Wolves vs Arsenal: The Debrief
A gut punch after a bunch of wake-up calls is enough to put even the most rational fans on edge.
There is no easy way to write this post this morning.
There is no tone that will satisfy everyone. Some people will want more anger and nervousness. Others will want more putting this into context and reassurance that it’s not over.
I pride myself on being more of the latter fan, not getting too high during the up periods but especially not getting too low during the rough patches. That is more of where this post will go and if you’re not wanting that, it’s fair and maybe it is something you skip.
I can understand that feeling and honestly, I often feel the opposite direction, where this massive negativity builds up and I just want to turn it off. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have the moments where the anger and frustration builds up, I do, but I do try and take a bit of time.
Before we get into the analysis, I want to mention again that I am sorry about the slow down in content. I have been working on a big new project that will make things better for my data and the content we are able to produce. This will be addressing a number of areas where I think that there are gaps/misunderstandings from common understanding, this also is a major upgrade to how long the data takes to process and become usable.
The first new cool feature was deployed yesterday in the Discord (link to join here if you haven’t and are interested) with the MatchGraphicsBot that posted an updated dashboard of stats as the match was live every 5 minutes.
I still got some bugs to work out on it and some tweaks I’d like to make but overall, it was a cool new feature to be able to deploy from all of the hard work on the backend.
Alright let’s dig in here.
Wolves vs Arsenal: The Graphics
Wolves vs Arsenal: The Debrief
Some mixed messages from the stats
The good:
1.54 - Expected goals, with almost all of it from open play.
3 - Big chances for Arsenal (all from open play)
2 - Goals scored away from home
5 - Shots allowed
0.5 - Expected goals allowed, Arsenal had +1.0 on the difference here.
1 - Big chance allowed (the final shot from Wolves, following the error)
This isn’t the type of stats the would signify that this was a dominate performance, this was also a performance of a team that was superior to their opponents and will very often produce three points.
Arsenal were a few minutes away from getting that and us feeling significantly different about this match. If the final whistle had blown at 94’ before the error, we are almost certainly saying job done, not the greatest but a nice away win on a midweek. It wouldn’t have been a match to relive for all but the most sicko among us but I don’t think that it would have raised major red flags.
That out of the way…
The less good from the match:
1 - Shot for Arsenal from the 57th minute until the 95th minute after Arsenal scored the 2nd goal. (Trossard 73’, 0.02 xG)
51% - Arsenal’s possession from the 57th minute until the end of the match
75.6% - Arsenal’s pass completion percentage from the 57th minute until the end of the match
41 - Passes attempted in the final third by Arsenal (Wolves managed 33) from the 57th minute until the end of the match
7 - Touches in the box for both teams from the 57th minute until the end of the match
Arsenal played pretty well in the first half, again not the greatest but they showed that they were a superior team to Wolves and they were worth their lead and on another night it would have already been 2-0 or more at that point.
Arsenal continued that to start the second half and produced a nice bit of play to get Piero Hincapié free behind the Wolves line (it’s Arsenal so it has to be a full back doing dangerous things right?). He finished it wonderfully and it was 2-0 and it felt like that should be it and game over.
If you had told me before kickoff that Arsenal would be two goals up before 60’, I would have bet heavily on the game ending 4-0 over it ending 2-2. This is Arsenal, they have a stupendous defense and an attack that is not perfect, but it is good at adding on and front running.
Except that all just kind of stopped.
I think that this Attacking Pressure chart does an excellent job of illustrating this. This is the measure of the number of positive attacking actions a team is doing during each minute.
Before the goal, Arsenal had bunched together quite a few good attacking moments (again not the greatest but still much more than Wolves). Wolves had worked their way back into it a bit at the start of the second half but it really just stopped for Arsenal after the goal and it looked like the strategy switched to nullify Wolves after they pulled the goal back.
Arteta has talked about how, this isn’t really his instruction but given that this is not the first time we have seen this from the team, maybe something is getting garbled up between what he is saying and what the players are implementing.
I can understand a bit dialing back the risk dial up a goal but the way that Arsenal go about it at times, especially against opposition that is just factually inferior can be frustrating.
This is less of the in-vogue style at the moment and perhaps this more a reflection of the overall strength of the Premier League down the table, but it does seem that the days of sterile, dominate, defensive possession are tougher or not really attempted to implement.
Arsenal had most of the ball early but that started to shift as the second half approached and flipped to basically even from the 50th minute onwards.
In the first half it was 287 passes for Arsenal to 137 passes for Wolves, up to the 57th minute it was 384 to 232, and then from 57 to the end it was 172 to 165.
That’s just baffling.
Wolves are not the worst team in the League even with their very lowly point total and bottom of the table status but they are also not a team that you’d mistake for being good either.
Yes, they were at home but this would still be a situation where if Arsenal wanted to they should be able to stamp their talent advantage.
I have a few questions on the in-game tactics
After the big win in the FA Cup with Bukayo Saka playing in the “10” role, Arteta unprompted, brought up that this would be something that he would consider again. I guess he really meant it because we saw it again here.
Saka still favored the right-hand side but he had a bunch of freedom, and it looked more natural to him on the side than it has with say an Eze trying to do the same thing.
He scored a goal from his only shot, and didn’t have any shots assisted but overall, he was still the player that looked most threatening on the day.
The part that was a bit questionable was the other players that ended up around him, especially what that meant for the options that would be available from the bench.
