Before I start I need to say that FA Cup stats are difficult to obtain. There once was a web site called statto.com but they closed up shop and when they did, they took their historical data with them. Even something simple like “how many wins does Arsenal have in the FA Cup?” is impossible to find. I know how many “points” Arsenal have won (620) thanks to a site called myfootballfacts.com – which means that Arsene Wenger has 31% of Arsenal’s total points won in this competition (he’s won 194 points on 61 wins, 11 draws, and 13 losses) but I don’t know how many matches Arsenal have won over the history of the Cup.
I do know that if you just look at the number of losses (for example, Wenger’s 13) and the number of times Wenger has won the cup (7) you can add them together and nearly figure out how many seasons Wenger has been at Arsenal! Because you either lose 1 match and go out or win all the matches and win the Cup!
I also want to say that I’m not here to try to stat bomb you, “change your mind”, or say that what you saw was “wrong”. My data posts should be taken as fun, informative, and always written from a unique perspective. When I’m wrong, which I am often, I have no problem being corrected. Anyway, enough excuse-making.
24.7 – Average age of Nottingham Forest today – they were the 17th youngest team to be fielded in an FA Cup match this season
7 – Number of Forest players under age 24 who started this match
20.9 – Average age of those 7 players
20 – Average age of Forest’s front 4 of Brereton, Clough, Dowell, and Cash
25.2 – Average age of Arsenal today – not much difference, just slightly older than Forest
5 – Number of Arsenal players under age 24 who started this match
19.8 – Average age of those 5 players
23.5 – Average age of Arsenal’s front 4 of Welbeck (27), Walcott (28), Iwobi (21), and Nelson (18)
2,183 – Total minutes Ben Brereton has played in his football career (equivalent of 24.3 full games)
6 – Goals Ben Brereton has scored in his football career
498 – Minutes that Cash and Clough have played (combined) this season for Forest (in the League Champ.)
1,003 – Minutes Danny Welbeck has played for Arsenal this season, this season, just this season, about half (46%) of the minutes Ben Brereton has played in his adult life
5 – Goals Danny Welbeck scored this season
0 – Goals Danny Welbeck intentionally scored this season (HA HA?)
2006 – Year which Arsenal last went out in the FA Cup in the first game – it was technically the 4th round though I can’t figure out why Arsenal were allowed to skip the third round that year and my faulty memory fails here as well
1 – Goals scored by Giannakopoulos in the 84th minute to lift Bolton over Arsenal in that match and give Sam Allardyce a chance to huff and puff about what a genius he is
1 – Philippe Senderos played at left back in that match
This game was only a blow-out because of the two penalties Arsenal conceded. (See above) I’m not saying Arsenal didn’t deserve to lose. I’m just saying that statistically, Arsenal had more of and more of the better chances in this match.
Let me just have a stream of consciousness for a second.
Arsenal committed just 7 fouls in this match and Forest scored off three of those fouls (Lichaj’s header, and the two pens). All 7 Arsenal fouls were committed by Debuchy (2), Holding (3), and Maitland-Niles (2) and all three player’s fouls led to a goal each. That’s a weird fact all in itself. Arsenal have committed 235 fouls in the Premier League. If they conceded 43% of those as goals, like they did today, they would have conceded 101 goals! That’s all just to say that giving up two penalties and a set piece goal off 7 fouls is a huge outlier.
But the opening goal was quite a surprise as well because Forest are not a threat from set pieces! They have just 4 goals from set plays in the league Championship – that’s the second worst record of any club in their league. That makes me wonder if Arsenal took their set play threat too lightly.
The stats also show that Forest got 9 shots on target and you’re going to win a lot of games if you do that. 6 of those shots on goal came from open play, 2 from pens, and one from the Lichaj header. But of those 7 (non-pen) shots on goal, only 1 was a big chance – the Lichaj header. I can’t stress how important Big Chances are. They are scored at a 45% rate and teams like Arsenal only concede 1 or 2 a game (Arsenal allow 1.54 per game in the Premier League, Man City – the best – 0.91).
That means arsenal conceded 3 big chances (all scored) off 3 of their 7 total fouls in this match. Again, that’s not suggesting you saw a different match from me, just rather that you saw a really, like, bad defensive performance from Arsenal. I say that because Forest didn’t create a ton of great chances that went begging. Instead, Arsenal just imploded and handed Forest the game on a platter.
Offensively, Arsenal did just fine. They created 4 Big Chances in this match; two for Nketchia, who was saved by Jordan Smith both times, and 1 each for Welbeck (scored) and Holding. It’s just the defense crublings like an overbaked shortbread cookie that’s the problem.
