Arsenal vs Brighton: The Debrief
Arsenal pickup more points on last season to stay top of the table
I hope everyone had a great Christmas if you celebrated it or if you didn’t that you are having a nice end to the year. It has been a busy one for me but it feels good to have the chance to get back to “normal” writing and doing analysis of Arsenal after a match.
It wasn’t always super comfortable in this match and that made it feel closer than it actually was, but I think that gives us an opportunity to dig deep into what was an interesting match that sees Arsenal maintain their position on top of the Premier League table.
Arsenal vs Brighton: The Graphics
Arsenal vs Brighton: The Debrief
After a bit of a lull with players out injured, Arsenal have come back with back-to-back very good attacking performances. This match was one of the statistically strongest that Arsenal have put together in the Premier League this season.
24 - Shots for Arsenal in this match, the most from Arsenal in a Premier League match this season
6 - Shots from fast breaks, the most from Arsenal in a Premier League match this season. Arsenal overall generated 22 shots from open play and 2.0 xG.
6 - Shots on target for Arsenal in this match
4 - Big chances in this match (none converted, Gyokeres 2’, Zubimendi 44’, Trossard 44’, Martinelli 85’)
52 - Touches in the box, the most from Arsenal in a Premier League match this season
183 - Touches in the final third, this was only 8th most for Arsenal this season
28% - The percentage of the final third touches that were inside the box
Arsenal in this match really did a good job of taking the space that Brighton allowed and turned that into one of the strongest attacking displays of the season.
All that was missing was the big scoreline to go with it and that can be frustrating but what will likely be a theme for this newsletter, this is the opposite of concerning and should make us feel better about the trend for Arsenal.
Arsenal and finishing
On the Opta xG model, Arsenal finished yesterday’s match 2.5 to 0.9 and that has people talking about finishing because Arsenal only turned that into 1 goal scored (plus an own goal).
My own model had this one at 2.2 expected goals and looking at how this could have played out given the chances the odds of a big scoreline were there and this is something that we have seen before from Arsenal, where they take a 2 expected goal game and turn it into 3, 4, or 5 goals.
Here it was just the one and while that isn’t the most common occurrence, it also isn’t a major outlier compared to what you would expect.
I made the point in my first thoughts that I wasn’t worried about finishing and that I was happier to see a positive trend for chance creation. That got people telling me that this happens to Arsenal more often than other teams and there is reason to be worried because this is part of a larger trend.
Teams like Manchester City just don’t have these kinds of matches.
Thankfully these are things that we can look up and we don’t have to rely on our feelings. Here is what the actual numbers show. All data here comes from the always invaluable Stathead tool by FBref:
If we start at using the match against Brighton as the baseline (-1.5 on xG) here is how things look for the Premier League going back to the 2022/23 season:
It has happened to Arsenal three times in this span, and that includes this match, so it was just twice before here.
If we compare against our rivals who are thought of as clinical as Manchester City they have had it happen 8 times in this same span. Chelsea and Liverpool have been the worst at this.
Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, Scott that is too big of a number there and the problem and you need to take out penalties because one miss can distort things.
Those are fair things to wonder, and I am nothing if not here to serve by looking up more and more scenarios. Here is what it looks like at a 1 goal or worse underperformance of non-penalty expected goals over the same time frame.
Arsenal have more of these situations, but they are still 12th overall in this period for the total number of matches and they also have the highest points per match in these games which is not what you’d expect if this is a unique issue for Arsenal.
Almost any way you want to try and slice this data it comes out showing that there is no real unique systemic issue here for Arsenal and having matches where they fail to convert their chances.
If we stick with the -1 npxG level and go to the start of Arteta’s time Arsenal are 10th with 31 matches (City with 40, Liverpool 54, Chelsea 54), if we want to say it is only a recent problem and focus on the last two seasons Arsenal are 6th with 10 matches (City with 9, Liverpool 11, Chelsea 12).
Saka’s Performance is polarizing
7 - Shots (1st on Arsenal), 2 on target for 0.41 expected goals.
