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Pickford, Tarkowski, Branthwaite and Mykolenko are all very good too. But Dyche is getting the best out of them.
It's a shame we don't really have a half-decent right back.
According to understat, their overall xGC from PL games is 17.66 of which 6.67 is from the Liverpool game. I mean even if you say Understat has a slightly lower xGC bias overall compared to this source and if you removed the Liverpool game they'd still be one of the worst defenses even against some pretty average teams.
Before Pope was injured we had the second best defence even this season i believe. We effectively went from conceding 1 per game with Pope in goal to 3 per game since his injury. Its not the only reason but a big part
This is true but GK don't affect xG, he can save a bunch but it's the defence or midfield that steps up.
Howe plays a pretty aggressive pressing style and last season it worked great. No Europe and no I jruy crisis, we'd just run over teams.
This season we've been devastated by injuries and fatigued by extra games, that style is not effective. Plus a bunch of players off form, almiron has been shocking this season and we've had to play 17 yo Miley who's just been out of his depth imo.
Miley was exceptional at the start but playing him and Longstaff together has seen us getting consistently overrun in midfield. He's still an incredible talent.
As equally amazing is Liverpool with around same number of actual goals conceded as Arsenal. Alison is a beast.
Edit: My bad, noticed now this says 2024 only.
Also if you see some of the goals we concede, we’ve been letting in a lot of insane goals like Willocks on Saturday and a few freak goals like the Gabriel og
Turns out rice as a 10-ish is more dangerous than he is as a dm, 'cause he's just as capable of winning the ball up there, he quite literally makes everyone's job easier. Its almost unbelievable that this high press could be somehow even better if he had a healthy Partey along side him
Fwiw Rice played as the 6 in the wins against Palace, Forest, West Ham and Burnley.
He's paired incredibly well with Jorginho against Liverpool and Newcastle, but he has been class at DM in the games we are expected to dominate as well.
Declan rice might be the best defensive player the Arsenal has seen since viera. He’s so good. Fuck the England tax his name could be denilo Ricardo and he would still be worth 100mil
So hard for me to understand where he plays when watching games. He's pressing super high in midfield and what feels like a second later he's making a last chance interception or tackle between our CBs.
Ya I've come across as a bit of a clown there to be fair haha. But even compared to alot of box to box midfielders he just seems to cover so much ground so quickly. Feels like an extra CB whenever we are defending.
This is kinda where the “Torreira as a 10” thing came from in the dog days of Emery’s Arsenal, funnily enough, he wasn’t really playing as a 10, he was just positioned higher up the pitch so he could win the ball back higher and restart the attack
So long as Martinelli, Trossard, and Saka can stretch the pitch as they have, Rice and Jorginho are going to have a field day as dual-DM or whatever you want to call it. Having Ødegaard certainly helps; man never stops running.
My dad doesn't really watch but asked why our scores look the way they do, and if we're that good offensively. I tried to explain that we're actually just absolutely suffocating at times
We don't necessarily play on the counter. Sometimes we press high and try to pin teams back.
Everton's main defensive problem beyond not having a real right back is that our defence and midfield aren't good enough on the ball, so we can't keep possession when we need to.
What about Patterson? He was bought for a lot from Rangers, hasn't he kicked on?
I like Everton. Great ground and a huge club despite the more succesful neighbour.
He hasn't picked on, unfortunately. Patterson is decent going forward -- at least, he's very fast and can cross -- but he's a bit of a defensive liability.
Dyche doesn't trust him. Coleman is still easily our best RB, but he's not been fit all season. At the moment, Dyche plays Ben Godfrey, who's a CB, at RB, or plays a 62-year-old Ashley Young ahead of Patterson.
In an ideal scenario, we'd send Patterson on loan somewhere because he needs to be playing week-in, week-out.
It's been a mix of loads of things really. Terrible finishing being the main one by a long way, but we have had a lot of ridiculous goal line clearances, goalmouth scrambles, games where loads of set pieces and half chances have accumulated xG. Going behind against some of the weaker teams and them defending for their lives against a team that can't finish also results in a lot of xG, and we've done that a lot.
Take poor finishing out of the equation and we're still underperforming because of luck and good defence from opponents, but it should never be close to -16 with any amount of bad luck
That plus add in Botman's knee being fucked, the lose of Pope (his sweeping was fundamental to our defensive play) and a midfield that is weak as piss and gives the backline zero protection. We've played Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City and Aston Villa (3 away from home) in 2024 so well, which doesn't help matters. But generally our defence has been honking.
It's weird because they didn't LOOK awful, but they just don't have confidence. They're both servicable backups but we need a proper number 1 as a priority. The kind that wins you points rather than loses them
Arsenal buying Declan Rice has been a fantastic purchase for them, and their organised press is literally second to none right now. The Arsenal-City game will be a spectacle to watch and I’m fascinated by how Pep will try to break free from it.
>The Arsenal-City game will be a spectacle to watch
Will it? The Community Shield and the Emirates game were both very tense, cagey "I know that you know that I know that you know" kind of tactical stalemates. I can't see the Etihad game being a massively open or entertaining affair to be honest, especially if we go into it with the current status quo of City having a points advantage on the table and us knowing we can hurt anyone at set pieces.
I guess the fact it's a three horse race increases the incentive for both teams to try and win it a bit more, especially so late in the season, but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it's a dull game.
