Arsenal 0-2 West Ham: By the Numbers

Errors

Let’s get this out of the way: Arsenal made two errors which led to two goals today but interestingly, WhoScored.com is assigning one error to Cech and one error to Ox.

This highlights a fact about stats, they are always subjective. No matter how much we like to think that stats are above human subjectivity, they aren’t. People watch the games and decide on events based on a set of well defined criteria. But regardless the rigor of the definitions, these are still people, watching events and deciding to code an event as a specific type.

There are countless examples of this that you can probably think of off the top of your head: if Walcott shoots, and it turns into a cross, and Ramsey scores off that cross-come-shot, is it an assist, a shot?

But big events, like “errors” and “big chances” tend to be more subjective than small events like passing. This is actually human nature. Look at the debate after the match as to which individual is responsible for both Arsenal goals.

Most folks, I think, would assign the blame to Cech on both goals and for good reason. For the first, if the ‘keeper comes, he has to claim. For the second, he clearly starts left and the shot goes to his right. Both goals easily can be ascribed to Cech error.

But there were a comedy of errors leading to both goals. For the first, who organized the line? Who was supposed to be marking Kouyate? Why were there four guys behind Kouyate, looking like they were caught flat footed? For me, there were two errors in that goal: the fact that Kouyate got a free header was one, Cech’s poor claim was the other.

The second goal is even worse. Coquelin’s tackle could have been better but he does win the ball. Ox takes the ball and dribbles it straight to Zarate. Anyone who has studied football knows that’s the worst place in the world to turn the ball over. But then the whole team freezes; no one closes down on the ball, Zarate has an open shot, and Cech guesses the wrong way.

Interestingly, WhoScored gave the error on that goal to Ox. There’s a logic to that. Ox’s turnover led directly to the shot. Cech had a howler, but the “error” goes to Ox for the turnover.

But, more important than who gets what tick mark in which stats box: Arsenal allowed two sloppy goals, to a team which didn’t have to do much to win, on opening day, at home. Shoddy from Arsenal at best, shambolic at worst.

Lack of urgency

My first sense of the game was that there was a lack of urgency at the start but the stats don’t really bear that out. Arsenal had 8 shots in the first 40 minutes which is a decent start to the game. But West Ham simply denied Arsenal good shooting chances and as a result, all but one of those 8 shots was from a dangerous position. That was the shot from Mertesacker, Arsenal’s only shot on goal in the first half.

The second half started the same as the first, Arsenal getting just one shot on goal between the 45th and 56th minute, Giroud’s effort from distance which was saved.

It’s tough to take it but after Walcott was introduced, Arsenal looked much more interested in scoring and had 4 shots on goal. But again, just one of them was from a dangerous position and again it was an effort from a header, this time from Giroud and he was concussed in the effort.

I’m not saying Arsenal didn’t lack urgency. There were large portions of the game I felt Arsenal took their foot off the gas. But for me the bigger problem was that the team lacked sharpness.

Coquelin

A lot of people are complaining about Coquelin’s match. He went 0/2 on tackles, had just 2 interceptions, was guilty of making some pretty poor passes forward, and made the cardinal sin of the DM in allowing himself to be dispossessed twice. He misplaced 6 total passes (of 41), though, and this is the thing with the DM position, any bad pass is magnified. But let’s look at the bad passes: 2 were long balls to switch play, one was a long entry pass into the final third, and the other three were short, forward passes. That’s not terrible but in the context of the bad tackling and the turnovers means he had a stinker.

Part of the problem is that Coquelin is used to playing next to Cazorla and Cazorla started out high left (odd fact, three of Coquelin’s long balls were to Cazorla, it’s like he was “longing” for him). Of course, Cazorla led all players in passing % today, hitting 93% of a game high 76 passes. Ramsey had the 4th highest passing % on the day but was also dispossessed a game high 5 times.

Another big problem, and something I didn’t notice during the game, is that Mertesacker and Debuchy had nightmare passing games. Mertesacker was 84% which is about 6-8% below his average over the last few years. But Debuchy was atrocious with just 78% completed passes and four of his bad passes were in his own half.

Coquelin had a poor game and showed weakness but that entire right side was simply shut down by West Ham.

Where was the pressure?

Arsenal built their great end of season run last year off pressure high up the pitch, so how on earth is it possible that 16 year old Reece Oxford completed 95% of 21 passes (one bad pass, long) and Mark Noble was allowed to complete 88% of his 41 passes? Oxford didn’t have a single turnover on the day and completed 3/6 tackles. Again, this goes back to explaining the urgency problem. Arsenal didn’t seem to apply the necessary pressure on West Ham and a 16 year old kid was allowed to boss Arsenal’s midfield.

@7amkickoff