31 - Pass Attempts (8th on Arsenal), 22 passes completed for 71.0% pass completion percentage with a 100.5% pass efficiency compared to expected passing
1 - Progressive Pass
2 - Box Entry Pass
3 - Key Passes
0.69 - xA (1st on Arsenal)
3 - Dribbles Completed out of 7 attempted, plus 1 time fouled.
15 - Progressive Carries with 9 carries into the box and 4 carries into the final third
31 - Passes Received
8 - Progressive Passes Received
6 - Final Third Entry Pass Received
16 - Touches in the box (1st on Arsenal)
2 - Tackles, 0 times dribbled past and 0 fouls committed
2 - Interceptions plus Blocked Passes
5 - Ball Recoveries
0.88 - Goal Probability Added (1st on Arsenal)
Online isn’t always real life but it is one of the main ways that I interact with Arsenal as a fan thousands of miles away and one of the things that I have seen pop up on social media (partially driven by other club trolls) and on other podcasts is a growing criticism of Bukayo Saka.
Much of it is end product driven. He’s scored 4 goals (3 non-penalty) and added just 2 assists this season in the Premier League and added 2 goals (1 non-penalty) and an assist in the Champions League. That’s just 0.35 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 this season between the two big competitions that Arsenal are in. This is coming off of him scoring just 2 non-penalty goals (1 in the PL and 1 in the CL) last season after his return from injury.
Given that he went down injured in December of last year that gives you a calendar year with just 8 non-penalty goals and assists in 2,384 minutes played between the PL and CL.
If you are one of those people that look at this and say you’d expect more from Saka, that is not unfair. Saka is arguably Arsenal’s best player, and less arguably Arsenal’s best attacking player. I would feel confident that he expects more from himself as well, so again I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad opinion to hold or something that is a problem to point out.
Where things potentially get a bit dicey is talking about what comes next, is this a problem? Does he need to do something different? This is where I think the analysis can get sloppy and I think that this match can be a good example of things as a microcosm of the larger discussion.
He’s the player that most things run through in the attacking portion of the pitch. Since he returned from injury, he leads Arsenal in final third touches (651, next is Rice at 555 and then Trossard at 506) and touches in the box (138, next is Trossard at 110 and Martinelli at 86).
It was the same in this match where he led the team in both. One of the things that I have seen is then well he should be giving us more and doing better from this volume.
Overall, in this match he was one of Arsenal’s most productive players. He had 7 shots and 4 key passes total, adding 6 total shot creating actions. This wasn’t just empty shot contribution either with a total of 1.1 xG plus xA here.
Looking at how his actions change Arsenal’s overall probability of scoring he again shines with his overall production here.
This isn’t to say that he didn’t have any mistakes or that he had perfect decision making either. Some of the decisions to shoot were perhaps worthy of a second guess versus looking for a pass but at least for me, I don’t think that there was anything egregious here (especially considering that lately his passes across the face have not been attacked with the hoped for aggression from his teammates).
The execution of the shots wasn’t as good as we have seen it in the past, his two shots on target were both right at the keeper, he had another shot from a good zone for him that he didn’t connect with and it sailed high and wide. It happens and shooting is hard; you would obviously prefer better execution from a player but given his history playing for Arsenal I don’t think that I am revising my view on his ability to strike the ball based on this.
There isn’t a massive miss in this catalog of shots, and most times this is a 0-goal outing given that most of these were in the 8-15% range for being scored.
Overall, my philosophy, especially looking at a single match is to care more about volume and being able to create and get into positions to create shooting chances for yourself or a teammate than the final execution.
Execution matters, but my view is that you probably don’t get to the Premier League level (or stay there) if you are especially bad at execution and judging this is something that takes looking at many matches, this makes it fine as a description of what happens but poor for using a single match to help you to make good analysis that would be forward looking.
This ties in with the longer view of his end product, again 0.3 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 is not what anyone things should be Saka’s level of production. He should be producing more and when you look at the shots and passes that he has completed or taken that shows up to where he is at 0.72 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 since he has come back from injury and that would put him among the elite wingers if he and his teammates (the bigger factor here) had converted as expected.
Ultimately, I see this as a positive outing from Saka and believe that if he plays like this on a consistent basis, he is one of the best players in the world and you won’t hear too much negative from me.