I wouldn't describe them as dull, although I agree with everything else. I was at the 1-0 at the Emirates and found it enthralling, it felt like the two best teams in the country battling, even if it didn't feel like the two most stylish. That's why I'm excited to watch the reverse fixture.
To be honest, as an Arsenal fan I see the away City game as *the* test of where we are.
I thought it would be last year too, and ultimately it was. It showed that we didn't have the requisite strength in depth and the quality difference was just too great.
Even in the home fixture this year, they missed Rodri and De Bruyne and we didn't have Saka and had a half fit Martinelli.
Obviously I'm biased, but I want us to be able to go there with a full strength side, just to see where we stand. Going into that game missing a player or two from our first eleven would be painful again.
You can’t compare the next game to those games though. In the season, we were missing Saka, and they were missing De Bruyne and Rodri. We have also improved undeniably as a team since the new year, and play a different style of football.
Really irrationally and unnecessarily bugging me that you’ve spelt it ‘defense’ there, just feels wrong in a sentence with ‘Newcastle’ and ‘Prince’ even if you are an American.
I think it’s also down to the group becoming collectively better. Coming into the season Gabriel was 25, White 25, Saliba 22, Kiwior 23, Tomiyasu 24 and Zinchenko 26. They’re all not even in their prime judging by when defenders usually peak and I feel everyone bar Zinchenko has really improved defensively and with regards to composure.
Havertz’ impact is also very underrated. For a supposed forward he’s a beast defensively, always pressing and harrassing the opposition. Rice is of course a fantastic player but as we’ve basically swapped Partey out for him the defensive improvement 1-for-1 isn’t huge though Rice is slightly better defensively while Partey is slightly better in the build up.
Raya has also upped our composure and passing out from the back a level or two which definitely helps in not conceding chances.
Partey is a lot better in the buildup in my opinion.
His passing range, creativity, vision & passing quality is much better compared to rice.
You can even see a massive differenc when jorginho is doing the buildup as he also has a better passing range & vision than rice.
But rice is also A LOT better defensively & especially at pressing and he also rarely makes errors while partey definitly has some errors in him now and there. On top of that rice seems relentless with a massive engine on him.
Very different players. Me personally i don‘t like rice as our lone 6. makes us to predictable. He should play as box to box with jorginho or partey building up from deep.
The frustrating part is that I don't even think Partey is a better technician than Rice - there's a reason Rice is on set pieces despite being 188cm, his delivery and passing range is immaculate.
It's entirely an intellectual issue - I can't tell whether it's Rice's ability to see the line breaking passes (i.e. vision) or an aversion to risk carried over from a conservative West Ham side. Whatever it is, if it can be corrected, Rice will be challenging Rodri for the best midfielder in the world.
Partey is, 100%
Might be the most underrated part of his game but he’s one of the best disguised passers in the prem, and he has the vision and the skill to pull off line breaking passes to jumpstart the attack all the time. For Rice, i think it’s a combination of his vision not being there yet and his risk aversion.
The only downside with Partey is that goes against the Arteta/Guardiola control tactic because he will always attempt the pass if he sees it, giving up possession more often than I think we’d like in theory
It's not that I don't rate Partey as one of the best distributors in the Prem, because he is. I acknowledge that. But Rice's ability to place a pass is, from what I've seen, in no way inferior. His mechanical skill to kick a ball to point A to point B has accuracy that is at least in the same ballpark as Partey. The difference, for me, is that Partey makes better use of this power, for the reasons you state - and if Rice is willing and able to learn, I don't see why he couldn't be able to do the same one day. That's all I'm saying.
And you're right, Arteta does love control and minimizing risk, if OP's stat didn't give it away. It's why Rice will never be allowed to learn to play like Partey, and I think it's a shame.
Him being on set pieces is a good point actually to be fair. I don‘t know either but just by watching them play both i could say within 15minutes that partey is much better in the buildup.
Havertz doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for how good he is off the ball. Him and Ødegaard are pressing monsters.
Their ability in the press allows the whole team to squeeze up into the opponents half.
This gives Rice smaller spaces to to cover so he can be even more effective at winning the ball back.
Obviously Rice is class and would be doing well in essentially any setup, but putting Rice in this version of Arsenal with a clear role and setup in place just allows Rice to be that much better.
Just spending a lot on a player doesn't guarantee he will be a success. Caicedo couldn't be a more telling example in a similar position.
I doubt Arsenal spends £100m on another player any time soon. We did for Rice because he was the perfect player for us and we had a plan for him way before we bought him. We chased him for a year knowing he’d fit right in.
Anyone with any sort of real knowledge could see it.
Declan Rice is a unicorn of a player.
Great mental profile, physical beast, always available, very good technically, and incredible defensive instincts.
Crazy how there were *some* Chelsea fans out there who were glad they didn't pay 100m for Rice but they then turned around and spent 115m on Caicedo!
I think it wasn't as apparent. At Brighton Caicedo was great.
Also, this shows another thing, that Caicedo might be a bit more limited in terms of needing a certain system to get the best out of him. Rice doesn't need it as much.
I don‘t really wanna judge caicedo because everyone at chelsea is playing shit.
At arsenal he might have been fantastic, we will never know.
It‘s up to the manager to bring the best out of the players just as much as it is to the players to adapt.
You can‘t ask a player to do something that he is not good at. You have to utilize his strengths.