Arteta went with Noni Madueke on the right, and given Saka was playing inside I have no problem with that. He decided to pair that with Viktor Gyökeres and Gabriel Martinelli and that is the part that doesn’t quite make sense to me.
I don’t have a problem with either choice in isolation, it is that they both played here and I think that led to balance issues and limited the effectiveness of the choices made down the line as the match went on. This is something that the prolific writer Billy Carpenter has been highlighting, and I think that there is some truth to it and that this is something that Arteta can improve upon.
It’s a long read, but I think it is worth your time.
Arsenal’s bench and the players available to my, perhaps an idiot, view was more suited to the keep the ball and pass Wolves to death and not the sit back more, let them have the ball and try to create counter attacks that Arsenal actually tried to do.
This will be something I want to try and watch more carefully to see if there are adjustments made here.
It’s still in Arsenal’s hands
I guess (I watch on NBC so I don’t know and this is always interesting because I can often tell when something is said there vs what happens in a match because it can have a massive altering of the feelings and narrative vs just happened in the match) after the match the commentary on Sky made the point that now City controlled their own destiny for the title. If, and I do think that it is a pretty big if, they win out, they will be Champions.
That is true and it had not been the case for a while and that will up the anxiety levels.
This doesn’t mean that things are no longer in Arsenal’s hands though. In fact, they are more in Arsenal’s hands right now.
Arsenal do NOT need to win all of their matches to be title winners. They do not have to win the head-to-head matchup as things stand. This isn’t a comfortable position to be in, I’d like to go back to having a several point lead but given the choice between this and being the team that is trying to chase down someone else, I’d rather have the position of being ahead.
I wrote previously that the title fight this season is different to those in the past and I still believe that.
This has been an uncharacteristic blip from Arsenal. This team has dropped points from winning positions in three of their last five Premier League matches.
Again, if you have given me the information that Arsenal would be 1-0 up on Manchester United at home, that Arsenal would be 1-0 up on Brentford, and that Arsenal would be 2-0 up against Wolves and asked me to tell you how many points they won I would have said 9 and at worst that it would be 6 or 7.
Instead that has turned into just 2 points and that is painful and it has eaten up a ton of the margin for error that Arsenal had built up. This is also a pretty left tailed outcome that shouldn’t happen all that often. I know I will get a lot of stick if Arsenal don’t go on to win the title because my simulation model was so heavily in Arsenal’s favor here and it would be a out of the blue type of run like that above that would have been needed to get to this point.
This has reignited talk about mentality and Arsenal. I am not entirely dismissive of it, the mental side of the game matters but where I am dismissive is that Arsenal have some sort of defect in it. I think that this is often a crutch that is leaned on when you have unlikely sequences of events occur and the “sometimes shit happens” explanation is unsatisfying.
Arsenal are still in the strongest position for any team in the League.
They are the bookies favorite, my model will run tonight (updates will be posted here as well as online and, in the discord), and I am fairly confident it will still show Arsenal with the advantage here, Arsenal still control their own destiny here and don’t need anyone else to help them win this title.
It feels bad right now but it’s not so dire and the good thing about a packed schedule is that we don’t have to stew on this result for too much longer with a big North London Derby ahead on Sunday.
Be nice to each other and stay sane.
“Uncharacteristic blip from Arsenal. This team has dropped points from winning positions in three of their last five Premier League matches.”
Do you really want to pretend that pressure is not a thing ever? Like come on Scott you’re smarter than that.
that's THE POINT. This is EXACTLY when it happens right mancrunch time, pressure mounting, margins tight. It's not random bad luck.
That’s not a blip bro that’s when choking happens. Science shows elite athletes perform significantly worse in playoffs and high-stakes moments. A 33-season NBA study found the best players had the biggest drop-offs under elimination pressure. MLB pitchers, NBA free throw shooters, professional tennis players I know it’s not soccer but all make measurably more mistakes when it matters most. Arsenal dropping points from winning positions in 3 of 5 matches during a title race isn’t bad luck or a statistical outlier. It’s documented pressure-induced collapse that happens to elite performers across every sport. This is the pattern, not the exception.
I spent decades working with and coaching elite athletes in sports psychology among other things. There very much is, at the elite level, a significant aspect of performance that comes down to self-belief. For whatever reason, Arsenal, collectively, needs to reset their mentality. They have to believe in themselves and back themselves to win. Not just as a team, but as individuals. When I was working with elite rugby players, and elite rugby teams, this was a conversation we had each week. It started in the video room. When they understood how the team they were about to face played, they would develop their counter plan and everybody would buy in. first the team got on the same page, then each player had to get right in his own head about his responsibility and self-belief. Now rugby is not football, but there are a LOT of similarities. For each player, in each situation, it comes down to decision making. When doubt creeps in, those decisions go against you. Take Martinelli missing that sitter from 2 feet out. That is self-belief. Why does Noni shit the bed in front of goal? Self-belief. Why did Eze miss the target completely at the end of the game? Self-belief. Same for Rice, who absolutely should have scored the last two games. No self-belief. Then you have players starting to doubt each other. Gabriel HAS to let Raya catch that ball. Has to. But he did not trust Raya right then did he? So when you don't trust yourself, and then you don't trust your teammates, you give up goals in games against teams that should never score. If I were invited to assist an elite team achieve a title, I would start with a sports psychology intervention player by player and then expand that conversation to the team in that order. What will Arteta do? Who knows. I would bet that at this moment he does not trust himself to make the right decisions because his self-belief is shaken too.