26 - Wins for Arsenal, the most in the Premier League this season, next best was Manchester City with 23.
7 - Draws for Arsenal, tied for the fewest in the Premier League this season. This was shared with Fulham and Newcastle.
5 - Losses for Arsenal, the fewest in the Premier League this season, next best was Manchester City with 6.
85 - Points for Arsenal this season. This tally ranks 22nd out of 31 Premier League winners in the 38 matches played era. Interestingly, Arsenal are the only team to have won the League with 85 points. This ends up just below the average tally of 87.5 points for a winner.
Arsenal performed the best overall in the three major results this season in the Premier League. That’s no surprise given that they have won the League but it still reflects well upon the team.
In the end Arsenal ended up winning the Premier League by a fairly comfortable 7 points that was reflective of the team’s consistency and quality from top to bottom this season.
71 - Goals scored from Arsenal, second most this season, 6 behind Man City. (Pretty good for a team that was “boring” and that “couldn’t attack”). In the Premier League history for winner in a 38 match season this ranks 28th out of 31 teams, and ended up 12 goals below the average winners tally of 83.
27 - Goals allowed by Arsenal, by far the fewest in the league this season. Next closest was Man City at 35, with 8 more allowed. In the historical ranks for winners, this puts Arsenal tied for 8th, 5 goals better than the average of 32 allowed.
+44 - Arsenal’s goal difference, the best in the Premier League. It didn’t always look like Arsenal were going to end the season with the best goal difference but the fading of Manchester City ended up giving Arsenal an edge by 2 goals here. In the historical ranks Arsenal end up tied for 20th, 7 goals behind the average of +51.
There will be attempts to dismiss the Arsenal team’s achievements and to downplay them as among the worst ever. Don’t let people fool you into believing that, this team won’t be among the conversation for the best ever but they are worthy Champions and stack up against the historical record quite well.
I took a deeper dive on this in March and the analysis holds up.
Here is the main takeaway from that analysis.
They have put up good but not great attacking numbers and would rank somewhere between 25th and 30th all time. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt for League strength and say closer to 25th.
They have put been a very good defensive team and that would rank somewhere between top 3 and top 10 all time. With the boost from how strong the League is right now let’s say that is a top 5 defense.
Looking at the overall goal difference and that ranks 18th among title winners.
Where exactly you want to rank teams is messy, but I think that this shows pretty clearly that this Arsenal team is shaping up to be far from the worst ever Premier League winner.
Arsenal’s form down the stretch dipped and the team ended up a bit worse on both attack and defense but ultimately they ended up not that far from the averages. Given the strength, depth, and parity of the current Premier League, Arsenal have completed a major accomplishment.
One of the major things that I am going to remember about this team and this season is the consistency of high quality play.
0 - The number of times this season that the opposition beat Arsenal by more than 1 expected goal.
Arsenal went and did that to the opposition 20 times, building out a chance creation lead that should lead to a win more than half of the time.
Not only did Arsenal finish with the best points total, they also had the best expected points total this season.
Attack
1.65 - Arsenal’s non-penalty goals per match this season, this ranked 2nd in the League and 15th out of 96 teams in Europe’s “Big Five” Leagues
1.81 - Arsenal’s non-penalty expected goals per match this season, this ranked 3rd in the League and 13th in the “Big Five” Leagues
0.12 - Arsenal’s xG per shot this season, this ranked 5th in the League and 18th in the “Big Five” Leagues
9.76 - Arsenal’s open play shots per match this season, this ranked 6th in the League and 28th in the “Big Five” Leagues
5.14 - Arsenal’s set play shots per match this season, this ranked 3rd in the League and 11th in the “Big Five” Leagues
56.1% - Arsenal’s possession percentage per match this season, this ranked 4th in the League and 22nd in the “Big Five” Leagues
63.8% - Arsenal’s field tilt percentage per match this season, this ranked 2nd in the League and 9th in the “Big Five” Leagues
21.08 - Arsenal’s passing deep completions (within 25 yards of goal) per match this season, this ranked 3rd in the League and 17th in the “Big Five” Leagues
30.16 yards - Arsenal’s opposition average distance from their own goal for defensive actions (line height more or less) this season, this ranked 20th (lowest avg distance) in the League and 95th in the “Big Five” Leagues
Arsenal’s attack has been a source of discontent all season long. It has been a worry that it wasn’t good enough to produce a title winning season and well it turned out that it was. It wasn’t the best attack in the league and it was far from the elite of Europe.
It was however still quite good, especially in the context of the current season and the across the board decline in attacking numbers.
I don’t think that Mikel Arteta is satisfied with the attack and this was an area where injuries and lack of continuity match to match hurt the team. Being a good attack was enough this season but I don’t think that anyone at this club is happy to rest on good enough.
Defense
0.68 - Arsenal’s non-penalty goals allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 5th out of 96 teams in Europe’s “Big Five” Leagues
0.85 - Arsenal’s non-penalty expected goals allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 15th in the “Big Five” Leagues
0.10 - Arsenal’s xG allowed per shot this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 37th in the “Big Five” Leagues
6.08 - Arsenal’s open play shots allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 2nd in the “Big Five” Leagues
6.08 - Arsenal’s open play shots allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 2nd in the “Big Five” Leagues
2.62 - Arsenal’s set play shots allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 4th in the “Big Five” Leagues
7.77 - Arsenal’s passes allowed per defensive action this season, this ranked 2nd in the League and 11th in the “Big Five” Leagues
37.86 yards - Arsenal’s average distance from goal for their defensive actions (line height) this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 12th in the “Big Five” Leagues
7.0 - Arsenal’s high possession wins per match this season, this ranked 3rd in the League and 19th in the “Big Five” Leagues
23.35 - Arsenal’s deep touches allowed per match this season, this ranked 1st in the League and 8th in the “Big Five” Leagues
If the attack was just good enough, the defense certainly wasn’t. Arsenal put together one of the strongest overall defensive season’s in the club’s history and would put themselves in the conversation for one of the best defenses in the world this season.
The crazy thing is that I don’t think that we saw the best of this team for the full season either and I think that they could be capable of doing even more. This was a season that still saw the team play stretches without Gabriel, without William Saliba, and without Jurrien Timber. All of these players have a strong argument to be the best defender at their position.
It has long been an open question if it is Defense or Attack that wins you titles, it is often both (Arsenal did that too with good attack) but for this Arsenal team the foundation and the identity of this team was built from the defensive base and that makes everything else possible.
In the incredibly wise words of Myles Lewis Skelly, they called us bottlers but now we’re holding the bottle.
Soak it in and enjoy.
0: red cards. The discipline of this team this season (so far with one more to go) was as impressive as last year was disappointing.
ClubELO has us the third best EPL team of all time. I’ll take it.