Why Everybody's WRONG About Arsenal

Hello there everybody, my name is Adam Cleary, you are watching 442. Arsenal have just demolished Sheffield United and I, me personally, have had enough. On an almost weekly basis this year, Arsenal have turned up to a game of football, produced a complete attacking performance, given their opponents virtually nothing, going the other way and in the media or on television, somebody says something like, ah that other team just didn't really turn up today. But no, I've had enough of people talking down this Arsenal team. They are beating the teams at the top, they are beating the teams at the bottom, they are beating everybody in between and it's not because all of these sides simply aren't turning up, it is because from back to front, they are the most complete side in the Premier League right now. Alright, so this was the Arsenal side you got against Sheffield United last night and to quote Tom York, no alarms and no surprises. Now just before we get into all of this, if you are watching this video and you are an Arsenal fan, I, me personally, have just returned from a trip to Lake Como and oh it's a really hard life where amongst other things, we sat down with Cesc Fabregas. Not to jinx it before I edit it, but it's probably the single best thing we've ever made and he is a massive, massive part of the story we're trying to tell over there, so if you don't want to miss that, please do consider subscribing to us here on 442 and you'll see it when it exists. Anyway though, Arsenal versus Sheffield United, this was the team and they absolutely batted them. They were 5-0 up inside 38 minutes, had 81% of the ball and denied Sheffield United so much as a single shot on target. Now while I'm not saying that people aren't praising this Arsenal side for the things they're doing well, there was still an undertone last night in all the coverage and everything that's been published today that, alright that's good but it is only Sheffield United. But it's not only Sheffield United, it's every single Premier League game that Arsenal have played this year. If we measure their dominance in that game last night in terms of the amount of chances that the opposition were able to have and how good those chances were, then you can see they let Sheffield United have absolutely nothing. But then if we just flesh this right out to the start of the year, this is a staggering, staggering consistent. There's a whopping three shots on target for both Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest right at the start of the year but since then it's become an increasingly meagre feast. And yes these numbers aren't exactly astonishing when they're next to names like Burnley or Sheffield United but just take Newcastle and West Ham. They're two teams in the hunt for European football this season and while they've been up and down, they certainly are capable of scoring goals. And I presume you don't need me to tell you that Liverpool are also quite good and that just nobody ever restricts them to that few chances or that few good chances ever. And I won't dwell on this too long because I know a lot of people don't care about XG and think it's a bit of a weird stat but it is useful for measuring like quality of chance although obviously guarantees you absolutely nothing. Liverpool this season average about 2.2, 2.3 XG every single game. They're always going to create enough chances to get over two goals. Played Arsenal in that game, they made chances worth 0.3 XG. Like I can see why people were like oh really bad day at the office for Jurgen Klopp there but when Arsenal do this to every team they play, you've got to start to look at that and think actually it's not that they're just having a bad game, it's that they're being made to have a bad game. So that then does beg the question, how do Arsenal make all these teams have a bad game? And the answer is in loads of different ways. Mikel Arteta is changing this team's approach on an almost game by game basis and getting it absolutely bang on. So I'll show you what I mean right. This is Arsenal's average positions across the 90 minutes against Sheffield United and you can see pretty much a team in total dominance of that map. They're playing almost the entire game in the opposition's half and if you look over this side you can see Martinelli, Rice, Havertz and even Odegaard over here are all pushed really far forward. And then there's Bakayo Saka who was pretty much just on holiday in this part of the pitch against their left back. It was incredibly dominant, they absolutely battered them with it but you can see just by looking at it, it's like picture perfect example of a 4-3-3 with a striker who sort of drops away from the front line to let everybody else run into that space. Good job. But this is the team's average positions against Newcastle United and despite it being the exact same players, it's no longer a picture perfect 4-3-3. There's something very different going on. They're still pushed up really high, we've got Jorginho in sort of the pivot role here but Saka's actually playing a lot more in field and Odegaard seems to be getting into the space that's leaving. In fact between Odegaard, Rice and Havertz, they all seem to be playing in this one pocket of space, almost like there was a big gap between Newcastle's midfield and defence that they all thought they needed to be in. If you go back and you watch how Arsenal were creating chances in those two games, it tells that kind of story. Like this is the opening goal against Sheffield United, you can see the 2-8s are acting as runners supporting the centre forward, there's width being provided by the wide attack and then you've got the rest of defence pushed right up. Because of the lack of space in behind, they're all pretty much on a direct line here and what they're going to do is use Jorginho, who's sitting off all of them, to sort of bounce a pass into the little bit of space and that is exactly what they do. Saka passes Jorginho, he gets him in and then they all go from being on this same line. You probably have to watch this several times looped over and over but the three players then in the box, who are potentially an option here, all make very different movements. Martin Odegaard faints to go towards the near post but then pulls off to the penalty spot for a cutback. Declan Rice goes across his marker trying to get in at the near post and Kai Havertz dummies a little run and then goes to the back. Do we think, my friends, that of the three options those three players had in