Alexis Pen
After the match Wenger was upset that Alexis took the pen saying “Santi was down to take it, I don’t know why it did not happen, they have pecking order, it was not planned for Sanchez to take it. I want to know what happened and for it not to happen again. Overall anyone can miss a penalty, we have to accept that.”
We do have to accept that, but we also need to accept that Alexis has never scored a single penalty in any match he has played for any team. He has scored during a penalty shootout, most notably the panenka for the winner in the Copa America final, but penalty shootouts are not exactly the same as penalties.
Alexis doesn’t take many penalties. I’m limited in the data I have available but I only see two penalties taken in any League, Champions League, or Chilean matches in his career. Both of those were taken while playing for Arsenal, both missed. Kindly correct that data in the comments.
Both penalties were also telegraphed to the keeper. For his miss against QPR, pictures show Vargas pointing to his right, exactly where Sanchez shot and where the pen was saved. And against Hull today Robertson also told the keeper which way to dive and got it correct. Strange, though probably coincidence.
Santi Cazorla is Arsenal’s number one penalty taker and he has scored 8/9 in his Premier League career. Lukas Perez has scored 4/5 penalties he has taken in all competitions according to Whoscored.com and Giroud is 7/10 both for Montpelier and Arsenal according to the same source. Whoscored doesn’t include cup ties and Champions League qualifiers and so may not be complete.
It’s early in the season but Arsenal look to be the beneficiaries of the Premier League’s new focus on penalties. Arsenal have already been awarded 4 League penalties and have scored 2 in their first 5 matches of the season. I can’t find anywhere where a Premier League team has been awarded four penalties in their first five matches. But then, penalty stats are notoriously difficult to find so I could be wrong. Please kindly correct in the comments section.
Arsenal dominate from start to finish
Before the Livermore red card Arsenal enjoyed huge superiority over Hull, taking 12 shots to Hull’s 2. Arsenal got 8 shots in the 18 yard box, 1 in the six yard box, and 3 from distance. Using a simplistic expected goals measure I get a 1.27 to 0.22 dominance in the first 40 minutes.
In the period after the penalty, Arsenal took their foot off the gas a bit and (if we don’t count the xG for the penalty) only managed an 0.92 expected goal. Not a huge drop but well controlled considering the fact that Hull’s only shots after the red card were from distance and generated negligible xG numbers.
Removing penalties, Michael Caley put Arsenal at 2.9 for the match with Hull 0.2. That’s considerably different than my measure of 2.08 to 0.26. I will only add that xG is a measure of how dominant a team’s shot selection is and not how many goals a team should have scored and also that xG in small samples like per game or on a player basis is pretty inaccurate but that is to be expected.
Either way we measure, Arsenal dominated from start to finish and especially dominated in the period before the red card.
Xhaka
Arsenal only scored 4 goals last season off shots from distance. That was 2nd worst in the League behind three teams who scored 3 goals from distance (including the champs, Leicester). That was also a nadir for Arsenal in terms of goals from outside the box, down from 9 the season prior.
Wenger doesn’t put much emphasis on distance shots and encourages patience. Shots from outside the box are low percentage chances in the range of 3%. But damn the maths! Fans love a long shot, don’t we?
Xhaka is a bit of a long bomb specialist and has taken 69% of his career shots from outside the box (again, we are using Whoscored.com and they only include Champions League and domestic leagues). Ironically, he’s only scored 3 goals from distance off 138 shots, or 2%. He’s scored 7 goals off 57 shots inside the 18 yard box, or 12% conversion, which is slightly better than average.
Still, who would begrudge him a shot like that?
Xhaka likes the ball
As soon as Xhaka came on he took control of the ball. He finished the match playing just 24 minutes but managed 49 touches with 46 passes. If we prorate that number over a 90 minute match, he would have led all players with 173 passes in that match. I checked the Premier League stats and Granit Xhaka leads all players (who have more than 200 minutes played) in passes per 90. He is averaging 92.6 passes per90 this season.
One thing this highlights is the fact that p90 stats are hugely misleading. No, Xhaka would not have had 173 passes in a game.
Another thing this stat highlights is the fact that when playing against 10 men and with a player of Xhaka’s quality, playing against a team that is tired, and frankly a team that is Hull City, Xhaka can be a hugely dominant passing midfielder.
