Arsenal aren't underperforming at winning trophies

It is something thrown at Arteta but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny... yet.

There are a subset of fans that are incredibly vocal on certain platforms that like to think that they have higher standards and that Arsenal’s lack of trophies is becoming too much of a problem.

I get where they are coming from, winning titles and trophies

I think they probably make more noise than their actual numbers within the fanbase but I think it does raise an interesting question (even if I don’t think they rationally came to this opinion and trying to show it might not be true probably won’t change their opinions), are Arsenal underperforming with the number of trophies that they are winning lately?

Expectations in context

The first step is trying to figure out the expectations for what is the right amount of trophies.

What makes this very hard is that Arsenal are one of the richest teams in the World. Even with the latest results including Arsnal at one of their relatively weakest points in revenue, they are among the 10 richest teams in the World.

Arsenal are also historically one of the most successful teams in England winning 31 major honors, but that lags behind Manchester United with 43, and Liverpool with 45. This is also being caught by the newly successful clubs Manchester City with 26, and Chelsea with 25.

So Arsenal are a rich and historically successful team, with modern success, but that has been eclipsed by other clubs recently, but are still among the top teams.

That would normally raise expectations to be a dominant force in their League. They are richer than many other historic teams with similar pedigrees and not far off some of the teams that have dominated their Leagues winning multiple titles and stuffing their trophy cabinets.

So maybe the expectations should be higher at the club and we should demand more the team that we support.

However…

The big complicating factor for this, and one that has dogged Arsenal for a while is that there are typically 3-5 teams that have even more money then them in their own League.

Arsenal will be expected to take a jump up the list here on the back of finishing 2nd and qualifying (and advancing in) for the Champions League and with others falling because they have not but there is still a persistent gap that in the near term makes jumping the teams ahead of them difficult.

Via Swiss Ramble

One of the other things, and perhaps the most important things that having lower revenue effects is the ability to spend on the players in the squad. Arsenal have been very active in the transfer market over the last few years and have heavily invested in turning over the squad. This has made them one of the more expensively built teams in the League but like so many things in this list they still trail others.

Via Swiss Ramble

Arsenal spent a good portion of the last few years righting their wage structure and that has let them reward the players that are deserving of new deals but they are still a ways behind some of the biggest spenders. This is again something that will probably close with the latest accounts that are published but right it will still likely show a gap to the highest spenders.

Via Swiss Ramble

One of the strongest predictors of team quality is not transfer spend but rather how much a team has spent on the wages that play for the team.

So starting with the 4th or 5th highest wage bill gives you a high floor to where you aren’t likely to finish significantly below that level, having that many teams above you also means that it takes some really good fortune to win things.

So is Arteta doing worse than expected?

FA and League Cup, these are hard to say with major confidence but given that Arsenal are generally one of the top teams their odds to win these unseeded and random Cups is pretty good but pretty highly variable based on who they (and the other top teams) draw.

At the start of the 3rd round of the FA Cup right now Arsenal are second favorites to win according to betting odds but they sit at about 11% to win it. Since Arteta took over Arsenal have probably started the season with roughly an 8-12% chance of winning these trophies.

Arsenal have been in the Europa League as well, I am going to ballpark things here as trying to find odds retroactively is hard that, but lets say that at the start of the season Arsenal were generally among the favorites fro the competition but likely in the 15-20% range to win it.

Last let’s take the title odds. I am again going to ballpark things saying that at the start of Arteta’s run as coach the odds were very long (1%), got better in 2021-22 (5%) and still better at the start of last season (10%).

If we take all of these odds we can calculate the probability of how many trophies Arsenal should have won under Arteta and here is what the outcome looks like:

Winning one trophy is the most likely outcome here and while if it had been 2 or 3 it wouldn’t have been crazy unlikely from the odds at the start of the season that would likely have been overperforming more than winning just 1 is underperforming.

This is also roughly in line with the historical rate at which Arsenal have won trophies. Arsenal had 94 seasons before Mikel Arteta took over as coach/manager, winning 30 trophies which is good for a trophy roughly every 3 seasons, that is a bit below the rate for Arteta with 1 trophy in 3.5 seasons but not massively out of line.

Right now it looks like Arteta and Arsenal are right in line with expectations for the number of titles that they have claimed. There are still 3 trophies up for grabs for Arsenal and winning one of them would go a long way to keeping it that way.