How Arsenal are changing the way in which they score goals

 

 

• What Arsenal players did at Great Ormond Street hospital
• When they forget Arsenal are top of TWO leagues

By Tony Attwood

It is generally interseting, but rarely done, to compare league positions and attainments between now and this moment last season.   Here is the current position of four teams we often find ourselves discussing…

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	18	13	3	2	33	11	22	42
2	Manchester City	18	13	1	4	43	17	26	40
4	Liverpool	18	10	2	6	30	26	4	32
14	Tottenham Hotspur	17	6	4	7	26	23	3	22

 

Last season, after 18 games for the same four teams

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	18	14	3	1	45	17	28	45
3	Arsenal	18	10	6	2	35	16	19	36
7	Manchester City	18	8	4	6	30	26	4	28
12	Tottenham Hotspur	18	7	2	9	39	26	13	23

 

Of course, often factors that are outside the club’s control of clubs may have affected them – most notably injuries, but even so, the comparison does give some clue as to the direction of travel.  And through this we can make some comparisons….

Arsenal are not only six points better off at this stage than last season, but their goal difference is up by three, even though the club has scored fewer goals.    And this includes a period when Gabriel has been away, having suffered an injury in Brazil.

Manchester City are the big improvers this season and clearly a real threat to Arsenal.   12 points and a whacking great +22 improvement in their goal difference shows just how much of a recovery they have  put together.

Going the other way, of course, are Liverpool, 13 points worse off, 15 goals fewer scored and nine more conceded.

But then what of Tottenham, the team that never gets compared with itself last season?  They must really be hoping for another cup win, given that they are just a single point better off than a year ago.   As for their goal situation, they are ten worse off than a year ago – and that after spending £210m on players in the summer.

Last season, from 4 January onwards, Arsenal played 17 games.  Of these, they won seven, drew eight and lost two.    That is to say, they gained 29 points from 17 games.   This compares with 33 points from the first 17 games.    Not a massive drop, but enough to let Liverpool move away at the top.  This season in the first 17 games, Arsenal have gained 39 points, a significant improvement on last year

The lesson I think is that Arsenal need to keep up the record they have – and that includes maintaining or even improving the number of goals scored.   Goal scoring this season is at the same level as last season, but Arsenal have scored just nine in the last six, which is a significant decline from last season’s average.

But the good news is that Gabriel came back for part of yesterday’s game, and it is being said that Kai Havertz, at long last, is about ready to return.

Last season our top scorers in the league compared with this season so far were as shown, with an estimated number of goals by the end of this season (if they stay fit and get games) in the final column.

 

Player	Goals 24/25	Goals 25/26	Est end of season
Kai Havertz	15		8
Bukayo Saka	12	4	10
Gabriel Martinelli	10	1	2
Leandro Trossard	10	4	8
Viktor Gyökeres		5	10
Eberechi Eze		4	8
Total	47	18	46

 

That decline looks shocking until we actually compare last season with this season in terms of goals and put in an estimate (assuming the player stays fit) which takes us back up to last season’s goal tally.

This season, we had 33 goals from 18 games.  Last season it was 35 from 18 games in the league – in short, despite the multiple injuries, Arsenal have still been scoring at the regular level of last campaign.  And that despite the absence of Havertz and the decline in goal scoring of other players

Indeed, the estimates above are based on everything staying the same.   What we don’t know of course, is how Havertz will perform, and how the whole team will evolve with having both Havertz and Saka in the team, along with some of the players introduced to the club in the summer, who have now had half a season to get used to their new situation.

And that last point is important.   English football is famous throughout the world, but few players, in my estimation, are quite ready for the way that PGMO officials behave, and this can be a major problem for Arsenal.   The club buys expensive new players, and they are told that refereeing is different here, but even so, they can take a while to get used to what is going on.

Here’s one other snippet while on this subject.   21.8% of goals have come from corners or throw-ins, up from 13.9% last season.  That is the figure not for Arsenal but across the whole league.   We are looking at a moving issue here in which Arsenal are evolving and changing, and so is everything else in football.  Who adapts most quickly will certainly influence the final table.