I looked at this particular match and one thing stood out to me: that if we look at touches per minute and passes per minute, Xhaka got a ton of the ball in the final 24 minutes of the game. Xhaka has been a dominant midfielder for the last few years of his career and combined with the tired legs of Hull, this isn’t a surprise but I do wonder if part of the reason why Wenger is squeezing Coquelin into the midfield is to make sure that Cazorla and Özil get enough of the ball?
Özil led all starters with 110 passes against Hull, Cazorla led all starters with 142 passes p90, but if you look at the touches per minute (TPM above) and passes per90 (PP90 above) Xhaka dictated play when he came on. Unless Arsene plays Xhaka as a left midfielder (and hey, he’s got Coquelin playing between the lines so let’s not rule anything out) the Swiss is going to dominate possession. So, my question is how does Wenger fit his best three midfielders (Özil-Cazorla-Xhaka) on the pitch at the same time and still make sure that Özil and Cazorla can dictate play?
Odds and Ends
Özil led all players with 110 passes and 68 of them were in the Hull final third.
Coquelin was 3rd on Arsenal with 37/38 final third passes.
Snodgrass won 6/7 dribbles all of them down the right against Iwobi (2/4 tackles), Monreal (3/5 tackles), and Coquelin (4/7 tackles).
@7amkickoff
All stats via Opta
Thanks. Love this fact based texts. Have a great weekend.
That part about letting Özil and Cazorla dictate play by leaving Xhaka out: mind blown. I’ll leave things to Wenger and just enjoy watching matches.
But wouldn’t it also be freaking awesome to have 3 players in the middle of the park who are able to dictate play? It would be so unpredictable for the opponent. Especially if we’d also have Rambo on the right wing who can also contribute in that regard. We really have some options in midfield this year. Love it!
It isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cazorla and Ozil are far more creative than Xhaka [not saying that Xhaka is not creative]. So i think what Wenger wants Xhaka to do is to get the ball from the CBs and offload it to Santi and Ozil.
But when we play with Coquelin. Santi becomes the first point of contact for our CBs. Which is why we look far more exposed. High risk, high reward.
The coq santi ozil option also means we play at quite a slow pace. Adding Xhaka would vastly increase the pace of our attacking play. Ozil is literally one of the top 3-5 players in world football on the counter attack. Theo obviously his attributes are exemplified on the counter. Alexis, creative and loves running at guys from deep – great counter attacker. Iwobi, loves a dribble, very quick reactions another great counter attacking player. Giroud, while slow is excellent with runner moving off him and can also be effective on the counter. Perez from everything I have seen was… Read more »
but also, I imagine, to have the vision to bypass Ozil and Cazorla and go straight to the forwards if and when it’s appropriate.
And there is no reason why we should’nt be able to fit them into the team. Barca does it, Real does, bayern does, and now Mancity etc. The only caveat though is that the natural inclination for offensive players is to go forward, and so when you load so many offensive players in your midfield, the danger is in exubrance, they might leave your Cbs exposed. However if the manager can instill defensive ethics in to their play, it can be done. We might have to adopt a “‘gegen pressing” type style in which they will all hound the opposition… Read more »
Do ozil and cazorla need to dominate the game if xhaka does it? surely that allows them to focus on creating chances/getting into better positions?
Alexis took the final penalty in the Chile win against Argentina in the Copa America final. He panenka’d Sergio Romero right down the middle. That’s the only one I could think of off the top of my head.
so BBC Match of the Day analysis of the Hull v Arsenal game did not even mention Granit Xhaka’s goal, and their main aim was to imply, in fact AS stated, Ref had a bad game, and to back up this view, they even got the rule on hand ball sending off offences wrong. Stating that is had to be a certain goal that was stopped by the handball for it to be a sending off when its in fact only a goal scoring opportunity that has to be denied, which the Livermore hand ball clearly was. Would also like… Read more »
Proof of a fair and balanced media, imagine BBC football pundit that doesn’t know the rules or laws of the game.
Glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed this Xhaka’s goal was the goal of the day and they treated it like it didn’t happen.
Then the same pundits go on about refereeing consistency and not knowing what constitutes a certain offence. It’s right in the fucking rule book you twats!
The the circle of ignorance just keeps rolling on.
Just shows you how totally unprofessional to whole punditry industry is. These people get paid to say this stuff and they don’t even know the rules. It’s amazing.
