The one simple factor that Arsenal need to sort out to be in the top four

Here’s the worrying figure (so you don’t have to read the whole article to get to the central fact – although it would be nice if you did).

Only four Premier League teams require more shots to get a goal than Arsenal: Norwich, Leeds, Southampton and Tottenham. 

The good news is that if we could sort that one problem out and we’d certainly be in the top four.

Overall there is no doubt that our current problem is goalscoring.  It is not so much that we are tenth in the goalscoring chat – half way down the league for number of goals put away – but that we are not very good at turning shots into goals.  (And the problem is the media keep tipping us to sign players who are really not going to make that much difference).

In a league table based on shots Arsenal are currently seventh in the league – so only a little behind our league position.  But when we look at how many shots are needed before we score a goal, we are very much at the bottom, in the company of Southampton, Leeds and Chaotic Tottenham which is not good news.

Here is a list of some of the clubs that are really making life difficult for themselves by taking much larger numbers of shots to get a goal, than the high flying teams.  By way of comparison, Liverpool and Chelsea are shown at the end.

Club	Shots	Goals scored	Shots per goal	Conceded
Norwich City	112	5	22.40	26
Leeds United	157	11	14.27	18
Southampton	137	10	13.70	12
Tottenham Hotspur	111	9	12.33	16
Arsenal	154	13	11.84	13
Liverpool	215	31	6.94	11
Chelsea	170	27	6.29	4

In essence, Arsenal are taking getting on for twice as many shots to score a goal as Liverpool and Chelsea.  But are more able to convert shots into goals than clubs such as Tottenham, Southampton and Norwich,

It is not so much that if we could get that accuracy rate up, we would get more wins (maybe one or two as our two draws are converted to wins) but we could feel more comfortable about winning and have a better goal difference.  And provide more entertainment.

Goals conceded

When we look at the goals conceded column we can see that there is not that much difference between Arsenal and Liverpool, and that is after that poor start to the season in which we let in an average of three a game in the first three fixtures.  So again, it is the goals scored and how many shots are needed to get a goal that is the problem. 

For example, if we had Liverpool’s accuracy rate in turning shots into goals, we would have scored 22 goals this season rather than 13!

Compare this with goals conceded we can see that in our last six league games we have conceded four goals in total – a record that would have given us a total of seven goals conceded in the league so far this season if we had maintained that from the start.   In fact, it would have given us the third-best defence in the league – which is exactly what we had last season.  And by that, I don’t mean just the last two-thirds of last season, but the whole of last season, including when we were having a really difficult time sorting out the “no tackles” policy in the first third of the season.

So the point I am laboriously working my way toward is that our defence is ok.  Where we are slipping up is in attack.  This is not to say the attack is a disaster, because just three more goals would have taken us up to sixth – still not breaking into the stratosphere, but looking better.  But we need more goals.

This raises the question – are we improving our attacking?  For this, we need to turn once more to the last six games table.

Arsenal goals in the last six games

We have scored 11 goals: the fourth-best team in the league in this regard behind Liverpool (19) Chelsea (15) and West Ham (12)

The defence is even better.  In the last six games, we are the second-best club in the league conceding four.  Only Chelsea has gone one better and conceded just three.

More goals per shot!

So now we’ve got there.  What we need is nothing to do with our defence.  Nor do we need to shoot much more often although an increase in shots could help somewhat.  No, we primarily need to be more accurate in our shooting.  We need to get the shots per goal down from almost 12 to around seven or eight.  That’s all we need for that would really set us solidly in the top four.

Here are the figures for the whole season… 

		Shots	Goals scored	Shots per goal	Conceded
1.	Liverpool	215	31	6.94	11
2.	Manchester City	195	22	8.86	6
3.	West Ham United	172	23	7.48	13
4.	Chelsea	170	27	6.30	4
5.	Manchester United	165	19	8.68	17
6.	Leeds United	157	11	14.27	18
7.	Arsenal	154	13	11.84	13
8.	Everton	149	16	9.31	16
9.	Southampton	137	10	13.70	12
10.	Brentford	135	13	10.38	13
11.	Leicester City	131	16	8.19	18
12.	Brighton and Hove Albion	130	12	10.83	12
13.	Aston Villa	129	14	9.21	20
14.	Wolverhampton Wanderers	125	11	11.36	12
15.	Burnley	123	11	11.18	17
16.	Crystal Palace	122	15	8.13	13
17.	Newcastle United	118	12	9.83	24
18.	Watford	113	12	9.42	19
19.	Norwich City	112	5	22.40	26
20.	Tottenham Hotspur	111	9	12.33	16

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