Requests
Iwobi:
Touches – 89 (10% of Arsenal’s total, which will just be represented as a % from here on out)
Passes – 76 (12%)
Key Passes – 1 (13%)
Shots – 3 (21%)
Shots on goal – 0
Dribbles – 2 (10%)
Possession loss – 5 (15%)
Interceptions – 0
Tackles – 1 (6%)
Clearances – 0
Blocks – 0
Aerial duels won – 1 (5%)
Errors – 1 (100% – this is non-foul, non-pen conceding errors which led to a shot)
Walcott:
Touches – 55 (6%)
Passes – 39 (6%)
Key Passes – 2 (25%)
Shots – 3 (21%)
Shots on goal – 0
Dribbles – 4 (20%)
Possession loss – 4 (12%)
Interceptions – 2 (17%)
Tackles – 4 (24%)
Clearances – 0
Blocks – 2 (20%)
Aerial duels won – 0
Nelson:
Touches – 100 (12%)
Passes – 72 (11%)
Key Passes – 4 (50%)
Shots – 1 (7%)
Shots on goal – 0
Dribbles – 6 (29%)
Possession loss – 7 (21%)
Interceptions – 0
Tackles – 0
Clearances – 0
Blocks – 0
Aerial duels won – 0
@7amkickoff
Sources: Whoscored.com, Transfermarkt.co.uk, my database
It’s very simple , just : wenger out .
Agree. This is not fucken acceptable.
Enough is enough
Any coach now would do better , it can’t be worse .
Interested in the views of those downvoting the notion of sacking the manager… presumably you have a lot of tolerance for mediocrity?
Unbelievable
Those with wenger and the board … are like a cancer .
I think Carlo Ancelotti is free these days …
Fucken Spurs trolls
They will be rubbing their hands with glee at our feeble decline
Although I’m sure you’ve got a set formula to determine if a chance is an expected goal, it certainly felt like they made quite a few chances i expected them to score. It could have been worse than 4-2 ?
Love your stats, & thanks for the continued work plus effort. Really don’t know how you find the will to do it this season game after game. The only stat however that is really either relevant or applicable is: 1 – completely woefully inept, dire, shit & utter crap performance again by The Arsenal. Guess you could count that as 4 seperate aspects, but I have collectively grouped it as one. If you needed to pad out the reading, I guess you could add: 1 – haphazzad / goddam awful team line up / selection considering all the pregame comments/warnings… Read more »
“Instead, Arsenal just imploded and handed Forest the game on a platter.”
Nope, no disagreement here. Pretty much what we saw (and what we’ve been seeing all season).
Thanks for answering my Iwobi request. I’m now convinced there is something to so many players coming into the first team, looking exciting and having very unarsenal individual qualities, getting “Arsenalised” and then looking shit from season 2 onwards. Happens way too often to be a coincidence or just bad young players now.
Claims that we need to buy CBs, DMs, Strikers, Wingers will now abound. Truth is that we are losing games and dropping points because there is no defensive system. Our forwards are having to recover from a deficit which merely allows the opposition to shut shop at the back and break. We had 4 shots on target yesterday against a team that’s conceded 42 league goals already this season. Arsenal was a set of individuals sent out against a Team. We had, seemingly, no plan A let alone a plan B. Not sure what team we put out at Chelski… Read more »
The defense is embarrassing. From the first team regulars to the cup players. Nobody is on the same page. We never seem to defend as a cohesive unit. No organization and no leaders.
why can’t we just watch Citeh and do what they do when we don’t have the ball?
Was really disappointed with Iwobi. Hope he gets sent out on loan, he needs to learn how to tackle. Send them the Dyche.
If you treat a competition with contempt, this is always a possible result. The majority of the problems at Arsenal are due to just 3 people, namely Kroenke, Gazidis & Wenger. Until all 3 stand down, I see no prospect of improvement.
I don’t think you can say whether Gazidis is doing a bad job. I think he has been allowed to make changes this season as a concession to Arsene Wenger having his contract renewed. Let’s see what a new manager can do and then look at Gazidis’ performance.
We did go out after extra time or penalties a few times right? That usually in statistics does not count as a loss, so the 13 ‘losses’ should be, strictly speaking, less. Win/draw/loss statistics only cover a period of 90 mins. I can’t remember which games though.
According to wikipedia, we beat Cardiff in the 3rd round in 2006, so I’m not sure why that match isn’t showing up for you.
The last time we went out in our first match was 1992 (the famous defeat to Wrexham). We also went out in the 3rd round in 1995 and 1996, but at least took the lower-division side to a replay in both cases.
Thank you for the correction!
Hmmm… there has been much discussion over the Europa League, and this was essentially our Europe League squad (minus Jack and Giroud). Perhaps this was a test of the Second team to see if they should still be playing the Europa League.
And what have Welbeck and Theo done to justify their positions? Why not give starts to Eddie and Chuba?