Nottingham Forrest 1-0 Arsenal: The Debrief

Arsenal are officially ruled out for the title with a whimper.

This season has been so fun. Easily the most enjoyable in my decade supporting the team (crazy how time has flown, that I didn’t realize that until now typing this). This team is young and exciting, with players that are easy to root for, especially considering that Mikel Arteta has them playing a fun style of play.

The way this match went and the way the season has ended has been a downer and I hope doesn’t ruin the good memories made along the way.

Let’s look at the numbers from a game that I would like to forget.

Nottingham Forrest 1-0 Arsenal: The Graphics

Nottingham Forrest 1-0 Arsenal: The Debrief

26% - The expected goals probability on Taiwo Awoniyi’s goal in my model, it was 0.1 on Opta’s model.

0.6% - The average probability of an incomplete pass from the same location by Martin Odegaard turns into a goal for the team winning possession in the next sequence.

The one goal in this match got the maximum punishment for Arsenal. It was a bad pass that set Forest away on the break but the pass from Morgan Gibbs-White was a bit too hard and gave Gabriel an opportunity to break it up which he did. The problem and next bit of unluck was that his clearance ends up going off Awoniyi. There was also Aaron Ramsdale in this moment, he charges out closing down the space and for what seems like the first time this season (I have gone back and watched all the shots against him and he very rarely does this) he commits to trying to smother the ball making the ability for the bounce to go over him.

In the current bad run of form Arsenal have not defended well, they have also seen a pretty repeated occurrence where what they have allowed has gotten this maximum penalty.

16 - Goals allowed since the Liverpool match

13.9 - Expected goals against since the Liverpool match

13.1 - Post Shot Expected goals against since the Liverpool match.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is the opposite of what was happening at the start of the season. At the start of the season, the bounces went Arsenal’s way and over the last part of the season, the bounces have gone against Arsenal.

It feels like things are going into a bit of overreaction with some of this but sometimes random variation strikes. It reminds me a lot of the classic xkcd cartoon:

https://xkcd.com/904/

I will write more about this as the season ends but it does feel like level of reaction right now isn’t properly calibrated. I am sure a lot of that is tied to seeing the title slip through the teams fingers and it is understandable but hopefully with a bit of distance, some more measured and cool-headed thinking can prevail.

Toothless possession

81.6% - Arsenal’s share of the passes attempted in this match

759 - Passes attempted by Arsenal in this match, the third most for Arsenal this season

183 - Passes attempted by Forest in this match, the fewest any opponent has tried this season

83.9% - Arsenal’s share of the touches in the final third in this match

343 - Touches in the final third by Arsenal

63 - Touches in the final third by Forest

30 - Touches in the box by Arsenal

8.7% - The percentage of Arsenal’s final third touches that came in the box, that is the lowest percentage for Arsenal this season. For the season, Arsenal have averaged 16.5% of their final third touches in the box.

11 - Shots, with just 7 coming from open play.

0 - Big Chances for Arsenal, this is the 4th time this season Arsenal have failed to create a big chance.

In this match, Arsenal really struggled to get anything going, with tons of passing side to side but with little intent that seemed like it would move around the Forest defense and open space.

Arsenal tried to get the ball into the box a fair amount, it just didn’t really come off in this match with many of the passes lacking a cutting edge. Arsenal put the ball into the box often it was just pretty easy for Forrest to repel the attempts.

Arsenal Try a Plan B

When the lineup came out I thought this was going to be something pretty similar to what we have seen from Arsenal the last few weeks, except it would be Granit Xhaka in the left back role doing a Zinchenko impression. That was not how things ended up, with Arsenal playing with a back three with Xhaka and Thomas Partey as wingbacks.

It ended up creating a very weird shape in possession and a massive right-sided bias for Arsenal, especially in the first half.

The second half ended up looking a little more normal but it was still a very weird looking match from Arsenal.

People have been calling for Arsenal to try something new and well they did in this game and I think it sort of illustrates why ‘Plan B’ is not the first choice.