Arsenal’s second-half performances should worry you reckons journalist

Arsenal has been fast starters in their matches this season, as they always take the game to the opposition from the first minute.

However, over time, they have dropped off their intensity and productivity in the second half, which should worry their fans.

Daniel Matthews for Mailonline has watched them for much of this term and reveals some damning stats from their first and second-half performances.

He wrote:

“Across their first 11 Premier League matches, interesting trends have developed between Arsenal’s first and second-half performances. Either side of half-time, they are producing a similar number of shots (88 v 82), goals (13 v 12) and taking chances with near-identical efficiency (14.7 per cent shot conversion rate v 14.6).

“At the back, however, Arsenal are conceding more shots (39 v 54), more goals (3 v 8) and clearer chances after the break as opponents go in search of an equaliser.”

Just Arsenal Opinion

There have been calls for Mikel Arteta to rest some of his players in recent weeks and this could be a good reason for the Spaniard to do so.

If teams realise we have less energy and productivity in the second half of matches, that could spur them to attack us relentlessly in the game’s final minutes.

It seems Leeds United knew about this vulnerability in our fixture because they piled on the pressure in that second half and didn’t deserve to lose.

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4 Comments

  1. It could also be us naturally falling back to hold onto a lead. We have looked a little leggy lately, or mentally fatigued, so he is right to a degree

    We have the youngest team in the league, so I reckon our first team can go longer without rest than most other first teams if not every other first team. That is the message we should send to our players, that we’ve got the energy to burn thanks to our youthful setup, as we’ve planned for this

  2. The strange thing is that the player who’s probably the oldest in the side is the one who keeps going like the Duracell bunny. Xhaka.

    It looks different to the pre-season and early season matches where we had teams blown away. I’m not yet convinced that it’s fatigue though – not the kind from playing too much anyway…

    I think opponents have realised that this side can rip them apart in a fair fight, so they make it an arm wrestle. Jesus has had some pretty shoddy treatment of late and referees are doing very little about it.

    A lot of the problems in football are down to weak refereeing IMHO.

    1. Well said, Xhaka plays virtually every game and covers a lot of ground in the midfield.

      Alexis Sachez was a beast who rarely if ever suffered from fatigue.

      Arteta asks a lot of the players and expects intensity on both sides of the ball. Without rest or substitutions, it takes a toll over a period of time.

      We can see the fatigue set in during the latter parts of the 2nd half. Stamina and fitness, too many minutes, maintaining high levels during a game, they are human not machines and anyone will fade given time.

    2. As to your last line, its true that refs seem to have stopped blowing up for quite bad fouls in general. There has been a direction, from above, to refs to keep thegame flowing and give fewer fouls.
      (Our game at SAINTS WAS A PRIME EXAMPLE AND JESUS WAS PRACTICALLY MAIMED BY THEIR CB, WITHOUT ANY REAL PROTECTION OR PUNISHMENT FOR THE DEFENDER CARRYING OUT GBH, GROSS BODILY HARM!)
      About our game today, I thought we made a major mistake in simply trying to keep the ball without, but any REAL intent to score, esp in thr first half.
      THE SECOND HALF WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE DIFFICULT FOR US WHEN WE FAILED TO SCORE OR EVEN HAVE AREAL GO AT DOING SO BEFORE HALF TIME. And so it proved.

      The only consolation is that we, apparently, lost no player to injury.
      MARTINELLI HAD, BY A LONG WAY, HIS WORST AND ALMOST INVISIBLE GAME THIS SEASON , WHICH CERTAINLY DID NOT HELP.

      Back to my comments about refs not giving clear fouls; that is crazy and for two main reasons.

      Firstly, players are being hacked down and becoming angry at the refs not blowing. There has been a definite and VERY noticeable change in laxity of penalising definite fouls, thus making players who are fouled, angry, frustrated and many are losing any respect they may have had for refs in general.
      This does the cause of refs no good, so it is a huge mistake to let so many fouls and also pens go unpunished.

      Secondly, apart from being the wrong thing to do, not punishing fouls means fans start regularly calling refs “cheats”!

      Though I do not agree with that view, I do understand it, as inconsistency – and VAR makes inconsistency worse , not better, (as at one time, many fondly, but naively, imagined it would) – makes refs reputations as being generally incompetent, widely accepted as being true.

      I share the view that they almost ALL ARE INCOMPETENT.

      Ref standards in todays era are, by a distance, the worst I can recall in over 67 years actively watching both our team and English football in general. Undermining refs necessary authority, through the stupid introduction of harmful VAR has done immense damage to refs standing and its introduction has, IMO, opened a Pandora’s box which will make it next to impossible for refs to ever again win widespread and necessary respect from fans, players managers et al!

      VAR has been a disasster, though I AM IN A SMALL MINORITY OF GOONERS WHO WILL SAY SO.

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