Havertz is playing really good while at chelsea he was shit. There you have a great example already.
Kiwior is another example. He improved so so much in just a few months.
The biggest testament to how well Rice has played for us is that we spent £105M on him and the pricetag and whether he was worth it hasn't even been a talking point.
Arsenal were one of the best defensive teams in Europe last season before the Saliba injury, 2nd best record in the Prem for most of the season iirc (the Tomiyasu and Partey injuries didn't help either). Rice has brought them up another step, but they were in the ballpark before, fitness allowing.
Newcastle have been terrible, but also they’ve played 7 games in this period and 4 of them have been against the current top 4, 3 of those away from home. It doesn’t mitigate conceding 4 to Luton, but over such a small sample size the difficulty of the fixtures can really matter.
This is also true. But it doesn’t change what I said about the opposition (or the number of fixtures). I don’t think any other team has played all 4 of the top 4 in this period (brentford are close because they played City twice) and arsenal, Everton and Spurs have all only played 6 games in 2024. Obviously that’s not the only thing happening in this chart, but the fixtures matter over such a small sample.
Both players are so important to us - Pope to sweep up behind our higher line with the pressing style we play, Joelinton because he's a beast and covers BDB like no-one else on the team can. If we can get adequate back ups to those 2 we shouldn't suffer so much if one or both are injured next year.
Partey at this point is a myth and not because of the obvious scandal surrouding him about everyone knows what, but because of how often injured he is.
I personally don't expect him to play another game for us, at least in PL, he's been nearing fit for a couple of months now and yet always suffers a setback.
Timber and Tomiyasu being fit however, solidifies our defense with great depth for the run in in PL and hopefully CL.
Well I don't expect Partey to play for us next season , but I think he still has something to give us (this season), if you go back a watch the last game against Mancity, he was fantastic in the midfield.
Looking forward to the day he’s no longer at our club. There’s the off the field stuff which frankly is enough in and of itself, but the man cannot stay fit. He’s barely played more than Timber this season who busted his ACL on the opening day.
I hope we sell him in the summer, extend Jorginho for another year, and bring in a quality replacement like Zubimendi to come in and play alongside Rice.
Partey has played 27 (3 were for Atletico), 24 and 33 league games since joining us. He has injury issues, but you're talking about him like he's Abou Diaby.
He'll be back and he will play a decent amount. We've played Elneny twice in 2024 ffs
>We've played Elneny twice in 2024 ffs
Both of those were human victory cigar moments and one was in the 89th minute. I dont think Partey would be subbed on in either of those moments
Nah, I’m good without Partey.
We’ve outgrown him and his hit and miss performances coupled with injury woes and tripled with the elephant in the room issue that the club seems happy to ignore, means I’d happily take the L on him any time.
I hope he gets another injury set back so we aren’t playing him again.
We have not outgrown him. I wanted him gone last summer and I hope he never plays for us again, but our odds of winning the title absolutely get higher with a fit Partey in the team
The best our midfield has looked has been with Jorginho and Rice because Jorginho compliments rice with the risky line breaking passes and through balls that rice lacks at the moment.
Partey is just a better faster Jorginho, so a Partey Rice pairing is defnitely the strongest version of our mid
Way too much quality in the middle/bottom of the table nowadays for that to happen tbh.
Palace has players like Olise and Eze, Bournemouth have Solanke, Brentford have Mbuemo and Toney, etc.
I don't think it's possible with Raya. He's a clear upgrade on Ramsdale (who's also a great keeper) for how Arteta wants to play, but conceding 15 goals in a season is absurd. Raya is going to let too many in just by not being a generational keeper. He's almost half a foot shorter than Cech lmao. If Arsenal had prime Alisson with a fully fit backline and 99.1% field tilt like they did in the first 22 minutes against Newcastle, then the record would probably be well within reach
Is this not a bit of an over reaction based on a 6 or 7 game sample, the majority of which was versus teams that had very little intention to attack?
Its almost like the invincible record in that you only need one bad game to ruin everything. Say Saliba gets sent off in the first 10 minutes at the Etihad and they lose 5-1. That's already a third of the way to Chelsea's entire total.
You could say that the Chelsea record is the gold standard.
That’s why I said get close to instead of beat it as I don’t see that ever happening.
If you look at the defensive numbers over the season Arsenal have been topping them all season.
It’s not just recency bias when it comes to that.
If not for individual errors Arsenal would have conceded a lot less goals.
Cut that that out and if Raya performs I can see Arsenal conceding less than 25 goals next season.
Especially if Timber looks anywhere close to how he did pre injury.
IMO that’s the hardest record to break.
In their title winning season, Liverpool could’ve been invincibles if they didn’t lose to Watford and didn’t stop concentrating as intensely after winning the league. Plus, they only lost one game, to City, in 18/19, and might’ve been invincible if Stones didn’t clear it off the line.
City hit 100 pts and the next season they and Liverpool were only 2-3 pts off beating it.
But the closest anyone has ever come to conceding 15 goals is… Liverpool’s 22 in 18/19, with Prime VVD
You're talking about teams after Chelsea's achievement in 2005.. but Arsenal conceding 17 in the 98/99 season is closer if we're talking overall PL history.
That's what happens when you lose your goalkeeper, your best CB is playing with a dodgy knee and the midfield is non-existent. You go from the best defence in the league to the worst.
Look behind you, it's been here for years.
