Scott's Analytics Pod - MW 1

New for Arsenal Vision Patrons is my first of what will be a weekly podcast focused on analytics.

This first podcast goes into a number of different topics including the usefulness of xG as a stat, some brief discussion of Fulham, a look a head to West Ham United, talk about Aubameyang and finally some discussion of Chelsea.

If you aren't sick of reading about Fulham, I did my usual By the numbers stats review of the match on Arseblog News.

I wrote up a stats preview of West Ham today as well.

Arsenal vs West Ham: Stats Preview

Arsenal started the season as good as could be expected with a win over Fulham. There is a lot of it is only Fulham going on, but it was nice to come out of amatch and not have major worries. Taking care of business, looking strong, andnot having major red flags, even against what is likely to be…

Crab StatsScott Willis

One of the things that would really like to learn from this match is how Arsenal's attack does breaking down a set defense. West Ham aren't the best defensive team but they should provide a decent test of this regard and a a good measuring stick for the growth in Arsnal's attack.

West Ham last season, was not a high pressing team, having some of the lowest overall pressing numbers, both by Passes per Defensive Action and by attacking third pressures. They are also below average in the number of defensive challenges that they engage in per minute of opponent possession, with a mark of 5.3 which well below the Big Five League average of 5.9 and is a 9th percentile mark.

This will pose an interesting challenge for Arsenal, last season Arsenal struggled to break down deep block teams (they also struggled against teams that pressed them but that is another story), and after seeing Fulham get cut apart on several occasions with a high press, I would be surprised if David Moyes deployed that as his plan A in this match.

I have also written quite a bit about Aubameyang and xG over the last couple weeks. First was some analysis on his new contract:

Bringing back Aubameyang

Arsenal are reportedly very close to signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to athree year contract extension. Sources: Auba to sign new £250k Arsenal dealPierre-Emerick Aubameyang is set togive Arsenal a major boost and put pen to paper on a new deal at the EmiratesStadium.James OlleyESPN[https://www.espn.co.uk/football/soccer-transfers/story/4154925/arsenals-aubameyang-set-to-sign-new-250,000-a-week-contract-sources…

Crab StatsScott Willis

And then about his xG overperformance from last season:

Aubameyang’s xG Over Performance

On the season preview portion of the Arsenal Vision Podcast, Elliot and I weretalking and when we got to Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang we both took it as a giventhat his xG over performance, while great last year in helping Arsenal collectpoints, wasn’t something that we were betting on continuing th…

Crab StatsScott Willis

Lastly we discussed Chelsea vs Brighton.

From Regular Play, Brighton really looked like the better team, getting 10 shots to 5, 0.7 xG to 0.2 and a pretty significant edge in dangerous touches with more very deep possession (7 to 5), more touches in Zone 14 (26 to 20).

They were undone by an error that led to Timo Werner (who looked good) drawing a penalty, a wonderstrike by Reece James and a defelected goal by Kurt Zouma.

If I were a Chelsea fan (gross) Kai Havertz's touch map would be a major concern:

Who scored Heat Map for Kai Kavertz

This is not the ideal locations that you want Havertz to touch the ball, he ended up with 9 touches in the box, and just 7 touches in the final third. I don't know if I trust Frank Lampard to get the most out of his talent on this team.