critics would classify him as but this is very lackluster and unexciting, especially considering that Arsenal were the best team in the league and somewhere between the 2nd and 4th best attacking team last year.

There is a bit of a narrative that Arsenal just need to play to his strengths more to allow him to really show what he is capable of. There is probably some truth to this and if Arsenal were able to generate games that had more back and forth transitions and space to attack that his numbers would look better.

To an extent Arsenal did exactly what was suggested by his backers. The team’s style changed quite a bit last season from what they had in the past; playing longer and more direct, they also played at a much quicker pace progressing up the field than they had before. Here is how Arsenal’s ball progression up the field evolved over the last few seasons:

• 23/24 attacking at 1.8 yards/sec

• 24/25 it was 1.9 yards/sec

• 25/26 that jumped to 2.3 yards/sec

Arsenal made choices to try and adapt their style towards something that would suit Gyökeres, including adding players that have been more successful leading transition play in Eberechi Eze and Martin Zubimendi in midfield.

Maybe there was even more that they could have done to move that direction but I would deny that they haven’t tried. This would lead to the question of would it even make sense to do it? We know that Gyökeres is/was a low-touch player, but even if the tactical style wasn’t perfect you would have a hard time making the claim that he was starved of touches in dangerous areas. He had the 4th most touches in shooting locations and touches in the box among Premier League strikers last season.

The problem seems to be that he just isn't talented enough to turn his opportunities into value at much more than an average rate.

The conclusion that these data points lead me towards is that he isn’t a player that is special enough to build everything around and design a tactical system that will maximize him at the expense of the collective or other attackers.

He made a major contribution to Arsenal winning the Premier League last season and reaching two other finals along the way. Even if the projected/hoped for ceiling when he was signed won’t be reached, he isn’t useless.

He can be a helpful player to have on the team and given that Arsenal will hope to play in 60+ matches again this coming season, it will be important that he can help soak up the minutes load while providing League average production. He is an Arsenal player, I am going to support him (but still analyze him fairly and not pull punches if needed) and hope that he can help the team achieve the goals of the season.

My goal here and going forward is to make this more or less my last word on the player for a while.

I will comment on him where his actions on the pitch warrant it when breaking down Arsenal after a match but this will become something that is more in line with his standing within the team as a rotation/backup option rather than a first eleven regular.

Bukayo Saka is tied for the most goals scored at Arsenal with 3 to start the season, yet his finishing seems to be one of the biggest early season worries among the fans.

The concern is picking up on something real, he has been profligate in front of goal so far this season. In the Premier League and Champions League, he has taken 18 non-penalty shots, worth 3.08 expected goals and has turned that into just two goals scored.

He also has a penalty that he did convert (the keeper did get his hands on it but couldn’t keep it out) but that is a generally different than shots from regular play so I will be excluding it.

Like the graphic points out, we are firmly in the small sample size range and that is especially the case when it comes to analyzing finishing. Goal finishing compared to expected goals is a notoriously noisy and variable measure and fewer than 20 shots is way too little to draw massive conclusions about.

Let’s go through some of the more frustrating misses so far this season.

Against Coventry and Aston Villa he scored both of his presentable chances and none of the other shots that weren’t converted were particularly bad or frustrating. I am going to focus here on the bigger chances and the ones where he was put into good shooting locations.

Chelsea (H)

The first one that we are looking at comes early in the match against Chelsea as Arsenal are looking to equalize.

This was called a “big chance” by Opta but I think that is an overrating of how often this situation is actually turned into a goal. He was nicely put through here and has a clear window on the goal but he ended up quite deep making this a very tough angle to convert from. My model rated this a tough shot giving it only a 6% chance for an average player to convert into a goal.

Saka has shown the ability to convert these tough angle shots well but this is still a shot on his weaker right foot with few openings at goal to aim at. He hits it with power but it is basically right at the keeper and saved.

This next one comes in the second half and it is probably less frustrating and just more of a reflection that shooting is tough. Arsenal are transitioning against Chelsea and Saka is able to get in behind and has a clear low pressure look at goal.

He takes it first time as it rolls past him but can’t quite generate much power on it, with it rolling directly at the keeper. We have seen Saka do better on chances like this and he would probably expect more as well but it was a tough shot, rating out at just a 5% chance.