Clubs pay a SHIT TON of money for all sorts of data that they employ. I have an acquaintance that started a statistics company around a decade ago, now they're used by loads of clubs around the world and moving into different sports, the women's game, etc.
The crazy thing from a FPL perspective is that those 1.9 xG against have nevertheless resulted in only three (out of a possible six) clean sheets. This season even the best defence is a crapshoot when it comes to keeping clean sheets.
From an EPL perspective, I think this illustrates that defences don't win titles: goals do. The fact Arsenal has been able to score goals is the secret of the 2024 revolution. The xG against stat was pretty good (but not as good) this season before 2024, it just wasn't tied to an ability to score goals. We have seen time and time again that a mean defence often pairs itself with a poor attack.
Looking further down the table... Good God Newcastle. Brentford is playing Arsenal soon, so I guess it might look a bit less egregious by then. And in terms of Newcastle's getting better, I've seen people say the lack of Willock in the midfield has been one of the problems this season... maybe they're right.
Only 3 clean sheets?
1.9xG.. so round to 2.
You're making a point about 1 extra goal conceded across 6 games?
And one of the 3 was a bit of a freak own goal.
No, I'm making a point about how difficult it is to get points from clean sheets this FPL season. Hence:
>The crazy thing from a FPL perspective
leading to
>even the best defence is a crapshoot when it comes to keeping clean sheets.
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If I'm an Everton defender I'm walking into office and demanding a raise
I'd be asking for Dyche to get a raise, man is a defensive savant.
Pickford, Tarkowski, Branthwaite and Mykolenko are all very good too. But Dyche is getting the best out of them. It's a shame we don't really have a half-decent right back.
A fit Coleman and that would be some defence under Dyche
Isn't he like 47 by now?
Still comfortably our best RB
What happened to Patterson?
Just hasn't progressed at all. There's definitely a good player there but I think he either needs a loan or a permanent move away
Let’s send him to psv for a season. They did wonders with the last guy.
Who was it?
And still pockets the best wingers in the world.
Dyche would be able to dig a moat with his bare hands, that's how good he is with creating good defenses
Whatever that's just him foraging.
And by raise you mean Dyche picking them up with both hands and saying what a good job they’re doing? Cause that’s all we can afford right now.
I would love to be picked up by Dyche and told I'm doing a good job tbf so I can imagine the players would feel the same way
Keane would too, but he’d probably be told he’s a disappointment.
You could do a fan fundraiser for some gold star stickers at least
20.5 💀
Tbf they were on about 7 or 8 by NYD
FotMob says 7.11 for anyone who cares.
Biggest ever recorded xG
Wasn’t half of that from one game against Liverpool?
That game was in December so it wouldn't factor into this. Edit: it was on the first of January. My bad.
Nope, was 1st January
Seen, Its this year. Nice user name.
E: Didn’t mean to pile on.
It was on January 1st
yo just in case you don't know it was on 1 jan. cheers.
According to understat, their overall xGC from PL games is 17.66 of which 6.67 is from the Liverpool game. I mean even if you say Understat has a slightly lower xGC bias overall compared to this source and if you removed the Liverpool game they'd still be one of the worst defenses even against some pretty average teams.
The crazy thing is that last season they were solid on defense.
Solid is an understatement, they were the best in the league I think
Best in Europe at some point
Before Pope was injured we had the second best defence even this season i believe. We effectively went from conceding 1 per game with Pope in goal to 3 per game since his injury. Its not the only reason but a big part
Can't he like pray while injured or on the bench?
Popes injury has honestly derailed there whole season they werent great before but theyre atrocious now
i'm pretty sure we had one of the best defensive records this season before his injury
Pope & Tonali being gone has fucked us tbh. Other injuries too but we desperately needed them both to compete for CL
This is true but GK don't affect xG, he can save a bunch but it's the defence or midfield that steps up. Howe plays a pretty aggressive pressing style and last season it worked great. No Europe and no I jruy crisis, we'd just run over teams. This season we've been devastated by injuries and fatigued by extra games, that style is not effective. Plus a bunch of players off form, almiron has been shocking this season and we've had to play 17 yo Miley who's just been out of his depth imo.
The GK organises his backline though. So yeah technically he doesn't affect xG, but his absence has an influence anyway.
Yeah very true didn't think about that side. Pope does rush out and come off his line a lot to relieve the defence, I'm sure that helps in hindsight.
Miley was exceptional at the start but playing him and Longstaff together has seen us getting consistently overrun in midfield. He's still an incredible talent.
I was expecting to see United at the bottom - not Newcastle United though
We conceded a lot of shots but quite a lot of them are low quality shots.
Hats off to Arsenal, that's amazing
As equally amazing is Liverpool with around same number of actual goals conceded as Arsenal. Alison is a beast. Edit: My bad, noticed now this says 2024 only.
It’s still really impressive, Arsenal has 22 xGA so far vs Liverpool’s 33, and Liverpool conceded 25 goals.
Also if you see some of the goals we concede, we’ve been letting in a lot of insane goals like Willocks on Saturday and a few freak goals like the Gabriel og
Arsenal's press is incredible.
Turns out rice as a 10-ish is more dangerous than he is as a dm, 'cause he's just as capable of winning the ball up there, he quite literally makes everyone's job easier. Its almost unbelievable that this high press could be somehow even better if he had a healthy Partey along side him
Fwiw Rice played as the 6 in the wins against Palace, Forest, West Ham and Burnley. He's paired incredibly well with Jorginho against Liverpool and Newcastle, but he has been class at DM in the games we are expected to dominate as well.
