Is Arsenal getting enough efficiency in attack? Plus, more mailbag
Calafiori risk vs reward?, Mudryk better at Arsenal?, 25/26 transfer priorities?, and more
An international break does not always present the best chances for story lines to analyze, so this is a great opportunity to talk about the questions that you all had for me.
This was also something that people brought up in the request for feedback, so two birds with one stone.
Into your questions.
It would be interesting to assess our efficiency of converting threat into shots, relative to other teams and our own historical performance. - Keith
I was interested in looking into this question and I might still expand further to turn this into a fuller post at some point, but for now I will take a quick swing at it.
There isn’t an easy way to really quantify this into one number so I will take a look at things from a couple of ways. First it is looking at how the teams convert possession around the box into shots and overall quality chances.
Right now, Arsenal are doing well at getting the ball into areas close to goal (ranking 3rd) but they are below average at turning this into shots and with an overall chance quality that is below average.
You could look at this and maybe be worried but this does seem to follow as you would expect that each deep completion (within 20 yards of goal) is less likely to lead specifically to a shot as teams that have more of them, generally work to try and create better chances, if possible, from that possession.
What is a little worrying is that Arsenal are still below average of the average xG per touch that they have in this location. This could be that Arsenal are only getting to the periphery of the REALLY dangerous spots, or it could be that they haven’t executed on turning the possession into shots. I think it is probably a combination of the two and it does look like this is an area where the attack can find more.
Another way of going about this is looking at the overall expected threat for Arsenal and comparing that to the expected goals the team is creating this season.
Looking at this, the team is turning their threat created into more actual expected goals right now which suggests that the team is doing fairly well with the attack efficiency this season.
One of the other concerns, and this is tied to something that Friend of CannonStats Elliot Smith has hypothesized about on the Arsenal Vision Podcast, is that for as good as the Press is for Arsenal, they have not done a good enough job turning those chances into shots and goals.
My data is imperfect for this but I think that overall, this seems to be not really an issue and while I would like to spend more time with this question to say definitively the initial look suggests that rather than a weakness this is a strength of the team.
I have a little hesitancy because I am combing two data sets here and I think they are measuring things similarly; it may not be perfectly overlapping. I record a team’s data for winning possession high, but I don’t have the data aggregated by team and haven’t gone back and added it, so for this I have used the data from MarkStats.club as a substitute.
Arsenal are 6th this season at creating turnovers high up the field. They rank tied for first at turning these into shots, 1st in xG from these shots, tied for 1st in goals, and 1st in shots per turnover created.
I haven’t done the work to see how this compares to historical teams and it would be interesting to explore further and deeper into this question.
Statistically, how does Arsenal 24/25 compare to Arsenal 23/24 from the same fixtures last season? What is the obvious change, if any, or is it more of the same? - Riyan
Points: +1 (17 vs 16)
xG: +1.1 (12.8 vs 11.7)
Goals: +1 (15 vs 14)
xG Agst: +1.5 (7.1 vs 5.6)
Goals Agst: +2 (6 vs 4)
xG Dif: -0.4 (+5.7 vs +6.1)
Goal Dif: -1 (+9 vs +10)
Arsenal are off to a good start compared to the same fixtures last season overall, especially considering the injury problems and having 2 red cards they have had over the period this year. The most important part is that they have picked up a point vs last years team and given how many points Arsenal won last season, it is not easy to find that many opportunities to do that.
The defense has looked a little bit leaky, but mitigated by 2 of those goals coming down a man. The attack has been uneven (again going down a man, and playing a pretty conservative game against Spurs go a ways to explain that). Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the season's start. Although it hasn't been flawless, considering the potential challenges of a tough opening schedule, the team has established a solid foundation to build upon.
So to circle back to the original question, the obvious change is that Arsenal played down a player basically two halves when they didn’t last season. Other than that I think the team has mostly performed at a similar level and that is a good sign for the team.
Would Mudryk have prospered at Arsenal, under Arteta? Would Arteta have been able to transform him like he has done so with others? - RJ
A good but very tough question.
I am on the record that I was skeptical about Mudryk and how he would translate moving to the Premier League. He has skills that popped on highlights (speed, good ball striking) but his overall numbers in a depleted Ukrainian League, while also not exactly breaking through as a very young player always made me nervous how he would do regardless of which team he ended up with.
