Disappointing result again from Arsenal and once again, this time worse than against WBA, the Gunners were limited by a simple game plan of locking down the 18 yard box.
There’s a joke about Arsenal that is so well known that it made it onto the British television show, The I.T. Crowd. It goes “The ‘fing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in.” It’s funny because it’s true.
Arsenal are 2nd the League in shots per game with 17.4 but are 13th, tied with Aston Villa, for shots outside the box. That means Arsenal create 12.4 shots per game in the 18 yard box. Again, this blows away all the others, it’s two more shots per game than 2nd best Man City who average 10.6 shots in the 18 and lead the League in shots from outside the box with 7.1.
So, what teams like West Brom and Norwich are doing is packing the box. Here’s the Norwich heat map:
And the West Brom heat map:
And this is what the stats look like:
| Match | Chances created | Big Chances | Shots in Prime | Shots in Box | Shots distance | Passes | Pass/Chnc |
| Sp*rs | 10 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 458 | 45.8 |
| WBA | 6 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 684 | 114 |
| Norwich | 10 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 626 | 62.6 |
| Average | 14 | 3 | 6 | 12 | 5 | 561 | 40.1 |
How do you fix this?
Usually, when you score first, as Arsenal did today and against West Brom, it forces them to come out of their shell. But in both matches Arsenal failed to hold the lead and so both teams were able to get back into the game.
There will be a rush to blame Coquelin’s absence and I understand that impulse. But there’s not enough Flamini data available (yet) for me to say conclusively that he’s not up to Coquelin’s standard.
The other way to beat a team that parks the bus is to create havoc either through individual penetration (dribbling or movement) or (if desperate) by taking shots from distance and hoping for deflections and rebounds. Both of these are problematic because Arsenal’s best dribbler (Alexis 2nd in the League in successful dribbles per game with 3.3) went down injured today and Arsenal’s best forward runner, Theo Walcott, isn’t expected back for a while. I guess I would suggest shots from distance then. Ugh. That’s “poke and hope” football and isn’t really a game plan.
Injuries are devastating Arsenal at the moment. Gabriel actually had a good game, apart from that early error. It’s always hard to sub in. Cazorla also had a good game, despite the reported problems with his ligaments after the match. Cazorla is Arsenal’s second best dribbler.
There are at least 9 players currently injured. 5 of them guaranteed first team starters and 3 of them are Arsenal’s most effective attacking players.
I suppose that’s actually the stat of the game. Or of the week.
Bitterly disappointing result and the injuries are the turd cherry on top of the shit sundae.
Stats: Opta and my personal database
3 – Number of key players injured
0% – Amount of hope we have left unless the injury crisis abates
Any idea what happened to Gibbs yesterday?
We need a big shack up in the Medical department. Seems Wilshere, Vermalen, welbeck injuries were misdiagnosed and mismanaged. Cant allow this to keep on happening. Not even a truckload of new signings can solve that. Chelsea won the league with literally the same 11 last season. Something gotta change
On Welbeck, the staff made decision not to have surgery initially, but ultimately he wasn’t recovering as expected and surgery was required. It wasn’t a misdiagnosis as such.
The real impact of these injuries will be felt throughout the congested December / festive fixtures. We’re going to drop a lot of points. For us to stay in this race, we had to beat teams like Norwich and WBA. We couldn’t, and players are dropping like flies, and it’s the same old Arsenal injury story year after year after year. Boring.
Predications:
Drop a bucket load of points during the festive season, drop out of the top 4 – Arsenal in crisis!
Qualify for the round of 16 only to be matched with Barcelona and get beat 6-2 on aggregate.
With no more European distractions and LANs coming back, go through Feb, March and April undefeated to finish 3rd and above Spurs.
Cue pundits/fans lamenting if only Arsenal could stay consistent for more than half a season then we’d have the premiership in the bag.
I’m going to watch the Walking Dead now (mid-season finale). I’ve given enough to Arsenal today and need to stop thinking about these injuries.
