Arsenal’s problem of late? Shots, goals, and (last season) accuracy

By Tony Attwood

We’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about the defence at Arsenal of late for two reasons.  The most important is that it has been the scene of the most extraordinary tactical reformation that I’ve seen in my time as an Arsenal supporter (a period which goes back to the Neolithic era, at least according to some of my friends).

If you have missed those, the key articles were

• Amazingly, in 2020/1 the more clubs tackled, the more goals they let in!
• How Arsenal’s 40% decline in tackling over the past five years has sparked the revival

But there has been a second reason – the fact that the media at large has ignored this revolution.  They have, it is true, dropped their insistence on ripping up the entire defence, but moving in several new players is still on the agenda, according to “reports” (ie fantasies).

However the real problem has been in attack as we can see from a very simple chart of the number of goals Arsenal have scored in recent seasons compared with Manchester City.  The “shortage” column shows how far behind Man C we have dropped.

Season	Team	Goals	Shortage
2020/1	Manchester City	83
	Arsenal	55	28
2019/20	Manchester City	102
	Arsenal	56	46
2018/19	Manchester City	102
	Arsenal	73	29

Even if we reset the target to one suggesting that Arsenal should be aiming initially at a top four place there is still a gap.  In this second version of the table below the comparison is with the team coming fourth each season.

Season	Team	Goals	Shortage
2020/1	Chelsea	58
	Arsenal	55	3
2019/20	Chelsea	69
	Arsenal	56	13
2018/19	Tottenham	67
	Arsenal	73	-6

But suddenly the gap looks much more manageable, and although fourth is not a trophy, it would be quite an improvement on the last two seasons, and hopefully a stepping stone to greater things.

And so, to look at this in more detail…

Just as we have looked at tackles and yellow cards in relation to Arsenal’s defence so in terms of attack we can look at shots and goals, and from this derive an accuracy figure, showing what percentage of Arsenal’s shots result in goals, compared with the rest of the traditional “big six”.

In the table below we have three season’s worth of shots and goals and the derived accuracy rating.  Numbers in red are the top for that column, in black the bottom.

Club	Shots 20/1	Goals 20/1	Accuracy 20/1	Shots 19/20	Goals 19/20	Accuracy 19/20	Shots 18/19	Goals 18/19	Accuracy 18/19
Liverpool	608	68	11%	591	89	15%	575	95	17%
Man City	599	83	16%	745	95	13%	683	89	13%
Chelsea	556	58	10%	625	63	10%	607	63	10%
Man Utd	526	74	14%	544	65	12%	526	65	12%
Arsenal	459	55	8%	406	73	18%	467	73	16%
Tottenham	443	68	7%	444	67	15%	537	67	12%

As we can see at once, Arsenal and Chelsea are the teams with the most black numbers, but while Chelsea’s stopped last in 2019/20, that is when our numbers got really bad.

But also do note: we had 53 more shots in 2020/21 than in the previous season and scored 18 fewer goals!

Why this happened, I think, is because all the emphasis was on getting the defence to adjust to its new approach of not tackling, leaving the forwards to pick up the scraps – along with the well recorded problems of Aubameyang.

But we must also note that the accuracy of the shots is incredibly varied across these six clubs over just three seasons, ranging from 7% for Tottenham last season at the bottom, and 18% for Arsenal in 2019/20 – the latter reminding us that this is not a long term decline as some have suggested.

Arsenal’s problem was that after two seasons at the upper end of the conversion rate (16% in 2018/19 and 18% in 2019/20), they suddenly sank to 8% in 2020/1, undoubtedly largely due to the problems with Aubameyang who having got 22 league goals in the previous two seasons, sank to 10 goals last season.

As we can see, having the most shots does not equal getting the most goals – not in any of these three seasons.  And being reliant on one prime goalscorer as Arsenal have been recently can lead to major difficulties.

So let’s conclude this little series of pieces about the stats behind defence and attack with that most simple of lists….

Arsenal’s top scorer season by season

Season	Lge goals	Club pos	Top scorer	Goals (all comps)
1999–2000	73	2	Thierry Henry	26
2000–01	63	2	Thierry Henry	22
2001–02	79	1	Thierry Henry	32
2002–03	85	2	Thierry Henry	32
2003–04	73	1	Thierry Henry	39
2004–05	87	2	Thierry Henry	30
2005–06	68	4	Thierry Henry	33
2006–07	63	4	Robin van Persie	13
2007–08	74	3	Emmanuel Adebayor	30
2008–09	68	4	Robin van Persie	20
2009–10	83	3	Cesc Fàbregas	19
2010–11	72	4	Robin van Persie	22
2011–12	74	3	Robin van Persie	37
2012–13	72	4	Theo Walcott	21
2013–14	68	4	Olivier Giroud	22
2014–15	71	3	Alexis Sánchez	25
2015–16	65	2	Olivier Giroud	24
2016–17	77	5	Alexis Sánchez	30
2017–18	74	6	Alexandre Lacazette	17
2018–19	73	5	Pierre-Emerik Aubameyang	31
2019–20	56	8	Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	29
2020–21	55	8	Alexandre Lacazette	17

A goalscorer knocking in 20+ very helpful but it is not the only way to get a top four placing, and indeed it carries with it a danger of the player getting injured and then all goal scoring falling apart.  Having two good goalscorers can work – but the key point is the number of goals, not the goalscorer.

In short, it is shots and accuracy that matters, as the top table shows.

The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s return to greatness

• Arsenal face four huge dangers as they stand again on the edge of greatness
• The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise next season. 2: The journalists
• The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise: Part 3; returning to the tackle
• The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise back to the top: Part 4 – the rabble rousers