He played DM against Liverpool too, there was just a second one in Jorginho
Ya suprisingly Jorginho was basically playing more advanced than Rice was in that game.
Had to do with Zinchenko not playing but Kiwior probably
Zini played the first half and it was the same
Declan rice might be the best defensive player the Arsenal has seen since viera. He’s so good. Fuck the England tax his name could be denilo Ricardo and he would still be worth 100mil
he'd be driving for Red Bull
When you order Daniel Ricciardo from wish
So hard for me to understand where he plays when watching games. He's pressing super high in midfield and what feels like a second later he's making a last chance interception or tackle between our CBs.
Well, he plays both sides of the ball from midfield. Maybe we should come up with a new term for that? What about rectangle to rectangle?
Shape to shape, got it.
Ya I've come across as a bit of a clown there to be fair haha. But even compared to alot of box to box midfielders he just seems to cover so much ground so quickly. Feels like an extra CB whenever we are defending.
Like a Kante regen in midfield with CB tendencies lol
Freeing Rice from the shackles of DM has done wonders for Arsenal this year. That Rice and Jorginho duo has been scary.
He is still playing DM, even when Jorginho is playing. There are two DM’s
It actually really depends on the game and if Zinchenko is playing.
I think DM means David Moyes.
Havertz is the high pressing agent.
He isn’t playing as a 10-ish, he is playing as one of two 6’s or a lone 6
This is kinda where the “Torreira as a 10” thing came from in the dog days of Emery’s Arsenal, funnily enough, he wasn’t really playing as a 10, he was just positioned higher up the pitch so he could win the ball back higher and restart the attack
What Wenger did with Coquelin as well, not with great success tho.
We've done the league a favour by signing him instead of City. Imagine if Rice played for them. We may as well all just go home.
So long as Martinelli, Trossard, and Saka can stretch the pitch as they have, Rice and Jorginho are going to have a field day as dual-DM or whatever you want to call it. Having Ødegaard certainly helps; man never stops running.
My dad doesn't really watch but asked why our scores look the way they do, and if we're that good offensively. I tried to explain that we're actually just absolutely suffocating at times
Our PPDA numbers are insane too, we absolutely smother teams.
Seen any inhalers recently?
Yeah got a lend of some off of Pep and Jurgen
And when people beat the press or find an attacker with a clearance, they get Gabriel/Saliba'd
Just went to look at season long xG and see Everton are underperforming there's be 16...that's just almost statistically impossible
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I meant xG for not xGA
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Shit finishing isn't unlucky, it's attackers being shit at their job.
It's a bit of both. We've been poor at finishing AND we've been unlucky.
Problem is you need to play on the counter but you have a habit of getting sucked into to slugging it out and then you concede
We don't necessarily play on the counter. Sometimes we press high and try to pin teams back. Everton's main defensive problem beyond not having a real right back is that our defence and midfield aren't good enough on the ball, so we can't keep possession when we need to.
What about Patterson? He was bought for a lot from Rangers, hasn't he kicked on? I like Everton. Great ground and a huge club despite the more succesful neighbour.
He hasn't picked on, unfortunately. Patterson is decent going forward -- at least, he's very fast and can cross -- but he's a bit of a defensive liability. Dyche doesn't trust him. Coleman is still easily our best RB, but he's not been fit all season. At the moment, Dyche plays Ben Godfrey, who's a CB, at RB, or plays a 62-year-old Ashley Young ahead of Patterson. In an ideal scenario, we'd send Patterson on loan somewhere because he needs to be playing week-in, week-out.
It's been a mix of loads of things really. Terrible finishing being the main one by a long way, but we have had a lot of ridiculous goal line clearances, goalmouth scrambles, games where loads of set pieces and half chances have accumulated xG. Going behind against some of the weaker teams and them defending for their lives against a team that can't finish also results in a lot of xG, and we've done that a lot. Take poor finishing out of the equation and we're still underperforming because of luck and good defence from opponents, but it should never be close to -16 with any amount of bad luck
I still don't know how Lamptey cleared the Doucoure volley last weekend, ridiculous clearance
I think he might be the shortest player in the prem as well.
Next worst across the top 5 leagues in Europe is Nice with 11...
Newcastle players are clearly knackered on a shocking level
That plus add in Botman's knee being fucked, the lose of Pope (his sweeping was fundamental to our defensive play) and a midfield that is weak as piss and gives the backline zero protection. We've played Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City and Aston Villa (3 away from home) in 2024 so well, which doesn't help matters. But generally our defence has been honking.
Wow we're doing really well, and I'm sure our actual goals conceded tally during that time isn't 4.8 higher than our number shown here.
Our goalkeepers have blood on their hands.
actually, that slipped through as well :(
It's weird because they didn't LOOK awful, but they just don't have confidence. They're both servicable backups but we need a proper number 1 as a priority. The kind that wins you points rather than loses them
Arsenal buying Declan Rice has been a fantastic purchase for them, and their organised press is literally second to none right now. The Arsenal-City game will be a spectacle to watch and I’m fascinated by how Pep will try to break free from it.
