With Arsenal sitting in a lowly 8th position in the Premier League table and with us playing catch up to Borussia Dortmund in our Champions League group and having been knocked out of the Capital One Cup by Southampton, you might think it strange for me to say that Arsenal have excelled at anything so far this season, but as a tactical stats report on Arsenal.com shows, we certainly have. But there are also areas in which we need to improve to start winning games.
The report shows that the Gunners have by far the best average possession in the Premier League and that only PSG, Barcelona and Bayern Munich have more out of the top five leagues in Europe. On it’s own, of course, possession does not win you a football match, but when you see that we also have the highest number of successful through balls per game as well as the most successful dribbles.
And with Mikel Arteta as the most accurate passer and Laurent Koscielny the best defensive interceptor, you wonder why Arsenal have not done better. To put it simply, we just need to improve a little at both ends of the pitch. A few defensive slips, including penalties against Chelsea and the Saints, have cost us dearly, but an increasingly settled back four and getting our injured central midfielders back should remedy that.
Arsenal have not scored as many goals as our possession and creation have deserved, but Welbeck is improving all the time, Alexis is getting more used to the BPL and with Walcott coming back as well as Podolski and Campbell pushing for a place, you would expect us to start banging a lot more in. Also, we have missed the regular goals that Ramsey was getting last season and the Welshman is close to a comeback. So the small details should be fixed soon.
Then there is the fact that we have had a tough start to the season after a disrupted pre-season and plenty of injury problems. Hopefully that is behind us now and the next few months should be a much happier time for Arsenal fans. What do you guys think?
Consistency is the “key”! I just hope the gunners can go from strength to strength throughout the season, starting with victory over hull city at the weekend, and following it up with more wins, but as i said consistency is the key towards achieving this! Coyg
i appreciate the fact that you add “COYG” to all of your comments.
If any crutically watches our game, that posession is always in our own half amongest per,koscielney, chambers, some back passes to the keeper, gibbs adn may b to the DM n’ trust me this can’t win us games. Get that solid DM and give the attackers freedom to do their thing then complaints like Ozill doesn’t truck back 2defend will cease.
A quality DM would have helped our situation so much at the start of the season, it would have given us that extra steel that is need to “break up” the opposition’s play! Kondogdia would have done a decent job of this! Coyg!
Kondogdia, Pogba , Diaby and etc…..are not DMs…..
What a difference a couple more signings could have made. A pacey strong cb to pair with kos and a commanding dm player and we’d be in a great position. Walcott and gnabry coming up will help give us more up top. Agree re kondogbia, watched him in the Emirates cup and was really impressed with him before I knew who he was.
We should have beaten
Leicester and Spurs and be
on 14 pts in 2nd = by now.
11 teams 5 points from second.
But we have a soft schedule till March
so I expect a run of success now.
3rd or fourth at Xmas.
yes. right now we cannot settle for losses or draws. We gotta keep our mind on the wins and the wins on our mind.
Useless stats
Useless comment
I think this Hull City match will be an example of how well we will do in these upcoming months. We beat that team 3x in one season, which is difficult sometimes. And you know they’re still bitter about that FA Cup. If we can get a good, clean-sheeted victory against them this Saturday, I think we will be able to hang tough for the next few months.
dont be suprise we struggle to beat Hull…..past season stats proven
1. Play Ozil or Cazorla in number 10 spot
2. January by Khedira, Kondogbia or Carvalho
3. BuY Top Defender
4. Decide what we want to do with Podolski and Campbell
5. Buy a top forward like Cavani, Benzema, Reus, Draxler
We can have a real good run and build some steam to press on in the new year, we still have players who can provide a lot of threat , even with the many injuries and i am hoping to see the integration of our young talents in the squad to carry us to january even over the line if necessary .
The only problem i see is our RIDICULOUS manager continue sabotaging the team by not playing individuals in their proper position or not playing them at all
Too many things need to be fixed right now: Tactics, formation, injuries WTF?
Most of the problems fall squarely at Wenger’s feet, especially the tinkering with players positions and putting them off their game.
Ramsey and Ozil are the 2 most glaring examples at present.
Also formations, what is with this 4-1-4-1 nonsense.
even 4-3-2-1 was better but even that fell apart against teams who pressed us and 4-4-2 would have been best (see FA Cup).