There may still be some doubt about Arsenal having the fire power to consistently score enough goals to challenge for the Premier League title this season, whether that is fair or not, but apart from that the Gunners are showing all over the pitch that we are extremely strong.
There are a few Arsenal stats going around the football media at the minute that should have every Gooner excited and optimistic about the season ahead and although statistics do not tell the whole story by any means, they are generally a pretty good indicator.
So it is interesting to see that the stats website Squawka.com has the Gunners as the top ranked Premier League team, based on our all round performance in attack, defence and possession. Our score of over 2000 is way more than almost every other, with Man City the only team close on 1,921 in second place. And that table showed the situation after four games so we will almost certainly have incresed our lead at the top.
The website also shows that in Francis Coquelin, Arsenal have the highest rated defensive midfielder in the Premier League. The player table shows the Frenchman having won more tackles and take ons than any other and with a better percentage rate of success, despite the fact that he has played around 70 minutes less than any other player in the top 10. And just to show that Wenger may have known exactly what he was doing in the transfer market, Schneiderlin is way down in 18th place.
Finally we can look at the stats from the Stoke game on the creative side of things. While Santi Cazorla´s great game produced an amazing 90 percent pass success rate, six chances, six take ons and four shots, which keeps him top of the creative charts, he was outdone on the day by Mesut Ozil who managed to create a whopping eight chances even though he was subbed off.
That was the third clean sheet in a row as well and with Alexis, Walcott and Giroud having very good scoring records, apart from this season so far, you would have to say that Arsenal look well set to challenge for the title. Who needs signings?
It wouldn’t be easy but we just got to have belief keeping on winning and grinding out results to achieve this! Coyg!
I guess i know why Barca wants Leicester’s “Mahrez”……… The boy can dribbLe and he knows what to do with the ball
I said he can be a real good player if he improves his finishing. I said this after Leicester last visited the Emirates, and were unlucky not to get anything from that game.
If you look at his dribble then compare it to our ‘fast players’ Bellerin is the only one that can driible like Mahrez. Then it’s Sanchez. Walcott never dribbles, Chamberlain does it sometimes.
Squawka stat. don’t win you title but your position on the league table by the end of the last round of matches. So, our boys should keep winning games rather that looking at Squawka statistics. Sink Chelsea to relegation zone by the weekend and hand me a happy weekend. Support the team. The transfer period is over and despite whatever disappointment our team is our team. My support.
Yeah, not over the heels yet men, it’s just five games.
Maybe wenger wants to prove his gamble with his own team can win the epl title,
for me I don’t mind with that.
Maybe if that happened, he thoughts his 11 year EPL title loss will be forgiven.
But I DOUBT it will happen.
11 year EPL title loss? So you expected Wenger to win the league when we could not afford to sign big names? You forget that every new season Wenger had to rebuild our squad because two of our key players had left. If you are fair, you should only judge Wenger from 2013 onwards.
WeLdone Leicester!………that was a great comeback in so short a time!
Leicester city has gone into 2nd place, and are proving to be a difficult team to beat and not to be taken lightly when facing!
Amazing stats show Malmo will win the champions league
see how ironic that is. why talking stats, other than result itself.
Arsenal have healthy relationship with stats, yet things dont turn up the way we want them to be.
Coquelin is a great dm but still far away from being a top player. His all around game must still improve a lot.
According to stats Ramsey is a good winger but in reality he is awfull and should not be playing there.
Stats do mean nothing when the score result is miserable. How many chances to we create per game? How many of them do we convert into goals? These are the sole stats we need to look at and worry about. Seriously. Arsenal fans are the most childish fans in the world. One games we lose. This team suxxx. The other one we win. We will end up being champions. Pathetic i say.
I don’t get the rationale behind the argument of Coquelin “must develop a lot”. In my view, he does the job perfectly that is required of him. He DOES NOT need to be a playmaker. His job is simply to win the ball with good tackles and recycle it to Cazorla, Ozil or Ramsey which is exactly what he does. He is one of the best DM’s in the league at the moment. His objective is to be the best tackler in the team, not the best passer. Basic simple passes that allow the team to keep possession are good enough. No point in Coquelin aiming to become a Fabregas a losing his bread and butter good tackling abilities ending up being a Jack-of-all-trades. I would be over the moon if he just keeps playing like this consistently for the whole season.