that scenario, it is just a coincidence that they all happen to pick a different one? But then if you go back to the Newcastle game, you don't see that shape at all because Newcastle were playing far further up the pitch, there was no need to press everybody up, so instead we've got Odegaard here, Havertz and Rice here, sitting off Newcastle's defensive line but right behind their midfielders. So instead of waiting for that little bounce pass to try and get them in behind Newcastle's defence, they're waiting for the midfield to try and press up onto him here or White here or Kivio here so they could get in that gap instead. But to quote Brian Butterfield, that's still not all. This is the average positions against Sheffield United, yep good you've seen that. This is the positions against Newcastle United, yep good you've seen that. And this, this is the average positions against Liverpool. Again, if you are a subscriber to this channel, you've heard me use the term box midfield so many times over the past 12 months, I think I'm going to go insane every time I say it, but there is a picture-perfect box midfield in this game. And barring one change, which was Zinchenko for Kivio, it is the exact same starting XI again, and this time they're trying to get men round the ball in the centre of the pitch to offset Liverpool's ability to keep possession. And look, here it is, live and in living colour. Sometimes they were having Havertz drop back to sort of form the point of it with Urdegaard, or sometimes they were having White invert from the right-hand side so Havertz could stay high and they could build it that way, but this was something they could just do on a whim. So far, in 2024, Arsenal have turned up to every single Premier League game knowing exactly what they need to do to maximise their chances of getting a good result and doing it really effectively. And they are doing it so effectively that, like, not only have they scored, I want to say, 31 goals in seven matches, they have limited their opponents to two goals from 2.1 xG. Just for comparison here, the next lowest xG over the same number of games, right, is, unsurprisingly, Manchester City, and that is over 7 xG. But why does this xG stuff matter so much? Like, I never normally talk about it in videos because I know some people don't like it as a stat and some people do. Why am I focusing on it here? Well, it's because that single stat, more than I think any other single bit of information, suggests to me that Arsenal might actually win this league. So look, if you're just, if you're not an xG person, right, just go with me on this for a couple of minutes. This is the xG against table in the Premier League, the very top of it. Obviously, no surprise whatsoever, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Arsenal, the three best teams by a mile in this division, have the lowest xG conceded both in total and per 90 minutes this season. But even though all three of those numbers are incredibly good and probably good enough to win you a Premier League, Arsenal's is significantly better than both Liverpool's and Manchester City's. Like, it's nearly half what Liverpool's is. And of course, while that is just a made-up stat that is completely for nerds, I understand it's borne out in the actual evidence as well, because Arsenal have conceded the fewest number of goals. Therefore, and I am going somewhere with this, if you put those two bits of information together, you can confidently say that Arsenal probably are the best defensive team in this league. They're controlling games so well that it's not just that their opponents keep missing chances and they're getting let off, they're not even letting them have good chances full stop, so they're not conceding. Now, this might look a little bit crowded and busy, but I'm just going to bring up the final Premier League standings from, like, quite a lot of recent years. And I'm just going to highlight here one team from every season. Now, okay, you're looking at that and you're going, Adam, you've just simply highlighted the Premier League champions from all of those seasons. And yes, that is true. I have done that. But what I've also highlighted here is the team that conceded the fewest number of goals. Not necessarily the team that scored the most number of goals. You will note here in particular, Man City actually outscored Liverpool by nearly 20 goals and still didn't win the league that year. Across all of these seasons, the team that has defended best, that has been able to restrict their opponent to the fewest number of chances, has been the team that has won the league. And right now, it isn't that Arsenal are slightly better than Liverpool or Manchester City at doing this, or that they're just shading them on these numbers. They are miles out in front at doing this. And just if I might editorialise slightly here, I'm not an Arsenal fan by any stretch of the imagination. It makes no difference to me whatsoever whether it's them or it's Liverpool or Manchester City. I both like and dislike those clubs very equally. But I was watching that Sheffield United game and the way they just exploded out of the traps in the first couple of minutes, how they were just unrelenting, how they were getting goals from all areas of the pitch, how they had so many different options, so many different ideas for how they were going to hurt this side. And I just thought, surely, shoot, in a fair and just universe, surely that is the team that wins a league. But anyway, that's enough for me. I'm sure you've got plenty of things to be getting on with today. If you did enjoy this video in any way, shape or form, please do consider subscribing to us here on 442. It's the one metric that is really, really important for us. So if you would like to watch any of this in future, please do. Elsewhere, you get me on all of the socials at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y. The 442 socials are in the corner of the video. This is the old magazine now. I have to go get the new one. It's got Trent Alexander-Arnold on the cover and is dead good, I do say so myself. So go and buy either of those if you spot them when you're out and about. Anyway, as ever, thank you very much for watching. Sincere apologies to Arsenal fans for the fact I have now almost certainly put some kind of Vicious Curse on them. That means the next three games are going to be boring nil nils. Sorry about that. But until next time, I just, I just, I just think they can do it and I would just like them to do it. And that's my truth. Goodbye.