Why Gunners’ Average Open Play xG is Music to the Ears of Liverpool

After 15 games of the 2024/25 Premier League season, Arsenal’s title chances appear to be slipping away. The Gunners’ frustrating 1-1 draw at London neighbours Fulham means the Gunners are six points adrift of league leaders Liverpool, who now have a game in-hand following the postponement of their Merseyside derby at Everton due to the arrival of Storm Darragh.

Assuming the Reds’ clash with the Toffees goes with the form book, Arsenal will be nine points adrift of top spot, with just over 20 games remaining. This means Mikel Arteta’s side will need to overhaul the Reds by an average of 0.5 points per game just to get back to parity. This is something which seems unlikely considering Arne Slot’s troops are averaging 2.5 points per game right now.

The major sportsbooks would appear to agree. Liverpool are currently priced at -154 with Betano, a licensed operator allowing users to bet in Nigeria on the EPL, with the Gunners priced as +250 second favourites. Bizarrely, Chelsea are two points ahead of Arsenal but are priced as lengthy +900 third favourites.

Set pieces have become a vital source of goals for Arsenal

In Arsenal’s 1-1 draw at Fulham, the Gunners got out of jail free again with another set piece goal. Fulham had taken an early lead before Arsenal levelled from a corner kick routine straight off the training ground. Declan Rice’s corner kick was glanced on by Kai Havertz, with William Saliba arriving to tap the ball home. Arsenal’s set-piece game has come on leaps and bounds in recent years since the arrival of full-time set-piece coach, Nicolas Jover, from Manchester City.

It’s led to some eyebrow-raising comparisons between Arteta’s Arsenal and that of Stoke City under former boss, Tony Pulis. Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue with the cold, hard data. Their equaliser at Craven Cottage was the 23^rd goal scored from a corner kick since the start of the 2023/24 season. No other team in Europe’s top-flight divisions have achieved such a record.

43-year-old Jover is widely regarded as one of the finest set-piece coaches on the planet. After spending seven years working as a video analyst for French Ligue 1 side Montpellier, Jover then spent time with the Croatian national team before moving into the Premier League with Brentford, before a two-year stint with Manchester City. His time at Montpellier established him on the football map, playing his part in the club’s Ligue 1 title success in 2011-12.

Are they now too reliant on set plays?

Although Arteta said it was a “big compliment” for Arsenal’s set-piece prowess to be compared with Stoke City in their top-flight pomp. However, it’s the team’s open play xG which appears to be creating cause for concern.

For fans less familiar with open play xG, this equates to the chances created by a team excluding those made from set plays. At Craven Cottage, Arsenal mustered less than a third-of-a-goal (0.3 xG) from open play. This was their second-lowest open play xG total of the season.

Taking a longer-term view, Arsenal’s open play xG figure for the 2024-25 season thus far is 15.9 goals. This positions them as having the tenth-best creative output from open play. Only Everton, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest have scored a greater percentage of their goals from set pieces.

Is this a concern for Arteta? It should be. Although it’s great to have variety and dangerous options at set plays, chance creation in open play should be the bread-and-butter of any title-chasing side.

It’s true that the Gunners have missed the creative talents of Martin Odegaard for much of the season to date. With the Norwegian playmaker now back in action, we may see this figure steadily improve – and it absolutely has to if they are to make inroads on Liverpool’s healthy lead at the summit.