The last one for the Chelsea match was another opportunity to make the single goal lead more comfortable. This was a fantastic bit of play, Ødegaard finds Havertz between the lines, he plays a flicked nutmeg into Saka who hit it sweetly. All that was missing was the back of the net rippling.

It was a good chance, but not a bad miss by the numbers, rating out at 10%. He hit this one well with his left foot and forced a good (but probably expected) save from Emi Martinez.

Napoli (A)

The first chance against Napoli comes late in the second half. Here Saka has a bit of good fortune driving in field and he ends up in the middle of the box with a pretty clear shooting window at the goal.

I think that overall this one is tougher than the 19% rating that my model gave it. The ball has bounced up awkwardly and there isn’t really time for him to bring it down. He ends up not making clean contact with the shot weakly rolling wide of the post.

The next chance is probably the worst miss of the bunch. This one comes just before halftime and it is after Saka has been played clean through on goal after a through ball.

This one got a 60% rating on my model and I agree that this one is the type that you’d expect to find the back of the net more often than not. He ends up putting this one just over the bar aiming for the top far corner.

Sunderland (A)

The biggest chance that he had in this match came in the 13th minute following a real nice Declan Rice chipped through ball. My model rates it as a good chance but one that is still missed or saved more often than not at 38%.

Given that he's jumping and taking it on the volley, I think the model may still be overrating it. It is still a chance that you’d love to see turned into a goal. It almost seems like he was caught between taking the shot himself and trying to lay it off to Kai Havertz.

The second chance in this match that left me hoping that he could do better came in the 74th minute. Arsenal created a good transition attack and Saka had a good shooting opportunity from the right side of the box.

There isn’t a lot of pressure on the shot but there is still a second defender making the open target at the goal smaller. He does well to take this first time, but he does decide to take this on his weaker right foot. This one got a 14% rating here and was put on target forcing a save.

Overall, I don’t think that there are too many “bad” misses here but there are certainly shots that when they fall to a player of Saka’s quality you wouldn’t have been surprised to see at least one more goal scored from these chances. This is also exactly what you get when you take the expected goals values of his shots this season and simulate the potential goals scoring outcomes.

This is somewhat comforting and shows that while you would like to see more goals here, it is probably just a bit of the random chance more than anything else.

What about the decision making? Is he getting too selfish?

I can be critical of players when they take shots in situations where a pass could have set someone else up better but I am not overly worried about that from the shots that he took here.

Looking at his shots this season, there are a couple that if I squint I can say yeah maybe but they certainly don’t get me too upset about them.

Both of the situations came against Sunderland, with the first coming in the 72nd minute. Here Tzolis is open on the left in a ton of space and there is a potential window to squeeze a pass through.

It isn't an easy pass, and with that much traffic it wouldn't have been easy to pick him out either. If he had done it, it would have been a spectacular pass.

The second one is similar, Saka decides to shoot rather than trying to pick out Tzolis and comes just a few minutes later.

This one for me is even tougher to try to squeeze a pass through, the defenders are in a good position to where they will likely be able to cut it out. Like the one that preceded it, if he completes the pass it creates a huge scoring opportunity (this one even more so) but it would require a spectacular pass.

Overall here, the shot selection doesn’t look overly selfish to me or that I am questioning his decision making.

Here are all of his shots so far this season, so you can look through them yourself and judge.

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Let’s breakdown the stats for this matchup.

Sunderland Performance

Sunderland have kicked off the 2026-27 season with a win, a draw, and a loss, leaving them in the middle of the table on 4 points.

This matches their position the weighted xG table where they are a bit better then their table position in 10th.

This is a bit of the opposite of last season where they sequenced their goals scored nearly perfectly to max out their table position. The overall underlying numbers would have put them 18th and going down instead of West Ham but instead they ended up finishing in a European position.

Looking at the course of the season, the numbers did improve over the course of the season and so far that trend has continued into the new season.

I came into the season remaining skeptical of this team and so far they have mostly shown that maybe I was too harsh on them. They have already improved 4 points with better performances than they had last season, even with their opening day loss away to Ipswich.

This should make Arsenal’s trip a good test and it won’t be one that Arsenal look past. Especially not after having dropped points here last season.

Sunderland Form

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