Arsenal's minutes share compared to peers

It isn't as bad as I feared it might be

Being a fan of a team means you know a lot about them. Being as deep of a fan as it takes to be interested in this website probably means that you are very invested in the team.

I notice that this can make me extra attuned to issues at the club and not notice them when similar things are happening at other clubs.

I think one of the areas this shows is in referee decisions, I don’t think there is a fanbase that doesn’t think that the referees are against them. One of the others is depth and how well a team rotates and uses the squad.

I want to talk about this one today.

Last year, especially in the first part of the season, we knew Arsenal’s best 11-13 and they played all the games they were even remotely fit to play. There were injuries in the second half of the year but it was one of the more unchanged sides in recent Premier League history.

This year it doesn’t feel that way but surprisingly the numbers suggest that the team has been giving minutes to players at a similar rate.

Here is the current breakdown for Arsenal in the Premier League:

Arsenal have 8 players that have played at least 70% of league minutes, compared to 9 last season.

Arsenal have 10 players that have played at least 60% of league minutes, compared to 11 last season.

Arsenal have 12 players that have played at least 50% of league minutes, compared to 11 last season.

If injuries to key players hadn’t hit the team perhaps it would look different but injuries always seem to spoil the best-laid squad plans.

One of the changes this season compared to last however is that the team has gone from the Europa League to the Champions League. That is a harder competition and players really want to play in it vs being more amendable to taking a match off in the group stage of the Europa League.

Maybe this is changing our perception of the usage.

There is some of that but again not as much as I thought there might be.

Arsenal this year have used a few more players in the 13-15 range but that is really the only major departure from last year that jumps out looking at the numbers.

Here is how things look for the Premier League as a whole right now in all competitions. (The Gini Coefficient measures inequality, typically in incomes but here it is in minutes distribution, 0 is perfectly equal, 1 is perfectly unequal)

There are a few teams that are surprising, first is Liverpool, they have just Mohamed Salah who is above 70% of the minutes played (73%) and have a very even share over a large group of players. Number 2 on the list is Trent Alexander-Arnold at 67%, and number 19 on the list is Jarell Quansah at 36%, this is because of injuries, but also because they have the Europa League and a squad with lots of good but perhaps not great players outside of their top few.

Second, there are a couple of teams that are playing above expectations that have been able to really lean heavily into their main squad. First is Aston Villa, they have the Europa League but still use a core of 13 players very heavily.

The other is Tottenham, they have no Europe and have core of 15 players and it would probably be shorter if they had fewer injuries to deal with (James Maddison and Micky van de Ven are at 46% and 54% respectively and would absolutley start every game they were available for).

So far this season Arsenal doesn’t look like an outlier at all. Here is how the minutes share looks for the Premier League in a graphical presentation (Arsenal are highlighted as the red line).

Here is how they look compared to other teams in the Champions League this season.

Lastly, how Arsenal looks compared to teams in any of the European Cups.

The first seven or so players look to have a larger share of the minutes but the overall squad numbers look roughly in line with the other teams right now.

Substitution differences?

So at the high level, the numbers for Arsenal aren’t out of line, maybe the difference is Arteta’s use of substitutes. Mikel Arteta has developed a reputation as a manager that waits a long time to make and use his bench but so far this season he has actually changed and moved towards the middle of the pack for the Premier League.

Arsenal are not overly aggressive with using their bench, especially the 4th and 5th options but they are a lot more middle of the road than they used to be.

I would still like to see Arteta be more aggressive with his substitutions, he still will often wait until after the 70th minute to make changes, especially with his first move of the match. With the last subs, I can show a little more understanding, especially recently with the bench that Arsenal has fielded, even though I still think there is value in fresh legs meaning more late in matches.

Does this change your perception? Did I miss looking at this from an angle? Let me know.