What Arsenal need to become unstoppable

Arsenal are top of the league and it's all because of how good they are defensively. They have the best record of anyone in the league. No one's able to take shots against them and that's why their expected goals against is so low. They don't concede goals because they don't concede chances. But did you know that Arsenal have also made the most errors leading to goals of any team in the league? Errors like this against Luton. Two errors against Luton but more on that later. Because there is a secret defensive weakness that Arsenal have that I've discovered which Because what I wanted to do with this video is work out how Arsenal can eliminate those errors and become unstoppable. They're so close. Their record is amazing. If they cut out the errors, their numbers would be more than the human mind can comprehend. But let's start with those errors because Opta tells us that David Raya is the chief error maker. He's made two errors that led directly to goals and they were both against Luton. One was a corner. You may have seen a glimpse of that earlier. Another one was a goal that the ball just went through him like a ghost, right? So that's two of the errors. But there's far more you can see from Arsenal that are error-like if you go through some of the goals they conceded so far this season. For example, do you remember when Michailo Mudric lobbed the ball over Raya's head from the side of the penalty area from over here? Now you might think that was lucky. I wasn't sure if Mudric meant it. But he said after the game that Chelsea's goalkeeper coach had told him to look for this space over Raya's head because he always goes aggressively to the front post. Here's another example of it against Newcastle. Really aggressive at the front post, leaving most of the goal open. He always does this. And this resulted in the goal as well. The ball gets hooked over his head. There's a bit of a stromash here. Newcastle scored their controversial winning goal in that game. And here's another example from a near post, but the ball's low this time, against Spurs, where David Raya comes really aggressive to his near post and it's cut across. So if you put the ball into this part of the goal, there's a lot more space to put the ball into. And I wonder, why does David Raya do this? And I think it's because if you go aggressive here, it sort of limits your options at this part of the pitch. And it means that if the ball normally has to go high, there's more time to scurry across your goal and stop it. Maybe that's why. I don't know. What I do know for certain is that these, these examples I've given you, they are not errors. So they don't count as errors, even though they've left this bit here. Because they're by design, but they are part of what's contributed to the other team's scoring. What is definitely an error is when David Raya passes straight to your player. So here's Cole Palmer about to step across and win this ball for David Raya. That counts as an error leading to a shot. And this is a really high value expected goal shot as well. So you imagine the error hadn't occurred passing straight to Palmer. Well, then their expected goals number against would be even better. They'd look even better defensively. But these errors will always occur for a team like Arsenal because they have all of the ball all of the time. Their average possession in the league this season is 61.15%, which puts them in the top three. But they regularly completely dominate games. You see these are teams they've played against and how much possession they've had. Nottingham Forest opened the game this season, 78%. We've got 74% against Everson, 71% against Fulham. And when they lose the ball, they win it back high immediately as well. So you have more of the ball, of course, you commit more errors. But Arteta has already shaped his Arsenal team this season to try and stop or minimize these mistakes from occurring in the first place. Trying to minimize risk. So what you had against Luton, for example, are lots and lots of big lads. You've got Kibiorg, Gabriel, Saliba, White, Declan Rice, Havertz. These are all big players. So when you're defending corners or defending the box, you've got lots of big lads. And in build up, everything is really measured and controlled to minimize risk. So when they build up from the back, you'll have them playing short mostly. But you'll have maybe the fullback converts. We all know how they play. But basically, everything tends to go really slow. They're always shown out wide. Lots of passing maps. You'll see Arsenal's ball progression from the back goes wide because teams try and press them in a 4-4-2 like this. There's no way playing through the middle. They're not that good at playing through the middle this season. Rice isn't the kind of player who can take the ball on the half turn and spin past someone. He tends to move out to this left half space. And they build. Then they get to the final third. And what happens is they tend to have an attacking triangle. Maybe it looks like this. Or maybe Zinchenko's over here and Rice is more here. And you get these sorts of combinations. Lots of combinations out wide. They overload in the wide areas. The ball goes from side to side. It's worked around until maybe eventually someone like Saka is able to come off the right-hand side, take a shot, or hook the ball into the box. But everything, even an attack, is designed to be able to stop the opposition from being able to score against you, preventing the counterattack at source. So they'll immediately, if they lose the ball, drop into this sort of shape, like a 4-4-2. And everyone's surrounding the opposition team. There's no real way out. So they squeeze them up. They've got everyone in place to stop counterattacks. They're just kind of suffocating them like a snake. And so the other team can't score. And that's how they have so much of the ball. And we really see the effect of what this has done to the team in the numbers this season. So their attacking numbers are way down. For example, their non-penalty expected goals, so goals not scored from penalties, is down from 1.84 last season per game to 1.57 this season. And their expected goals against has gone way down, which is a good thing. They've gone down from 1.11 goals against last season to 0.78 this season. So they're much improved defensively, but their attack is much weaker. So at the moment, we're seeing that this definitely works, because Arsenal are top of the table. But I'm here to suggest that it might not be sustainable, because Arsenal have scored 33 league goals this season. Now, by my calculations, they have scored 18 goals from open play. They have scored six goals from penalties. And they have scored nine from set pieces. So that is a combined 15 goals from dead ball situations compared to 18 in open play, which isn't great. Now, the underlying numbers kind of support my idea here, because the non-penalty expected goals shows that they're roughly upper mid-table. They're not too special in that regard. But if you put in a load of big, strong players that are strong defensively, maybe you sacrifice some attacking creativity in the final third. And then if 45% of your goals are coming from set pieces, what you have here, my friends, is a really, really good version of Tony Pulis' Stoke City. It's quite Jose Mourinho, too. Pep Guardiola doing something similar. He's got lots of tall players to deal with set pieces and be more defensive. But this is what it is. Imagine Tony Pulis had really, really good players. They would be really strong defensively, but they'd be able to take advantage of things. Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid. Similar sort of thing. A really defensive team, but with great players. You get all the benefits of it. And if things keep going Arsenal's way, they are on course to win the title. So that, of course, is really, really good. But is it sustainable all the way through a season? Because there is every chance that eventually their luck, and it's not all luck, but their luck will run out at a certain point. Because 30% of Arsenal's 33 goals in the league have come after the 75th minute. And five of those goals, which have been game deciding or game changing, have come after the 84th minute. Which implies to me that either they have a great winning mentality and a true hero spirit, or they're leaving it a little bit late to really open up and put genuine pressure on opponents. Maybe the tempo's faster in the final third, in the final few minutes of games, after they squeeze them to death. But if there is one thing Arsenal need to do to become unstoppable, it's fix this one simple problem. People hate him. And that obvious problem that Arsenal have is defending corners that are hit to the edge of the six-yard box. The corridor of uncertainty. Now, we've seen this twice against Luton, but lots of teams have done it. Let me show you. Here's the first goal that Luton scored against Arsenal. It's a corner and outswinger from the left-hand side. Now, Arsenal defend corners with a few big, tall people along the six-yard line. But also they have lots of blockers and screeners in the middle of the box as well. So when you've got loads of players running around, they try and block some, and they try and make sure they defend zonally this part of the pitch along the six-yard box. But the ball is swung out, the same time always to the edge of the six-yard box, and something you can coach a lot on training grounds. Just get the set-piece taker to always hit the ball again and again and again to the exact point you want it to. Then you plan your runs around it. Now, this time here, Luton are able to get a player free who manages to run to this bit of the goal and plant a header past David Raya, who's positioning. He goes aggressive at the near post, then drops back, and then he's on his wrong foot to be able to push off, to be able to stop that going in. So it's a well-worked corner from Luton. It's repeated. So here's the same game, second half. This is a corner which has an in-swinger now from the right-hand side. Now, you can see a similar sort of setup from Arsenal. They've got their blockers around here. Declan Rice is on Adebayo, who's going to score. You've got Arsenal players along the six-yard line zonally. Always find this near post zone. It's really important. But the six-yard line is the key, because the ball is going to go there. Now, Adebayo is going to run one way to take Rice with him. It's going to be a teammate who comes in to screen and block to make sure that Adebayo is then free, because Adebayo goes one way, then checks back to the other. So he is then free to leap, and he goes exactly where the ball is going to go, in the middle of the six-yard box, which is exactly where David Raya will not be able to reach, because he's not tall enough. He can't jump high enough to catch that ball. It's a weakness from the goalkeeper, and they've identified it. But Fulham did it as well. This is Fulham against Arsenal when Aaron Ramsdale was in goal. It's a similar situation. The ball comes in. Paulinho gets in the middle of the six-yard box, just around here. It's not a perfect delivery, but it makes use and scores in that same sort of area. West Ham did it in the cup against Aaron Ramsdale. Sevilla did it in the Champions League against Arsenal, when David Raya was in goal. So other teams have noticed this. If I've noticed it, you can bet all the analysts have too, including those at Arsenal. So they'll be looking to try and fix that. But the problem is, because the ball is whipped into that area, it's very hard for the goalkeeper to work out whether to come or go. And Arsenal's goalkeepers don't seem to want to do that, or they are coached not to. So there is one thing that other teams are doing that Arsenal can probably try and fix themselves to stop, and then they won't concede any shots ever again at all. So Arteta has made his team formidable defensively, but they do have a little certain weakness at corners from that six-yard bit. And if he can make them stop making any errors whatsoever, they'll be unstoppable. But you can't eliminate all the errors. And also, if you want to score more goals than play, you probably have to be a bit more attacking and open, which will lead, probably, to more errors. So what does he do? If we look at the table, Liverpool are doing very well at the top of the end of the table, because their attack is great, but their defence is weak. Whereas Arsenal are doing very well because their defence is amazing, and their attack isn't amazing. And so what you might see later in the season is Arteta maybe opening his team up a little bit, try and create more of those chances. But that, in turn, will lead to some of the risk he's trying to eliminate. But here's my last and final point, and why we know that Arsenal could actually win the league based on this very negative Tony Pulis-esque it works system. Well, leagues tend to be won on defences, don't they? That's what people say. And this season in the Premier League, there have been more goals at this stage than ever before. It's a crazy, crazy time to be in the Premier League. But Arsenal are the best at defending. And so therefore, that makes sense that they should be able to win the league. But will they? Will their luck run out? Does it need more than just this mental fortitude? Do they need to find ways to score more goals? Tell me what you think in the comments. Goodbye. See the link in the description.