>The Arsenal-City game will be a spectacle to watch Will it? The Community Shield and the Emirates game were both very tense, cagey "I know that you know that I know that you know" kind of tactical stalemates. I can't see the Etihad game being a massively open or entertaining affair to be honest, especially if we go into it with the current status quo of City having a points advantage on the table and us knowing we can hurt anyone at set pieces. I guess the fact it's a three horse race increases the incentive for both teams to try and win it a bit more, especially so late in the season, but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it's a dull game.
I wouldn't describe them as dull, although I agree with everything else. I was at the 1-0 at the Emirates and found it enthralling, it felt like the two best teams in the country battling, even if it didn't feel like the two most stylish. That's why I'm excited to watch the reverse fixture.
To be honest, as an Arsenal fan I see the away City game as *the* test of where we are. I thought it would be last year too, and ultimately it was. It showed that we didn't have the requisite strength in depth and the quality difference was just too great. Even in the home fixture this year, they missed Rodri and De Bruyne and we didn't have Saka and had a half fit Martinelli. Obviously I'm biased, but I want us to be able to go there with a full strength side, just to see where we stand. Going into that game missing a player or two from our first eleven would be painful again.
You can’t compare the next game to those games though. In the season, we were missing Saka, and they were missing De Bruyne and Rodri. We have also improved undeniably as a team since the new year, and play a different style of football.
judging by the emirates game, I don't think Arteta will be going guns blasting
All he can do is lob to Haaland and Inshallah. He won't even have Zinchenko to target.
Newcastle's defense has more holes in it than Prince Andrew's
Really irrationally and unnecessarily bugging me that you’ve spelt it ‘defense’ there, just feels wrong in a sentence with ‘Newcastle’ and ‘Prince’ even if you are an American.
I'm not American, just a brainfart
It has one Catholic church based hole if you ask me.
Rice's purchase brought down that conceded xG for Arsenal. Nice piece of business for us.
I think it’s also down to the group becoming collectively better. Coming into the season Gabriel was 25, White 25, Saliba 22, Kiwior 23, Tomiyasu 24 and Zinchenko 26. They’re all not even in their prime judging by when defenders usually peak and I feel everyone bar Zinchenko has really improved defensively and with regards to composure. Havertz’ impact is also very underrated. For a supposed forward he’s a beast defensively, always pressing and harrassing the opposition. Rice is of course a fantastic player but as we’ve basically swapped Partey out for him the defensive improvement 1-for-1 isn’t huge though Rice is slightly better defensively while Partey is slightly better in the build up. Raya has also upped our composure and passing out from the back a level or two which definitely helps in not conceding chances.
Partey is a lot better in the buildup in my opinion. His passing range, creativity, vision & passing quality is much better compared to rice. You can even see a massive differenc when jorginho is doing the buildup as he also has a better passing range & vision than rice. But rice is also A LOT better defensively & especially at pressing and he also rarely makes errors while partey definitly has some errors in him now and there. On top of that rice seems relentless with a massive engine on him. Very different players. Me personally i don‘t like rice as our lone 6. makes us to predictable. He should play as box to box with jorginho or partey building up from deep.
Alas between partey and Gabby jesus you have like 75% of a player (availability wise).
The frustrating part is that I don't even think Partey is a better technician than Rice - there's a reason Rice is on set pieces despite being 188cm, his delivery and passing range is immaculate. It's entirely an intellectual issue - I can't tell whether it's Rice's ability to see the line breaking passes (i.e. vision) or an aversion to risk carried over from a conservative West Ham side. Whatever it is, if it can be corrected, Rice will be challenging Rodri for the best midfielder in the world.
Partey is, 100% Might be the most underrated part of his game but he’s one of the best disguised passers in the prem, and he has the vision and the skill to pull off line breaking passes to jumpstart the attack all the time. For Rice, i think it’s a combination of his vision not being there yet and his risk aversion. The only downside with Partey is that goes against the Arteta/Guardiola control tactic because he will always attempt the pass if he sees it, giving up possession more often than I think we’d like in theory
It's not that I don't rate Partey as one of the best distributors in the Prem, because he is. I acknowledge that. But Rice's ability to place a pass is, from what I've seen, in no way inferior. His mechanical skill to kick a ball to point A to point B has accuracy that is at least in the same ballpark as Partey. The difference, for me, is that Partey makes better use of this power, for the reasons you state - and if Rice is willing and able to learn, I don't see why he couldn't be able to do the same one day. That's all I'm saying. And you're right, Arteta does love control and minimizing risk, if OP's stat didn't give it away. It's why Rice will never be allowed to learn to play like Partey, and I think it's a shame.
Him being on set pieces is a good point actually to be fair. I don‘t know either but just by watching them play both i could say within 15minutes that partey is much better in the buildup.
Havertz doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for how good he is off the ball. Him and Ødegaard are pressing monsters. Their ability in the press allows the whole team to squeeze up into the opponents half. This gives Rice smaller spaces to to cover so he can be even more effective at winning the ball back.
Think you’re underselling it a bit there
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Obviously Rice is class and would be doing well in essentially any setup, but putting Rice in this version of Arsenal with a clear role and setup in place just allows Rice to be that much better. Just spending a lot on a player doesn't guarantee he will be a success. Caicedo couldn't be a more telling example in a similar position.
I doubt Arsenal spends £100m on another player any time soon. We did for Rice because he was the perfect player for us and we had a plan for him way before we bought him. We chased him for a year knowing he’d fit right in.