P.S. I’m watching the replay of the game right now and Ozil just scored his header; what a great goal!
I wouldn’t. Walking Dead is a documentary about Arsenal’s injury problems.
I worry about Koscienly. His recurring back problem could see him retire early because you just can’t play footie without your friggin back.
It’s a delicate injury this because he might be fine tomorrow then again break down the next day.
Hopefully I am reading too much into this.
Reflecting on the game, the obvious question for me is, once we took the lead, why not play on the counter?
you can’t play counter attacking football with giroud
We can’t play brilliantly effective counter attacking football with Giroud rather than Walcott in the team is true but we would have won yesterday if we had employed that tactic having gone 1.0 up.
Please the heat map is a bit ambiguous. What are we looking at there?
We are looking at a broken butterfly and a bee without a sting.
The sad thing is that, we cant say it was unexpected.
I honestly thought don’t fix what isn’t broken is something Arsene did. What was that with Ramsey?? He was anonymous especially when Joel played so well mid-week.
they say lightning never strikes twice unless its Arsenal with injuries’ seem to get 2 back and 2 out more like the in out in out shake it all about. If Wenger had not played Sanchez and the result was the same people would of moaned for not playing him same stick to beat with. even so the team we put out is on paper good enough but never good enough. taken only 2 points out of 9 but still only 2 behind. Sunderland at home and villa away would be thinking 6 points but thinking and reality are miles… Read more »
the ray of hope or the confirmation of doom comes in the next six fixtures.
4 out of 6 at home and if we cant beat bar codes,sunderland . bournmouth home and villa away ,the game is up.if we win the four and draw city at home and soton away,we should be top going in to fa cup week.
With a big game against man city coming up risking sanchez for an away game to Norwich seems stupid.
He is now looking at probably 4-6 weeks on the sidelines.The same as throwing Walcott on in a pointless capital one game without a proper warm up.
Seems like bad decision making from me.
Not getting at least a couple of bodies in the summer is going to bite us on the ass
Do we have the numbers that show the number of consecutive seasons where arsenal have had a noteworthy ‘injury crisis’.
I would like the figures to explain to the other half, the cause of my current sulking
http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-arsenal/ausfallzeiten/verein/11
It’s fucking epidemic.
I’ve seen better injury lists during the last outbreak of the Plague.
Like having a broken Coq is not enough, now we broke our Alexis too. That’s just sad.
Wenger has got us to the point where we are an actual joke… We have become A fucking BYWORD for fucking up…The rate we are going ‘Arsenalling’ is going to be in the dictionary in the next 2 or 3 years. http://www.football365.com/news/norwich-1-1-arsenal-history-repeated http://www.football365.com/news/shock-horror-wenger-finally-breaks-sanchez Also the only Arsenal player not to suffer an injury at Arsenal in 2015 is Joel Campbell and that’s because he wasn’t here and hasn’t played until recently…Cech had a small problem at the chavs. That is embarrassing..Woeful ignorance, incompetence and quite clearly shocking management.. Anyone denying this or absolving Wenger of any blame is deluded and… Read more »
I remember listening to Football Weekly right around when the transfer window ended. They were talking about the fact that Arsenal didn’t but any outfield players. Most of the people on the podcast were defending the decision, saying Arsenal had good squad depth. The host said something like, “right, they have great squad depth for a normal team, but get back to me around Christmas when they have loads of injuries in every department and are struggling to put a team together.”
Christmas comes early this year, I guess.
Rosicky and Arteta are unfortunately, 2 spots wasted when they are so rarely fit or contribute little when they are. 2 20 something midfielders with good injury records could have been signed who could be making a real difference. Instead, we have 0 DMs in the squad now to backup Flamster. No one to play if Ramsey suffers a recurrence of his chronic injuries. Joel Campbell is starting regularly even when he is hated or at least not feted by the majority of the fan base (I’m the only one who believes in his talent it seems). I think Joel… Read more »
Season average.
Just in case anyone is confused.