Lacazette v. Kane
Touches: 31 – 38
Passes: 21 – 14
Accurate passes: 16 – 11
Key Passes: 1 – 1
Big Chances Created: 1 – 0
Assists: 1 – 0
Loss of possession: 3 – 4
Dribbles: 1/1 – 2/5
Shots: 1 – 5
Alexis v. Alli
Touches: 69 – 41
Passes: 41 – 29
Accurate passes: 25 – 20
Key passes: 3 – 0 (all open play)
Loss of possession: 7 – 3
Tackles: 4 – 0
Dribbles: 5/6 – 3/4
Superman Slides: 1 – 0
Shots: 6 – 2
Big Chance Shots: 3 – 0 (2 saved, 1 scored)
Goals: 1 – 0
Özil v. Eriksen
Touches: 52 – 68
Passes: 32 – 53
Accurate passes: 26 – 38
Key passes: 4 – 2
Big chances created: 1 – 0
Assists: 1 – 0
Loss of possession: 3 – 4
Tackles: 2 – 0
Shots: 0 – 3
Shots outside the box: 0 – 2
The Team Effort
14 – Clearances by Mustafi (led all players)
22.8 – Clearances per game average by Arsenal (5th in the League)
37 – Clearances by Arsenal today
16.3 – Clearances per game average by Man City (fewest in the League)
45 – Total clearances by Mustafi in the Premier League this season
31 – Percent of those clearances he made today versus Tottenham
9.4 – Clearances per game average by Shane Duffy (leads all players this season)
11 – Clearances by Koscielny today
25 – Clearances by Koscielny and Mustafi combined
68 – Percent of Arsenal’s clearances by just Koscielny and Mustafi
5 – Clearances by Dire (led Tottenham)
9 – Tackles attempted by Ramsey today (led all players)
6.6 – Tackles per game attempted by Wilfred Ndidi this season (leads the League)
5 – Tackles attempted by Xhaka today
19 – Tackles attempted by Tottenham today
14 – Tackles attempted by just Ramsey and Xhaka
4 – Number of times each of Ramsey and Xhaka were dribbled past (led all players)
6 – Interceptions by Monreal (led all players)
3.3 – Interceptions per game by Monreal this season (leads all players)
Final 30 blitz
Both teams took 14 shots in this game and let’s take a look at that for a second. Arsenal had the superior expected goals score with 2.03 to 1.05 but to tell the whole story (which doesn’t tell the actual whole story) I have to admit that Arsenal took 10 of those shots after the 61st minute and that those ten shots counted for 1.45 of the expected goals score in this match. That means that Arsenal scored two goals with a combined expected goals of under 0.5.
That isn’t unusual, of course. There are plenty of times when a team scores with their first shot from outside the box (which I assign an xG of 0.03) and then after a bunch more shots the expected goals tally catches up to the actual goals.
But Tottenham didn’t just give up a few odd chances at the end of this match, they gave up two shots to Alexis that he probably should have converted. If you ever want to know what the definition of a “big chance” is, just look at Alexis’ two shots at the end of the game, both saved by Lloris. I imagine if he had just poked either shot with his left foot instead of switching to his right, he would have scored. Regardless, these two shots account for the majority of that 1.45 xG in the last 30 minutes.
That wasn’t the only weird stat in the end of the game. Alexis went kind of crazy in the last 30 minutes of this match. He attempted 6 dribbles and took 5 shots. That means that all 6 of his attempted dribbles were in the last 30 minutes along with 5 of his 6 shots.
Ozil also sprang to life, he created three of his four key passes in that last 30 minutes which is kind of incredible because he only played until the 84th minute. Arsenal as a team created 8 of their 10 key passes in this game in that last 30 minutes.
Tottenham on the other hand, went straight up long ball. They attempted 25 of their 79 long passes in the final 30 minutes and with Llorente on the pitch won 11 aerial duels to Arsenal’s 2. Arsenal made 15 clearances (of their 37) in that time with Mustafi making 7 (of his 14) clearances in that last 30 minutes and Koscielny and Mustafi combining for 6 headed clearances in this time.
Spurs also tried to battle back into the game, attempting 10 of their 19 tackles in the final 30 minutes. But since they had removed their World Cup diving team, Alli and Kane, they weren’t able to draw any fouls in the 18 yard box.
What made this match so special was not just the 2-0 scoreline but these final 30 minutes: Arsenal took the match to Spurs and were unlucky not to score at least one more goal, Spurs tried to get back into the game but ended up just lobbing the ball up for Arsenal to clear. Spurs did have one good shot at the end of the match – the Dire header – but Cech did very well to save and keep the Arsenal clean sheet.
It all evens out
We will now spend the next six months hearing about how the two bad calls in the City match were evened out by the bad calls in this match. But there’s a very simple way to refute such a claim.
In my last column I calculated the “referee advantage” in favor of Man CIty to be around 1.15. If I do the same for Arsenal against Tottenham and assume that Sanchez wasn’t fouled and that Mustafi was offside (I didn’t check with my ruler) you still have to concede that the header by Mustafi was a very low percentage shot, and I gave it a 0.10 xG. So, while Mustafi scored it was a much more difficult goal to score than a penalty plus another big chance which is what City were gifted by their two bad calls.