Maybe in a more functional team this looks better, but I really do think that Chelsea have started to look more functional over the last 6-8 months and he still doesn’t look like a particularly improved player and he has seen more new players come in and take his spot and opportunities.
My gut feeling on this is, that the player is mostly what he is and that is probably still the path he takes. He was a toolsey and raw player, that had never faced the consistent level that the Premier League makes a player deal with, and it would have remained something where he was taking too big of a jump going to Arsenal and it would not have looked too different than what he has been at Chelsea.
The best path for him probably would have been a stepping stone type move, something like the rumored Brentford move the summer before his move. He came in with such big expectations from the fee and the bidding war that it was another level of pressure on top of the normal things that happen when a player changes leagues.
The best part of this hypothetical is that you can probably argue both ways and unlikely to be proven wrong.
How many points did we take off from all the top teams last season, also do you think we need similar points or more off those clubs - S
Arsenal dominated the Big Six Mini-League last season. So far this season they are at 1 win and 1 draw and on the same points total for the fixtures as last season. It is possible that they could drop some of the 22 points they won in these fixtures last season but really it would not be great if they dropped below what Manchester City did last season.
If the goal is 90-92 points that means you can only drop 22-24 points along the way. Arsenal dropped 8 total in these fixtures, City dropped 15. You can do that but it means you have to be close to perfect everywhere else.
That is basically the story and the stress of trying to push into these really high points totals.
Is there a way of quantifying the risk/reward of Calafiori’s extreme proactivity? - Scott Drayton
There is an imperfect way of measuring it with event data but to really get into a more solid footing would require full tracking data. In that ideal world all of the options a player has would be able to be evaluated for the potential for how it changes the probability of scoring and conceding and comparing that to how likely the action is to come off.
With the event data I have, I cannot do that. I have seen that Arsenal have access to something that is closer to what I described above, so this is something the club could get a clearer picture on but us with just the event data can only look for clues.
The metrics I am looking at right now, would suggest he is in the positive side. Interestingly his passing currently doesn’t look particularly risky, coming out rated with a pretty high expected completion percentage. He rates positive for the value created but it is not massive.
He is completing about the expected number of passes that you would expect for his mix of passes and doing slightly less progression than the average fullback so far.
Carrying and dribbling he is more positive, and getting much more from his game so far. He is not turning the ball over and doing well to find chances to progress the ball when it is at his feet.
Defensively I can’t really give a good answer through the metrics because it is just so hard to say how much his actions stop say a pass from every coming to his zone with his tight marking vs say when he gets too tight and is beaten.
I would say that right now it doesn’t look like a red flag that this can’t work, but it is an area where he still looks to be adjusting and it will be a matter of can it get better (almost certainly) and if it doesn’t is the total package still good enough (maybe).
Which position do you see as the most pressing for Arsenal to get a high quality signing in, CM/Wing/CF? And any players you’d love, that we could realistically, target? - James
At forward, Arsenal will have Havertz, Trossard and Jesus next season as options. Given that Havertz is young and just entering the prime years of the position if you think he is good enough to be the starter this is not a position that would be crying out for a new starting caliber player.
Considering his performance as a forward for Arsenal, it has been remarkably impressive, even considering that it took him some time to bed into the team.
I think you can make a strong case to keep him as the main guy and also have a hard time right now looking out at the other potential options as a sure bet to better what he has been doing.
For the secondary players you could make a case that a new player for that role makes sense. Jesus has not looked like the player he was, and Trossard might take a look at things again on if he is happy being a more secondary member of the team than a nailed on first team player.
If one or both leave, then it becomes obvious that a replacement is needed.
On the wing, Saka is nailed on as the guy. Martinelli is coming back into form and regardless is almost certainly part of Arsenal’s squad plan regardless. I’d like to keep Trossard but talked about him above. Sterling is going to go back to Chelsea with Nelson coming back.
I think this is clearly a spot where the team is short of a player and they got a one year stop gap fix. I expect that this will be the area where funding is being allocated.
At midfield, Partey and Jorginho are coming to the end of their time with Arsenal. Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly are coming through but they could probably use another bridge player to help ease the hopeful transition to them in a couple of years. I expect that this will be an area where funding is allocated as well.
I think the biggest need before any exits will be a winger, then a versatile midfielder or potentially two guys (one more 8 and one more 6).
If there are exits to first team players, it would also mean a replacement is needed.
I have not spent any time looking at names yet and sneak peek Adam is getting ready to start putting together his list of names to watch for the season.