Hilarious cover up by media of media’s lack of insight

 

 

• Are Arsenal getting value for money in the transfer market?
• Can the end of one season or the start of the next predict the final table?

By Tony Attwood

To the surprise of many Arsenal supporters perhaps expecting more attacking reinforcements, it is in defence with which Arteta appears to be most keen to tinker.

That comment came from the Guardian and I am sure does reflect the view of many football supporters who allow themselves to be led by… well, the media.

Last season Arsenal scored five goals fewer than Manchester C.  The season before that it was six goals fewer.   So an improvement – not a huge one, but still an improvement.

Last season Arsenal also conceded five goals fewer than Manchester City.  The season before Arsenal conceded ten goals more than Manchester City.  That is a massive improvement on Arsenal’s part.

As a result of these two improvements on the part of Arsenal, whereas in 2022/23 Arsenal had a goal difference that was 16 goals worse than Manchester City, in 2023/24 the two clubs had an equal goal difference of +62.

However +62 is not the record for in 2021/22, Manchester City has had a goal difference of +73 and Liverpool had one of +68.   Liverpool’s decline to a goal difference of +45 this past season however shows just how quickly these things can change if the manager doesn’t stay on top of all aspects of the game.

So how else did Arsenal compare?

In terms of squad size Arsenal had the fourth smallest with 24 players.  West Ham and Everton each had 23 and Fulham 22.   Manchester City had 29, Tottenham 31, and Chelsea 43.

It is often suggested that Arsenal had a very young squad last season, but in fact Arsenal had an average age for a squad – being 10th in terms of age.  Chelsea had the youngest squad at 22.9 years, Tottenham’s average age was 24.6 years, Arsenal’s was 25.5 years.   Manchester City had an average age of 26.3 years.  So maybe a greater use of occasional under 21’s could help Arsenal.

But also we must forget Arsenal improved on the season before, both in terms of points and goals.

 

Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
Arsenal 2022/3	38	26	6	6	88	43	45	84
Arsenal 2023/4	38	28	5	5	91	29	62	89
Difference		+2	-1	-1	+3	-14	+17	+5

 

These are pretty solid improvements all round, but still not enough to overtake Manchester City.  So how can that be done?

If we look at the league table for the top of the league last season we see that the defence of Arsenal was five goals worse off than Manchester City and the defence five better than Manchester City.   So again that would suggest that the attack needs to be improved.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	38	28	7	3	96	34	62	91
2	Arsenal	38	28	5	5	91	29	62	89

 

But does that mean bringing in a new 20-goal-a-season man?  That seems to be what the media and their followers suggest, but if we consider that for a moment, a 20 goal a season man is someone the opposition can immediately identify as the scorer and so will mark out of the game.  Having a 20 goal a season man in the team in fact is quite simply an announcement of how the team is going to play – by getting him in a forward position and passing to him.  Haaland shows it can work (38 goals last season) – but there are not many Haaland’s around.

However let’s look at the goal scorers – the “ratio” columns are goals per game.  Only league games are included.

 

	2023/24	2023/24	Ratio	2022/23	2022/23	Ratio	Ratio increase
Player	Starts	Goals		Starts	Goals
Bukayo Saka	35	16	0.46	37	14	0.38	0.08
Kai Havertz	30	13	0.43
Martin Odegaard	35	8	0.23	37	15	0.41	-0.18
Declan Rice	37	7	0.19
Gabriel Martinelli	24	6	0.25	34	15	0.44	-0.19
Eddie Nketiah	10	5	0.50	9	4	0.44	-0.06
Leandro Trossard	18	12	0.67	10	1	0.10	0.57

 

Now what we can see (and you probably already knew) is that Odegaard and Martinelli’s goal ratio fell considerably last season.  What saved Arsenal was Harvertz. Rice and Trossard.

What then arises is the simple point: can Martinelli be taken back to his goal ratio of 0.44 goals a game, or can Trossard go further?  And the key point here, which seems to be something that some commentators miss completely is that in 2022/23 the top two Arsenal goalscorers in the league were Martinelli and Odegaard, each of whom knocked in 15 goals.

That combination of players clearly gave defences a real problem as they were also trying to keep a close eye on Saka at the same time.   

In essence, Arsenal have potentially five players who can score ten or more goals in a season: Saka, Havertz and Trossard who did it this past season plus Martinelli and Odegaard who did it in the season before.   Now that is not only a big goal potential but also an enormous problem for defences who really don’t know where the next goal is coming from.

In the past seven seasons in which Manchester City have won six league titles they have scored 646 league goals, which is an average of 92 goals a season.  Their top scoring achievement was 106.   Arsenal scored 91 goals last season, so were below the Manchester City average.

Clearly what Arsenal need to do is at least get up to Manchester City’s total of 96 goals last season – and adding a 20 goals a season man could do that.  But most likely it would also reduce the number of goals the other players noted here could get.  If however even more goals can be squeezed out of the current squad then that could be an additional benefit, since it would come without disrupting the current pattern of play.

The last time Arsenal scored more goals was in 1953 in a season that had four more matches in.  Beating that has got to be the next target, and I still think the best way to do it is through an on-form and fit Martinelli and a way of putting all these goal scorers into one team.