The Vibes Are Wrong, Arsenal's Form isn't Actually Off
A data check on Arsenal's form, the title race, and why the doom is overblown
The vibes say that Arsenal are limping towards the finish line of the season. This is a truism that has basically become an accepted fact. A representative statement along these lines that you’d see or hear would be something like, “Arsenal are scraping by but I am worried about them and they just haven’t looked right lately. You get a feeling watching a team all the time and Arsenal just haven't been playing well, they haven't looked good for months now.”
I think that there is some truth to the sentiment but largely I think this is a reflection of the pressure of being in a title race (without having won one recently). Given that Arsenal have failed to get over the hump going on 22 years, there is a general disposition to worry in the fanbase, and there is a subset of people looking for reasons why the worst will happen.
Arsenal’s first real bad streak of the season with back-to-back cup exits didn’t help and that highlighted some valid concerns about where the team is currently but it has also brought out some overreaction and over-indexing on the most recent matches as signals to override the bigger picture with the team.
I heard plenty of it given that my model has put Arsenal at 95% to win the Premier League and just wrote about how the end-of-season run-in was favorable to Arsenal plus the different odds of where and when Arsenal could win the League.
It’s easy to be negative and it will give you a nice bump in engagement on social media, but the reality is still much more positive than the “vibe”. This is a good opportunity to do some level-setting and provide context.
The form since the turn of the year
I went through some of this on the most recent KPI updates post but I think that it is still worth reiterating here. Arsenal’s overall form for the season is strong and while it is down a bit currently, it is still the strongest in the League.
If I was playing armchair psychologist this would be where I dug deeper and where I suspect the main issue lies. The anxiety is less about what Arsenal are doing and the overall performances and more about 22 years of near-misses conditioning fans to expect failure. The media has labeled Arsenal as bottlers, often unfairly, and even if we want to fight against that, hearing this constantly seeps into nearly everyone’s thinking.
Arsenal HAVE seen their overall production drop off since the start of the new year in the Premier League (a bit less so in all competitions), the key part that should alleviate some of the worry is that they are still the strongest team in the League even in this diminished form.
The drop off here is concentrated in the attack, with the defense staying consistently strong.
Focusing only on the League also excludes half of the matches that Arsenal have played this calendar year and when you include that the picture isn’t quite as worrying.
There is still a decline in the numbers but overall, it’s more modest.
I have been pretty consistent this season with the view that Arsenal’s attack is closer to good than elite and that was very much the case at the start of the year. Early in the season, Arsenal’s set play dominance carried them closer to that elite standard but since the start of 2026 it has been much closer to that “good” level all around.
This season has also seen a league-wide decline in attacking metrics that make it tough to use our typical shortcuts of looking at the last few Champions as a measuring stick.
This season has been a sharp break from the trends of the past. It’s too early to say if it is a one-off or the start of something new; but there is no debate that it has been different than we are used to seeing. Even so, with the league being different, there are a few numbers within the longer-term trend for Arsenal’s performance that are concerning and worth flagging.
This is again from my KPI expectations article, where I’d point to things that for me, are associated with Arsenal’s ability to control a match and their ability to squeeze a team. This style has grown to be my platonic ideal for what the best Arteta Arsenal looks like, and I have felt like it has been missing lately.
The ability to get the ball into the opposition final third and keep it there has fallen. Arsenal over the last 4-5 seasons have been jokingly called Field Tilt FC and while there isn’t anything overly amazing about this metric, it is associated pretty strongly with winning and dominating matches. I know that I have felt less comfortable with Arsenal not able to pin teams back and that has shown up in the numbers.
The other numbers are associated with this final third dominance as well, the team has had recurring issues where they are struggling to create shots (especially from open play) or even complete passes into dangerous locations that should be leading to these shots.