Yes, I know, sometimes stats just prove the obvious.
One other thing needs to be mentioned here: the Alexis foul was easily more of a foul than 90% of the ones I see given from the same position all the time. In fact, it is a deliberate tactic of the “tough teams” who “like it up em” to go down whenever they feel any contact in the Arsenal half. They do this because it’s usually the only chance they get to create a shot.
So, I was delighted that Arsenal got to turn the tables on a team for once.
@7amkickoff
Sources: WhoScored.com, my personal database
5 – Clearances by Dire (led Tottenham)
But that’s not how you spell his na….oh, wait, I see what you did there ?
And we were ready to sell Mustafi…
We mustafim!
11 – punchable faces in the Sp*rs starting lineup
Loved that when Alexis dived headlong after the ball as it was going out of play! ☺
Haha same here, although unlikely a part of me was hoping he was intentionally trolling the famous Klinsmann goal celebration. Whether he was or not, I hope Spurs fans hated it!
Spuds fans made get have hated it if they’d not all gone by then…..
Ozil was superb, looked really strong on the ball. Oh how I wish we got this version of him week in week out! Feels good to beat Sp*rs. Let’s keep it going
7am, is ozil’s performance really significantly better in this match compared to his other matches (v everton, v city, etc) ? Intackles he made, in chances he created and so on?
ozil’s stats were something else against everton
I would doubt it. He plays pretty consistently but usually his teammates let him down.
Exactly my point Donald’s trump.
The challenge on Sanchez for the free kick for the first wasn’t a foul.
But the foul the ref gave against Ozil on Vertonghen wasn’t a foul either (he slipped) and Lacazette would have been left with a tap in.
So really just evened itself out.
Again, it didn’t even itself out because of the quality of the chances, but good point
The referee gave a foul against Ozil on Vertongen early in the game. It wasnt a foul and denied us a tap in for Lacazette. Nobody is talking about that evening itself out though. Only thing that matters is the result, tomorrow is another day.
nacho the psycho should be sent off
he clearly shoved the first goal scorer and even attempted to bite granit during the second goal celebration
Vertongen clearly has attended the world famous Spuds diving school. He may have been there long enough to learn from the master, Bale himself.
They was Thunderstruck
RIP to ole Malcolm Young! Another one of the greats gone 🙁
I think a lot of the discussion about the foul on Alexis was that Mike Dean indicated that he called the foul because Alexis’ shirt had been pulled–which it hadn’t. But it was still a foul. I think it shows that even when Mike Dean gets the result right, he is still a terrible referee.
They’re all terrible referees…
Mike Dean is a fucking wanker and a disgrace to his federation. Anyone else see how Mustafi’s shirt was held on his goal? Still scored it, the badass, but had he missed I would have been upset we didn’t get a penalty. Also, Dele sandwich sucks and is a divey cheat. The yellow cards were wildly inconsistent against us in this match, too. I’ll take a good win, though. Credit when it’s due, boys! Up the arse!
How was it a foul.
Although I don’t disagree that Mike Dean is a cunt, I do like an objective view of football even though we are all Arsenal fans.
That wasn’t a foul in any way.
Arsenal need to be consistent. That means after beating a top team,they shd be able to prevail over average teams . The problem is after such a win,the gunners shoot themselves in the jaws ,sorry,feet,by losing to a lowly team.
Hopefully the gunners can go on a sustained winning run.
Excellent point, and something we need to keep very much in mind next week. We play Burnley away, a potential banana skin. Burnley have quietly done very well this year, winning away to Chel$ki and the Scum among others, and they’re tied with us on 22 points. If we go in thinking they’ll be easier than Tottenham, we’ll be in trouble. We need the same effort as we put out today, EVERY DAY, day in and day out.
In my opinion, we are yet to beat a top team this season.
11 – number of consecutive games won at Emirates. longest winning streak.
How did that fly under the radar?
Because it’s punctuated by away games, where we’ve been fucking abysmal?
Alli always jump into defenders to get calls, typical.
Shift in power back to the Arsenal now I suppose for the pundits.
Great pretenders are the biggest bottlers ever. 4th spot pot is a trophy for them I suppose.
😀
I never aware that Power has ever shifted to the other side before ?
That Sanchez slide was the perfect icing on the cake
Let’s take a quick look at the North London Power forecast. Power was expected to shift by Saturday afternoon but it looks like an area of high pressure developed in the Tottenham half and Power remained stable for the rest of the weekend.
For the rest of the weekend only?
I thought it remains in the emirates for eternity
Vertongen slipping and being awarded a free kick cost us a certain goal. Also if you look again at the chance where Bellerin fired the ball across and lacazette couldn’t reach it, it could easily be viewed as a penalty as the 2 spurs defenders both connected with lacazette and not the ball
How is Xhaka’s pass stats coming up.. Generally his accuracy % has been average to poor this season.. Is he getting any better?