Where do Arsenal go from here?

After an uninspiring showing against United, re-setting the stage for the next four months

When I sit down to write pieces like today’s, less than 24 hours removed from an extremely frustrating home loss to the very lovable Manchester United, I feel the need to include some kind of disclaimer at the outset so people don’t think I’m hand-waving anything.

I cannot be any clearer about this — Arsenal did not play well enough against Manchester United. They just didn’t. Sure, they got smacked upside the head by two extremely well-taken goals that miss more often than not, but I think anyone who watched the game could see that Arsenal…kinda had it coming?

So, that’s out of the way. Whew. And now here we are, two points from three Premier League matches, two goals scored (or one, if you want to do the thing where own goals don’t count, but I find that weird). Sure, only three conceded, but the attack hasn’t been especially good in the last three so that’s understandably getting the most attention.

I don’t think there’s any Arsenal fan who didn’t freak out yesterday — I certainly did — but when I got to my computer this morning, I wanted to be able to answer the question, “how much should I freak out, though?”

And as I’ve sat with this for the past 24 hours and looked at things from about 74 different angles, here’s where I am: Arsenal cannot play lackluster football for the next four months and still win the league. But, also, I don’t think we ought to completely freak out.

Why? Let me explain

Form and results

We’ve seen a lot made lately of player x having no goals in 11 PL appearances, player y having none in 25 and player z having not scored since his last game in organized summer rec league as a 12-year-old. And those are the kinds of stats that, frankly, you’d like to just get a goal and make go away.

But that hasn’t happened in awhile. Like in the beginning of the season, Arsenal had the extremely tough task of playing both Liverpool (and let’s be honest with ourselves people…they’ve been disappointing in the league overall but are still very good) and United (in their best form in years) very close together.

Forest away was a classic banana peel match against a “lowly” side which has actually been solidly upper-mid-table at home under Sean Dyche going back several months. Despite that, Arsenal posted nearly 3 xG, depending on where you get your xG from, roughly double what Man City did in the same building less than a month previous.

But that doesn’t actually matter if the goals don’t happen, does it? And that’s why the mood right now is so sour. So when I started to look through some numbers here, I was actually pretty surprised.

I put together this table today, showing open play and non-penalty production for and against, of the three sides in the race. Everybody loves a tall red bar and a tall blue bar, and that’s definitely the ideal here, but having a green bar and an orange bar below zero is very much not good.

Of course, this is City-Arsenal-Villa in order. Two sides whose typical outing over the past five is to lose on both open play and overall xG. One side who wins both. Arsenal in these games has eight points, Villa 10, City 6.

So that seems pretty good. But, in my classic nogoodnik way, I’ve included a twist here! I removed the Villa-Arsenal game from the past five.

Here’s the same chart with Arsenal-Villa included:

Oddly, that’s even better in a lot of ways. The one way it’s not is the sudden presence of a negative gap in open play xG, but you watched the Villa game, right? I don’t need to explain to you that about 13% of all the open play xG Arsenal have conceded came from an Ollie Watkins tap-in down 4-0 in like the 94th minute, right? Wait - I just did.

I was also particularly taken aback when I learned that over the past five, there’s only one club in the league with more non-penalty xG than Arsenal, and that’s Brentford. And they just got beat by Forest, 2-0! Small world.

(Adam’s note: All of these xG stats also, by the way, score things like the own goal against United at 0.00, when if Timber had gotten a toe on it, it might’ve been worth 0.5 or more xG. That’s a bit of a problem with how xG works, don’t you think? Because Arsenal were definitely “generating threat” in that moment and caused the problem. But, that’s a tangent for another day or another post.)

(Adam’s note, take two: I also think we need to continue to better square the “Arsenal attack worse” talk with the constant discussion of the PL’s dead-ball era, in which everyone’s attack is worse from open play, bar three clubs. Scott did a great post on this last week, but I think continued repetition here is needed to help people fully understand that year-over-year comparisons miss some really key context.)

Maybe you’re like a lot of people and just don’t give a rip about xG, which is fair enough. Old-fashioned form table it is!

“But that’s six weeks, I’m more concerned about the past month or so.”

OK.

Even the four-game form table — which puts Arsenal 12th, for transparency — would also only have Arsenal three points off top. Nobody’s won more than two of their past four. But that small margin is also why I don’t really fuss with form tables.

Looking ahead

So this all raises the natural question: What the heck happens from here?

Well, in case I wasn’t clear enough before, let me be even clearer: An Arsenal that plays like it just did against United repeatedly over the next few months would absolutely be putting itself in danger in this race. The side is built to control matches, and it cannot afford to allow control to be wrested away so easily (not to mention maximum punishment to the umpteenth degree).

But I think there’s good news here, too: Liverpool are off the schedule. United are off the schedule. As much as people like to dump on those sides, they are still very good (Liverpool have beaten both Madrid sides and Inter this season, for instance) and in United’s case, in really good form (see above).

Just like earlier in the season, Arsenal have a bit of a chance (or as much of one as you get in the PL) to reset their form with matches against Leeds, Sunderland (who are now showing cracks), Brentford (a tough one), and Spurs away between now and the end of February. City in the same period have Spurs away, Liverpool away, a hot Fulham at home, Newcastle at home and Leeds away. Villa have Brentford next, then a very tough Bournemouth away, Brighton home, Leeds home, Wolves away.

Realistically, I don’t think any of the three are going 12/12 here. But getting to March 1 against Chelsea in good shape is a reasonable goal, and I think Arsenal’s form, talent and depth can get them there.

Including that match with Chelsea, you’d probably count Newcastle home on April 25 as the only other match against a top-level side from there out, not including the massive clash with City on the 18th. Villa in that time will have Chelsea home, United away, Liverpool home and City away. City, obviously, have Arsenal and Villa, but also Chelsea away.

Listen, I don’t have a crystal ball so I cannot tell you with complete certainty that the league is wrapped up. But when you take a step back, even a smaller, five-game step back, applying the same form going forward somehow does still favor the guys we’d like to see win the dang thing.

As long, of course, as they play better than they did Sunday.