Some of this could be tactical, with teams moving to a more man-to-man heavy defensive scheme combined with a well-drilled low block, the space in the final third is at a premium. One way that you can try to manufacture space, is playing more in the middle third passing backwards and laterally trying to draw a team out. This has also seen Arsenal more willing to play matches where the possession is closer to even than they were in the past. I think the reasons are similar, if the other team is coming out with the ball that potentially opens up counter-attacking options.
None of this is “bad” on its own. It is just different and it might be part of a transition to something new for Arsenal. Teams can be quite good playing like this and employing these strategies, we just haven’t associated Arsenal at their recent best with this style.
Putting it in context
This isn’t uniformly negative on the trend, and again if you look at the bigger picture beyond just the League it is closer to “normal” but this is a good spot to stop and say, “so how does everyone else look?”
Using my old favorite, the weighted xG and Goals charts we can look at the overall Premier League and where Arsenal have fit inside of this and compared to the rivals.
For the first half of the season, Arsenal were the overall strongest team on the combined weighted xG+Goal difference; they had by far the best defensive numbers and backed that up with the second-best attacking numbers.
Manchester City and Arsenal were the strongest teams on this and have deservedly been the teams in the title race all season long here.
Since the start of 2026, there has been a pretty big shift in the overall numbers and rankings within the League. In the 12 matches played in this span, Arsenal remain the strongest overall team but they have seen their gap to the rest of the chasing pack close up.
Arsenal still have the strongest overall defensive numbers but the gap to a resurgent Manchester United is smaller than it was previously. The attacking numbers haven’t actually dropped much and they are still right around 2nd best but it is in a similar range to Manchester City and Liverpool now, with Chelsea having the strongest overall numbers.
Interestingly, the team that everyone is most worried about in Manchester City haven’t closed the gap at all on Arsenal, and have actually fallen back even further on the weighted xG+Goals numbers. Since the start of the calendar year, they have dropped into the group of good but flawed teams fighting for Champions League spots.
Taking the numbers out of the overall aggregation doesn’t change the analysis much if at all.
The turn of the year starts with Arsenal’s 20th match played this season in the League and you can see that the numbers are down a bit from what the team was doing in the first 19 matches of the season with a few more down or just okay performances but nothing that drastically has altered the trend or suggested that the team has taken a major step backwards.
Where do we go from here?
The dream of the quadruple/treble was fun, even if it was always a long shot, and it really hurts to have been dumped out of both Cups in back-to-back matches.
If we are being honest, as much as we love the cups, they were not the prizes that were going to define the season as a success or failure. This season was built to win now, but the club almost certainly had their eye on ending the Premier League drought and trying to grab the elusive Champions League title that is a massive hole in the team’s trophy collection.
The two biggest prizes are still in front of the team. The losses have shaken our confidence but they really haven’t meaningfully moved the probability for the team winning the League (from 90% to 87%) and Arsenal’s first leg victory in Portugal gives them a very real chance of advancing to their second consecutive Champions League semi-final.
I am still overall impressed with just how consistent Arsenal have played this season. Arsenal’s five-match moving average of weighted goal difference has been between +0.7 and +1.7 all season and the current performance level matches the overall season average.
The highs this season have been quite good but perhaps just short of the level that drives the imaginations for a title-winning team. What this team has avoided however is the real low lows; there just haven’t been runs of form that have seen the team implode or look vulnerable to a challenger surpassing them.
The Champions League is its own thing, small samples in a knockout tournament make the margins incredibly fine. Arsenal wouldn’t be a big underdog and could realistically beat anyone but it is so much more of a lottery. The Premier League, however, rewards consistency over the marathon of a 10-month season. This has been Arsenal’s strength all season long, and this is what continues to make me believe that they will make it over the line. This is one of the most grueling tests of a team, and the League will be where the season is defined.
Everything you said, AND we just need to increase the tempo going forward. The way to score goals, esp against a low block, is to get there first and make them face their own net. Slow walking the ball up the field allows teams to drop back and shuffle left and right all game. It's not a hard concept, but its something we just do not do with nearly enough regulaity.