Friday, March 29, 2024

Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United: By the numbers

Playing the early game on a Saturday is a high-risk proposition as a fan, if the team loses it can be enough to ruin your whole weekend and you don’t even have the chance to reveal in potential schadenfreude, depending on where you are watching you could have potentially thrown off your sleep schedule to be crushed. If the team wins, you get to be on cloud nine and whatever else happens on the weekend doesn’t matter.

Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United: By the numbers

Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United: By the numbers

14 – Shots for Arsenal

5 – Shots for Bukayo Saka, leading all players

3 – Big Chances for Arsenal

159 – Final third touches for Arsenal in this match

115 – Final third touches for Manchester United in this match

26 – Deep touches (within 25 meters of goal) for Arsenal

25 – Deep touches for Manchester United

8 – Deep touches by Bukayo Saka, leading all players

This was a crazy match, especially in the first half.

There were 22 shots in the first half, with both teams looking like they might be able to create a goal on any given possession. The teams combined for 5 big chances and 3.7 expected goals (xG).

Thankfully Granit Xhaka scored a thunderblast of a goal and killed things off. Manchester United, chasing the game and “trying” to save their season managed no shots after Arsenal took a 2 goal lead. The final 20 minutes were a stark contrast to the first 70, with Manchester United managing 0 entries into Arsenal’s box and just 33 touches in the final third.

Granit Xhaka is immense

68 – Passes Completed, led all players

94.4% – Pass completion percentage

110.9 – Pass Efficiency (a measure of actual completion compared to expected, 100 means completed as many as expected)

8 – Final 3rd Entry Passes completed, led all players

5 – Progressive Passes

6 – Long Passes Completed, led all players

85.7% – Long Pass completion percentage

3 – Box Entry Pass

1 – Key Passes

1 – Shot, 1 Goal (0.02 xG)

3 – Progressive Carries

2 – Interceptions

With Arsenal’s best midfielder out, the chances of top four on life support, Arsenal turned to Granit Xhaka and he has been up to the task. He might not be everyone’s favorite player but you cannot deny his importance to the team right now.

Martin Ødegaard Runs the show

46 – Passes Completed

90.2% – Pass completion percentage

116.7 – Pass Efficiency (a measure of actual completion compared to expected, 100 means completed as many as expected), highest among all players.

8 – Progressive Passes, led all players

6 – Box Entry Pass, led all players

5 – Deep Completions (not from a Cross), led all players

2 – Open Play Key Passes, led Arsenal

0.40 – xA, led Arsenal

2 – Shots

0.14 – xG

3 – Progressive carries

6 – Final third entry passes received

7 – Ball Recoveries

Odegaard’s importance to the Arsenal attack can feel a bit underrated. He doesn’t produce the same number of goals as the other forwards, and he isn’t quite a midfielder like Xhaka but in his role where he needs to do a bit of both. It does seem like there is a strong relationship between how Odegaard performs and how Arsenal’s attack looks. Today he was excellent and was a big part of Arsenal looking dangerous everytime the ball got into the final third.

@Oh_that_crab

Sources: Opta via WhoScored, StatsZone and my own database.

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Vivek

Am I reading it wrong or does Saka’s penalty xG value look lower than Bruno’s?

Scott Willis

It shouldn’t be but it does look like it.

Mkh

Does it depend on the player and the goalkeeper involved?

Alan Sunderland

Lies, dammed lies,and statistics. Apologies to people that like this stuff, but the score is the only thing that matters in football.

PeteyB

Nobody made you read it. I for one enjoy these articles

Vaibhav Pandey

Game of real fine margins, victory yes, rejoice, but never shy away facts which is to say game was very much even, just that we wanted it more than United.

Mkh

Thanks for your compliments, Alan, I teach Statistics!

...and really bad eggs

It’s funny because the score in itself is a statistic, albeit the ultimate statistic

C.B.

Great result, let’s hope we keep it going against our London rivals.

Dr Zebra

Have to give credit to Granit’s last two performances. He’s looked assured on the ball, not just playing backwards passes and also not making dumb fouls.

And Odegaard looks amazing! So smooth and such vision and technical quality. He’s like Ozil and Cazorla combined! Love how underrated he is as for others as us fans know his class. Captain for sure next season!

Martin R

I agree totally about Xhaka, except you somehow forget that one of his main strengths has always been his forward passing. I’ve never understood at any time the accusations of his constant backwards passing.

Gsevan

Isn’t it funny how we keep having to say about Odegaard ‘well, his stats don’t quite show it, but …’ we all see how excellent he’s been in recent weeks, hugely important to the team, but he keeps getting slagged off on socials cos of his stats. (Ooooo Brentford hit the post!) Guess he’s just one of those ‘intangible’ players, I think he’s been superb, even better that expected, and turning into a 30mil steal:) would be the highlight of the summer tx business, if we hadn’t unearthed the future legend that is Tomi :)) (the fact that spuds got… Read more »

UzesGooner

Great captain material too !

Gsevan

Definitely, KT is great, but I think a center mid captain just feels more ‘right’ than a left back. And he’s been Norway Captain a while already.

COYG 1001

Plus he’s never injured!

Mkh

Yeah, I also have a feeling the captain should be a central back or midfield player.

Mkh

Except you have a HENRY up front!

Mkh

Does the downvotes mean some guys don’t like Henry? Or didn’t like him as a captain? Both are hard to digest for me!

Diaby's Left Peg

Would have preferred him not to have been captain, best player I’ve ever seen but his time as captain wasn’t brilliant.

loose_cannon

Would it be possible to pull up Xhaka’s defensive stats? He’s gotten a lot of praise for his performance today, and rightly so, but I felt that at certain times in the match he went missing. Specifically the 20 minutes after half time where our midfield was completely overrun and United were making chances at will.

Gandalf

On the xg graph, why does it seem like United’s penalty had a larger xg than our penalty?

Kostas

Maybe because of the penalty takers career stats?

Hurensohn

No, Xg goes off the quality of the chance not the player in question. Just a fuck up from whoever inputs the stat. Which is why Xg is not really to be taken as a matter of fact, more a hint as to the balance of the game.

Kostas

The MØ stats are missing an important count;
Number of Nutmegs.

Kostas

Also known as the Ødegaard constant

It Is What It Is

Ø♾ =😱

Mark Hazelwood

The space Utd gave Ø was madness.

askblorg

I really like the summaries you are giving at the end of the stats. Xhaka really stepping up. We got the little bit of luck you need but we earned it, and from Ramsdale’s fingertip save to Xhaka’s bolt from the blue and the two penalties we won this game by the margins and it is huuUGE COYG

K9ine

St Totteringhams day looking a real possibility now. That’s all I want for the season. A restoration of the natural order.

COYG 1001

Number of yellow/red cards not received?

Jean Ralphio

So glad Fernandes missed. Not just because I find him annoying but also his cuntish style of penalty taking. I hate it.

Hurensohn

We need to start tracking stats for referees. A new expected red card stat and expected penalty stat would help because I think the xG tells you a bit more about the balance of the game it doesn’t factor for the ‘luck’ (or refereeing incompetence) you benefit from over the course of the game.

Arsenio

How about a counter for the amount of times Arteta pulled down his shirt? 😁

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