Two things that are lacking at the moment are good finishing and ambition of shooting from outside the box. Defensively in the earlier games, we have tended to lose concentration after large periods of possession. These aspects can all can be improved IMHO despite us having no transfer activity. All this talk of title or the is too hyperbolic. Our aim should be improving our gameplay, not making errors that have cost us in the past and let the table do the talking. Our players tend to talk WAY too much. Its good to be confident but show that confidence on the pitch and results, not just media interviews.
Well if you hear people compare him to Viera out of nowhere then you would guess why i say that he still needs to improve. You are exaggerating with the Fabregas remarks. I dont want to think of him as a jack of all trades, but i want him to improve his skills, so when we face good teams ( not the ones who park the buss), that he will be eable to cope with the pressure.
Reaction, passing, and close controll he must still work on if he wants to aim more then simple being a policeman.
Vieira*
I think ok, we will wait end of season for end result, if not good, yeah just wait as long as there is change in mangement. hem……….
I once said i was missing those articles linking us with the title 🙂
If we win it, then I’ll withdraw for the time being all criticism levelled at Wenger so far this season. But I very much doubt this will happen. However in the meantime I’ll ask you to keep dreaming and do wish all your dreams to come true.
I wouldn’t Say this just yet, if we can win out next game with Chelsea then we are serious contenders for the title. To be honest I would be happy with a draw as Chelsea would do anything to win the match
If somehow we keep a clean sheet against Chelsea next week, Petr Cech will break the record for Premier League clean sheets. A fitting place to do it.
Nope. Won’t happen
Maybe in our dreams
4th place probably, maybe 3rd at the most.
I was thinking more 2nd/3rd.
one table is enough. there is no need to look at the squaqa table when we have the premier league table and it says we are 4th. period. focus on that.!!
Against Zagreb, I would field (minding the Chelsea game 3 days later):
— ————— Cech
Debuchy – Chambers – Gabriel – Gibbs
——— Ramsey – Coquelin/Arteta
—– OX – Özil – Sanchez
———— Giroud
and against Chelsea:
———- Cech
Bellerin – Gabriel – Koscielny – Monreal
——— Coquelin – Cazorla
Walcott – Özil – Sanchez
——– Giroud
What do you think? Only about 4 changes, still would mean majority of the players against Zagreb are regular starters but still would give a breather for our fullbacks, Cazorla/Özil and Walcott.
yep gd line up but …
coquelin benched for arteta in zagreb- hes vital for chelsea
theo plays right wing in zagreb
ox plays right wing for chelsea game
One thing I doubted for Coquelin is whether he can perform in big games or not. And my answer is yes. Supporting fact – he did his job efficiently against City, United, Chelsea twice, Liverpool twice and all the other important games.
Chambers needs to improve asap
Bellerin can be a winger. In fact I think he is the most productive player in terms of attack on our right side. Better than Walcott, Ox, Ramsey or Welbeck. He runs into the box with the ball and he is our RB. Even our wingers don’t do that often enough.
Pls what has claudio ranieri eaten. Is he back with anger or what. Please who is in that team self. I just cnt imagine.
The only thing standing between this team and real success this term, is belief. Our game against chelsea is going to lay down a marker if we win it and despite chelsea having a bad run in the league, i am really worried as we have not beaten a moureen managed team in the league before. As a fan It is affecting me psychologically how much more the players and then wenger? We are really going to need everything we got in this game and not let maureen take the advantage of thinking we need the winning more. we can atleast park the bus for this odd moment and beat maureen to his own game. we can do with incisive counter attacking game plan and practice the whole week learning how to shoot on sight. am sure if it wasn’t for the ox’s shot against newcastle, we just mite not have scored…to me we need precision, good finishing and getting stuck in to nick this one past chelsea. Hoping for a good week and good results as long as we do the right things in the games…rotation has to also be a key in these games.
PS champions league is back baby. gotta love them nites