League Phase: The Debrief

A breakdown of how Arsenal look after the first 8 matches of the Champions League

Arsenal won their final match of the Champions League, League Phase going a perfect 8-0-0 and topping the table. That sets up Arsenal in the best possible position that they could have hoped for when this competition kicked off.

Because UEFA love adding randomness and excuse to hold a televised show where people grab and play with balls, we won’t have the full picture of how until tomorrow but we do know that it will be one of Atalanta, Leverkusen, Dortmund, or Olympiacos. All of these teams would present a challenge but will be a matchup where Arsenal are heavy favorites; there is no potential PSG bogey team here like what bit Liverpool last season. There will be more on this when the matchups are set for sure.

Rather than spend too much time on a match that was overall pretty meaningless and I think has very few things to take away I am going to take a wider view and look back on the League Phase as a whole here.

Here is a quick set of the stats from Arsenal 3 (3.5)-(1.3) 2 Kairat Almaty before we dig deeper.

If you missed it or want to see the full visuals from the match, they are all posted in the discord channel (that is where I post everything for every match as well).

League Phase: The Debrief

8 - Wins for Arsenal, this is only the second season with this format, but Arsenal became the first team to win every match in the League phase

1 - Match where Arsenal failed to win by at least 2 goals. It is a funny old game that this just happened in the last match against the lowest rated team Arsenal faced in the competition.

+19 - Goal difference for Arsenal, the best of any team and beat second place Bayern Munich by 5 goals

+14.3 - Arsenal’s expected goal difference, this ended up second best with Liverpool’s big win in the final match seeing them overtake Arsenal.

0 - Matches where the opposition created more expected goals than Arsenal. There was just one match where the margin was below +0.5 (away to Inter)

The League phase of the Champions League this season has been a nice change of pace to the relentless pressure and grind that has been the Premier League season. I was optimistic about the changes to the new single table and Swiss format, and I have to say that now having gone through it twice, I very much enjoy it.

Overall, I really like that this is now 8 matches against 8 different teams. The old version of playing home and away against 3 teams had the nice benefit of getting more familiar with a few teams but it could also feel a bit repetitive to play the same teams. This is especially true for matches that I have watched as a neutral and I like that there has been more variety and interesting matches to choose from. The final day also presented excellent drama that the old group stage never matched.

I think that there is a problem with the number of matches played and the Champions League expansion has not helped that, but I also understand the reality and the pressure that UEFA faced for why it went that direction. It’s not perfect, but it is an improvement and I am glad that we have gotten this change.

Getting a bit more into the details a good place I like to start is looking at the overall weighted xG and goals graphic.

This for me consistently does a nice job of separating out teams into the good relative tiers. Arsenal end up in the top right corner and based on the consistency across the overall phase that is a fair reflection of this team.

17 - Goals from open play, 2nd (to Bayern) among all teams in the Champions League

15.2 - Expected goals from open play, 2nd (to Bayern) among all teams in the Champions League

97 - Shots from open play, 89 from regular play (8th) and another 8 from fast break opportunities (2nd). 8th most overall for shots among all teams in the Champions League.

5 - Goals from set plays, 2nd (to Liverpool) among all teams in the Champions League

5.0 - Expected goals from set plays, 2nd (to Liverpool) among all teams in the Champions League

36 - Shots from set plays, 2nd (to Liverpool) among all teams in the Champions League

4 - Goals allowed total (3 non-penalty), the fewest among all teams in the Champions League

4.9 - Expected goals from open play allowed, 3rd fewest among all teams in the Champions League

65 - Shots from open play allowed, this is a bit surprising, but this ranks only 10th best.

8 - Big chances allowed by Arsenal, this is the fewest among all teams in the Champions League

One of the big things that made the Champions League a breath of fresh air was that it was a reprieve from playing the well drilled and much tougher lower blocks of the Premier League.

Arsenal have seen their attacking numbers take a big jump when playing in these matches. You can see this basically across the board for the Premier League teams, Premier League teams are up on average for 17% on non-pen xG, 27% on non-pen goals, and 22% on open play xG.

The tactics are a part of it but it’s also a reflection that like it or not, the Premier League has more or less turned into the Super League. You can see this in the latest financial results that were published in the Deloitte Money League, where 9 of the top 20 are Premier League teams and there are another 6 in spots 21-30. You can see this in the Champions League table as well, with all 6 teams advancing and with 5 placed in the top 8 spots.

This is reflected in the bookies odds to win the Champions League as well, Arsenal are the current favorite (still pretty long at 4.75) and other Premier League teams round out half of the top 8 in the odds.

We all have experience with these knock out tournaments to know that even if you start off favored or in the best position, the randomness can get you and the best team in the group stage isn’t always the one that even advances deep into the knockout stages, let alone wins it.

That being said, this Arsenal team might be the best set up that they ever have been to try and win this trophy.