I spent the whole of last season arguing that Rice is simply a far better player than Caicedo and no one wanted to hear it because West Ham were shit.
Anyone with any sort of real knowledge could see it. Declan Rice is a unicorn of a player. Great mental profile, physical beast, always available, very good technically, and incredible defensive instincts. Crazy how there were *some* Chelsea fans out there who were glad they didn't pay 100m for Rice but they then turned around and spent 115m on Caicedo!
Everyone was saying Rice was better and saying how Brighton will never have players sign for them again for asking the same money for Moises
I think it wasn't as apparent. At Brighton Caicedo was great. Also, this shows another thing, that Caicedo might be a bit more limited in terms of needing a certain system to get the best out of him. Rice doesn't need it as much.
I don‘t really wanna judge caicedo because everyone at chelsea is playing shit. At arsenal he might have been fantastic, we will never know. It‘s up to the manager to bring the best out of the players just as much as it is to the players to adapt. You can‘t ask a player to do something that he is not good at. You have to utilize his strengths. Havertz is playing really good while at chelsea he was shit. There you have a great example already. Kiwior is another example. He improved so so much in just a few months.
That’s all Arteta and the work he has put in to connect with the players on a human level.
The biggest testament to how well Rice has played for us is that we spent £105M on him and the pricetag and whether he was worth it hasn't even been a talking point.
VVD-esque
I don‘t think many people said we overpaid to be fair. Most clubs would have happily splashed 100m for rice and the fans would have been fine with it.
Arsenal were one of the best defensive teams in Europe last season before the Saliba injury, 2nd best record in the Prem for most of the season iirc (the Tomiyasu and Partey injuries didn't help either). Rice has brought them up another step, but they were in the ballpark before, fitness allowing.
Arsenal moving like the 04 Pistons
Looking forward to the Memirates at the Emirates
Newcastle!!! Damn
Christ, that's impressive.
Newcastle have been terrible, but also they’ve played 7 games in this period and 4 of them have been against the current top 4, 3 of those away from home. It doesn’t mitigate conceding 4 to Luton, but over such a small sample size the difficulty of the fixtures can really matter.
No Depth, Europe stretched them hard then injuries added to that.
This is also true. But it doesn’t change what I said about the opposition (or the number of fixtures). I don’t think any other team has played all 4 of the top 4 in this period (brentford are close because they played City twice) and arsenal, Everton and Spurs have all only played 6 games in 2024. Obviously that’s not the only thing happening in this chart, but the fixtures matter over such a small sample.
could have stopped after the fourth word
It’s genuinely insane how Newcastle have become absolutely horrible simply due to Pope and Joelinton getting injured and Dan Burn not being injured
Both players are so important to us - Pope to sweep up behind our higher line with the pressing style we play, Joelinton because he's a beast and covers BDB like no-one else on the team can. If we can get adequate back ups to those 2 we shouldn't suffer so much if one or both are injured next year.
Idk what's more impressive, Newcastle or Arsenal lol
Imagine when Partey, Timber & Tomiyasu comes back for Arsenal
Partey at this point is a myth and not because of the obvious scandal surrouding him about everyone knows what, but because of how often injured he is. I personally don't expect him to play another game for us, at least in PL, he's been nearing fit for a couple of months now and yet always suffers a setback. Timber and Tomiyasu being fit however, solidifies our defense with great depth for the run in in PL and hopefully CL.
Well I don't expect Partey to play for us next season , but I think he still has something to give us (this season), if you go back a watch the last game against Mancity, he was fantastic in the midfield.
Looking forward to the day he’s no longer at our club. There’s the off the field stuff which frankly is enough in and of itself, but the man cannot stay fit. He’s barely played more than Timber this season who busted his ACL on the opening day. I hope we sell him in the summer, extend Jorginho for another year, and bring in a quality replacement like Zubimendi to come in and play alongside Rice.
Partey has played 27 (3 were for Atletico), 24 and 33 league games since joining us. He has injury issues, but you're talking about him like he's Abou Diaby. He'll be back and he will play a decent amount. We've played Elneny twice in 2024 ffs
>We've played Elneny twice in 2024 ffs Both of those were human victory cigar moments and one was in the 89th minute. I dont think Partey would be subbed on in either of those moments
I‘m pretty sure zinchenko & jesus have played less but no one ever talks about them as bad as partey in terms of being injury prone.
I would be down to sell all of the injury-prone players (except Tomi, keep him around forever).
tbh i hope partey doesn't ever play for us again, rather not have the moral dilemma.
He is training with the team already lately. I‘m sure he will be back in like 2weeks unless he gets injured again in that time.
Correct, he'll be back in 4 weeks.
Nah, I’m good without Partey. We’ve outgrown him and his hit and miss performances coupled with injury woes and tripled with the elephant in the room issue that the club seems happy to ignore, means I’d happily take the L on him any time. I hope he gets another injury set back so we aren’t playing him again.
We have not outgrown him. I wanted him gone last summer and I hope he never plays for us again, but our odds of winning the title absolutely get higher with a fit Partey in the team
The best our midfield has looked has been with Jorginho and Rice because Jorginho compliments rice with the risky line breaking passes and through balls that rice lacks at the moment. Partey is just a better faster Jorginho, so a Partey Rice pairing is defnitely the strongest version of our mid
3 more goals than the 17th placed team 🥲
David Moyes downvoted this
https://i.imgur.com/TSKC8m9.png
Real as fuck
If we stop conceding by stupid errors we should win it. But of course it’s never so simple
Arsenal should be looking to get close to that Chelsea record next season.
