Issue #3 - Arsenal 2019-20 in review
Arsenal's season for 2019-20 is in the books. It wasn't perfect but at least it ended on a positive note with Arsenal lifting the FA Cup.
Before I fully move on the summer transfers and scouting I thought it would be a good idea to do a little look back on the season
The Arsenal Season in Review
Overall this was arguably Arsenal's third or fourth worst season in the Premier League and a continuation of Arsenal's slide 5 or 6 seasons. The 56 points that Arsenal earned were tied for the third worst in Arsenal's history in the Premier League.
Arsenal scored 56 goals (4th worst ever return) and allowed 48 (also 4th worst). Together that was good for a +8 goal difference in the League, the third lowest ever for the team in the Premier League.
Breakdowns by match
Starting with shots per match, there really isn't a lot of good news (this is a reoccurring theme to give fair warning). It is not obvious at all on this where Mikel Arteta took over and things in general were slightly worse post re-start. I woul dcut some slack in the post re-start, Arsenal had a tough schedule, and then at the end of the League season had matches that were meaningless.
xG per match is very similar (that shouldn't be too much of a surprise) but with a little less drop off in the restart as Arsenal created some really big chances with their minimial shot attempts.
All in all, Arsenal ended up on the positive side of the ledger for xG difference this season but only just at +2. There are a few beatdowns from Manchester City and one really big win against Standard Liège in the Europa League, other than that things mostly stayed in the band between 1 and -1. Getting back to dominating bad teams would surely help the overall numbers look better even if Arsenal still don't quite get back to even against the biggest teams.
Attack
In attack it is the Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang show. He lead the team in Goals, xG, shots, touches in the box, and passes into the penalty area. He even was 3rd in xA. It is bleak to imagine what Arsenal would have been like without him in the team this season. It is not exactly a bargin that Arsenal are reportedly are extending him on, but trying to replace him (even with a pretty sizable transfer fee) would be an impossible task for next season on Arsenal's budget. That being said, the Arsnal management need to start thinking about what comes next sooner rather than later, because the decline is coming sooner than of us would like or hope for.
Next let's take a look at where Arsenal rank among the big five leagues in different stats (I didn't have time to adjust these to matches played so they are just a raw ranking which scarily will make Arsenal rank better than they should).
24th in total goals
31st in total expected goals
47th in total expected goals
62nd in total shots
60th in total key passes
59th in shot creating actions
23rd in touches in the box
24th in successful dribbles
25th in final third entry passes completed
24th in penalty area entry passes completed
40th in progressive passes completed
Remembers that these stats flatter Arsenal (especially because the French League didn't play a full season) this is incredibly mediocre for a team with the attacking history and wage bill that Arsenal have. It is not a surprise why Arsenal have been linked to attacking players. I think that Areta has spent his early time trying to add solidity to the defense but next year I hope that he really is able to do more to open up the attacking play on the team.
Defense
Not a lot to say here, it needs to get better, hopefully William Saliba is a defensive god. Let's just dwell on that and move to a happier topic...
Goalkeeping
Arsenal's goalkeepers were probably the second best thing about the team behind Aubameyang. They got lots of opportunities to be impressive with 189 Shots on Target faced in the Premier League, split 147 for Bernd Leno and 42 for Emiliano Martínez, but impress they did.
Overall the Arsenal keepers were among the best shot stoppers in all of football. It is not uncommon for players and teams that face a lot of shots to rack up a lot of saves (and Arsenal did, facing the 9th most of any team in Europe) but Arsenal backed up the massive save numbers with an impressive 78.3 Save Percentage. Both keepers did an amazing job with 77.6% for Leno and %81.0(!) for Martínez. This was good enough for Arsenal to rank second in Europe behind only Real Madrid.
One of the great things about modern goal keeping stats is that we are getting to the point where we can begin to quantify how much the keepers have saved the team. Here is where the Arsenal keepers could not be beat, they saved a total of 10.7 League goals, which was the best among all the Big 5 League keepers. It was also pretty evenly split between the two with 6.5 saved for Leno and 4.2 saved for Martínez.
It may not be popular because both keepers were so good, but I think that this is the perfect opportunity to try to sell one of them while they are at a peak of their value. It was great to have Martinez backing up, but it isn't great long term squad planning to have two really good keepers when there are so many holes to fill elsewhere in the squad.
The Return of the Champions League
This weekend sees the finish of the round of 16 and then the start of the quarter finals as the Champions League returns as pretty cool concept knock out tournament.
I re-purposed my simulation model to spit out some odds on these matches:
Manchester City hold a 2-1 lead (I assumed away goals still count because they did when the two legged tie started) and that gives them a very comfortable 80% chance of moving on to the Quarter Finals. Madrid are a good team but I am not sure they will stand much chance as I feel City will want to burn the competition to spite UEFA.
I am surprised how much this favors Lyon. I would still say that Juve are at worst even odds to move on.
I know Barca have been bad but it isn't like Napoli have been much better. This feels like it might be off but I guess we will see.
Bayern are advancing.
I think I will have more on the Champions League early next week before the quarterfinal matches kickoff.
Links
Arsenal's update let down the fans and shows sick side of football - Lewis talks about the layoffs at Arsenal.
KSE run a business, but we support a football club - Andrew on the layoffs
Revealed: MLS’s tentative plan for resuming season in home markets - Jeff Rueter and Sam Stejskal at the Athletic. If baseball is any indication (to a lesser extent USL which has had numerous postponements) this is going to be a very tough task.
The AthleticJeff Rueter and Sam Stejskal
Posts from me:
Pro's and Con's of Willian
Arsenal Squad building
I will also be on the Arsenal Vision podcast talking about squad building, the episode today was very good with Ted Knutson and Clive talking about the same topic.
Yee Haw and thanks for reading!