Just to play a little devils advocate. Definite intentional handball, so definitely a penalty. Definitely a card, but did the keeper have a good shot at saving the ball? I think he did and we cannot be certain that it would have been a goal. My immediate reaction was a penalty and a yellow. Still is. Look I am not trying to give any props to BBC because they are pathetic, unethical pieces of dog shit, and we have been slandered by them and the rest of the media for years. But on this decision I think we were a… Read more »
Eduardo answers your first paragraph: ‘denial of a goal scoring opportunity with deliberate intent’. Coquelin had the chance to score and the goalkeeper should have had the chance to save. Livermore stopped both and, as rules and officiating stands now, it is a sending off.
Now if video technology were to be introduced and an official could replay and calculate the trajectory of the ball, then you could make the case for the yellow card. The on-field ref cannot be tasked with calculating trajectory of the ball as well as all the other duties in such a tight area.
Furthermore, trajectory has nothing to do with the interpretation of the rule anyway. The red card is for denying a goal-scoring OPPORTUNITY – not for denying a certain goal.
thanks for the responses. can’t really argue with that. By the letter of the law seems like it was absolutely correct.
Did we just win a game ….can we enjoy just that for now.coygs
Juventus managed to get Pirlo, Vidal and Pogba to get along. Don’t think getting Ozil, Santi and Xhaka to play nice with each other is going to be an insurmountable goal.
“So, my question is how does Wenger fit his best three midfielders (Özil-Cazorla-Xhaka) on the pitch at the same time and still make sure that Özil and Cazorla can dictate play?”
Same way Barca got Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi and Messi in the team. It’s a great ‘problem’ to have and great passes should make us better with the right system
I was thinking the same thing! Another excellent passer if anything makes Ozil and Cazorla even better than by helping get the ball to them in dangerous places. Barca didn’t say to themselves that Xavi dominating the ball would prevent Messi and Iniesta getting it, quite the opposite.
I’m happy as a gooner that everybody can score goal.
I was interested in our players’ penalty records as well. Here’s what I found: Giroud is 9/10. 5/5 for Montpelier, 4/5 for Arsenal. His only miss was his first penalty for Arsenal against Coventry in the league cup (September 2012). (Also 3/3 for Tours in Ligue 2.) Cazorla is 8/10. 8/9 for Arsenal, 0/1 for Malaga. His misses were against West Brom (last season) and Racing. (Also 1/1 for Spain.) Perez is 9/10. 2/2 for Karpaty (UKR), 4/4 PAOK (GRE), and 3/4 for Deportivo. His only miss was last April against Real Sociedad. Ozil is 2/5 for his clubs, but… Read more »
Thanks for the effort!
Thanks for the effort! I think that just confirms that Cazorla or Giroud (or Lucas once he becomes a regular) should be taking penalties, no slight on Alexis or Ozil. Exceptions if someone is on a hattrick and we’re 3 goals up anyway.
Let’s hope united have another stinker with 100m man Pogba playing like John Terry’s mother in midfield.
They did! They did! They did! It was glorious.
What’s the number of times the Hull mongrels were singing Same Old Arsenal always cheating after their players clattered into ours…
That song is ridiculous. And it is fanned by media mongrels like Shearer deliberately obfuscating when it comes to Arsenal.
Lol, Let them sing all they want, who gives a fuck?. …..their ass got roasted anyways!
It’s almost as though Shearer thinks he is the final arbiter of the rules. I can’t understand how a man who deliberately kicked Neil Lennon in the head while on the floor then threatened the FA that if they banned him he wouldn’t play for England in the following summers World Cup could come to think that.
Do you?
Still think reasons why Wenger is reluctant to start Xhaka is because he had a specific plan to pair him with Ramsey.
I suspect if Ramsey wasn’t injured, we would’ve seen more of Xhaka.
Except wenger said he sees xhaka as a box to player, can’t imagine we’d see 2 box to box players behind ozil
guys we have a very conservative manager. in my opinion very good but also very conservative.
we have changed our cb pairing, we have changed our striker. i believe Wenger does not want to totally tear up the team and start again. he is bringing these new pieces in bit by bit. and he is right. he likes cohesion. we couldnt change everybody at once. Xhaka was a big investment and will be a first team player but lets not try and uproot everything at once
The Goal without a buildup. Xhakaaaaaaa!!!!!