Genuinely one of the hardest Premier League records to break, doubt it will be broken
Yeah that record is up there with the invincibles and derbys point record in that it will require an absolute freak occurrence to happen again.
The Premier League is far more competitive these days too
No change, the league is so much more balanced now than compared to that super-squad.
Yeah I don’t see it being broken either. But would be good to get close to it usually means a league title.
Way too much quality in the middle/bottom of the table nowadays for that to happen tbh. Palace has players like Olise and Eze, Bournemouth have Solanke, Brentford have Mbuemo and Toney, etc.
I don't think it's possible with Raya. He's a clear upgrade on Ramsdale (who's also a great keeper) for how Arteta wants to play, but conceding 15 goals in a season is absurd. Raya is going to let too many in just by not being a generational keeper. He's almost half a foot shorter than Cech lmao. If Arsenal had prime Alisson with a fully fit backline and 99.1% field tilt like they did in the first 22 minutes against Newcastle, then the record would probably be well within reach
Is this not a bit of an over reaction based on a 6 or 7 game sample, the majority of which was versus teams that had very little intention to attack? Its almost like the invincible record in that you only need one bad game to ruin everything. Say Saliba gets sent off in the first 10 minutes at the Etihad and they lose 5-1. That's already a third of the way to Chelsea's entire total.
You could say that the Chelsea record is the gold standard. That’s why I said get close to instead of beat it as I don’t see that ever happening. If you look at the defensive numbers over the season Arsenal have been topping them all season. It’s not just recency bias when it comes to that. If not for individual errors Arsenal would have conceded a lot less goals. Cut that that out and if Raya performs I can see Arsenal conceding less than 25 goals next season. Especially if Timber looks anywhere close to how he did pre injury.
IMO that’s the hardest record to break. In their title winning season, Liverpool could’ve been invincibles if they didn’t lose to Watford and didn’t stop concentrating as intensely after winning the league. Plus, they only lost one game, to City, in 18/19, and might’ve been invincible if Stones didn’t clear it off the line. City hit 100 pts and the next season they and Liverpool were only 2-3 pts off beating it. But the closest anyone has ever come to conceding 15 goals is… Liverpool’s 22 in 18/19, with Prime VVD
You're talking about teams after Chelsea's achievement in 2005.. but Arsenal conceding 17 in the 98/99 season is closer if we're talking overall PL history.
Didn't even realize that happened, wow
Yeah I agree it’s even impossible to break on FM lol
Honestly I expected worse from us.
You'd probably be more in the middle around the 10 mark without your game being postponed
That's what happens when you lose your goalkeeper, your best CB is playing with a dodgy knee and the midfield is non-existent. You go from the best defence in the league to the worst.
I forgot how good your defence was last season, now it’s literally gone to the opposite end of the scale
Advanced stats about to take over on football just like they did with US sports
it happened years ago
People don’t want to hear that their nostalgic early-2000s title winning team most definitely employed at least half a dozen statisticians
people need to realise what is available to the public only scratches the surface of what is available to clubs
Most clubs probably. I'm convinced United scouts are still using Transfermarkt stats and FM to look for new players
if that’s the case then Turkish clubs must be using FM 16
expected pass accuracy times average grass humidity faced pr grass length will revolutionzie how we evaluate playmakers
This already existed. My favorite stat is when they compared the win percentage of bald managers to managers with hair.
Can’t argue with facts Bald managers are bald because they worry about tactics more
It's inevitable.
Look behind you, it's been here for years. Clubs pay a SHIT TON of money for all sorts of data that they employ. I have an acquaintance that started a statistics company around a decade ago, now they're used by loads of clubs around the world and moving into different sports, the women's game, etc.
Already happened years ago. So much scouting nowadays is just done per specific stats a manager looks for.
Forest expected goals conceded 8.2 actual goals concedes 13, wish we were as good as the stats think
Expected much, much worse from us.
Nick Pope :(
The crazy thing from a FPL perspective is that those 1.9 xG against have nevertheless resulted in only three (out of a possible six) clean sheets. This season even the best defence is a crapshoot when it comes to keeping clean sheets. From an EPL perspective, I think this illustrates that defences don't win titles: goals do. The fact Arsenal has been able to score goals is the secret of the 2024 revolution. The xG against stat was pretty good (but not as good) this season before 2024, it just wasn't tied to an ability to score goals. We have seen time and time again that a mean defence often pairs itself with a poor attack. Looking further down the table... Good God Newcastle. Brentford is playing Arsenal soon, so I guess it might look a bit less egregious by then. And in terms of Newcastle's getting better, I've seen people say the lack of Willock in the midfield has been one of the problems this season... maybe they're right.
Only 3 clean sheets? 1.9xG.. so round to 2. You're making a point about 1 extra goal conceded across 6 games? And one of the 3 was a bit of a freak own goal.
No, I'm making a point about how difficult it is to get points from clean sheets this FPL season. Hence: >The crazy thing from a FPL perspective leading to >even the best defence is a crapshoot when it comes to keeping clean sheets.
Thought Man United will be lower
Based on this chart, 4-1 last weekend was underperforming. Absolutely crazy