Them 2-2 Arsenal: Man Down Comeback By the Numbers

As we have talked about in the past, red cards radically alter the stats in games. The team with the red card usually defends more, passes a lot less, and turns into a tackling, clearing, saving, intercepting team. While the team without the red card basically dominates all the positive stats. That happened today, but only in one category: Tottenham took 26 shots to Arsenal’s 10.

Despite the disparity in shooting stats both teams shared possession of the football in almost every phase of play:

And just to show how unusual that box score is, here is an almost identical match between two top four teams, one team gets a stupid red card, and the team with the man advantage is chasing the game. Yes I’m talking about Arsenal v. Leicester:

That’s a much more typical box score when a team gets a man advantage and they are chasing a game.

In case you’re not getting what I’m saying here you could look at this two ways: Tottenham had a huge advantage (an added expected 0.60 goals on average) and let it slip or Arsenal were just so great that they stopped Spurs from exploiting their advantage, forcing them to shoot from distance where they were less likely to score. Though Harry Kane did score an absolute gem from outside the box at a ridiculous angle.

By the way, I had to ask Opta’s Arsenal stats guy @Orbinho for the last time that Arsenal took points from a man down position in a Premier League match because I couldn’t find it. You have to go all the way back to Bolton away in March of 2008.  Arsenal won that game 3-2.

Whip and Elneny

71 – Percent of their passes that Arsenal completed
75 – Percent of their passes that Tottenham completed
97 – Percent of his 37 passes that Moussa Dembele completed (led all players)
81 – Percent of his 41 passes that Elneny completed (2nd best at Arsenal)
82 – Percent of his 50 passes that Özil completed (led Arsenal)
60 – Percent of his 58 passes that Ramsey completed (worst on Arsenal)
60 – Percent of their combined 71 passes that the Tottenham fullbacks, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker Texas Ranger,, completed (worst on Tottenham)
78 – Percent of his 41 passes that Ramsey’s right-side partner and Arsenal fullback, Bellerin, completed
64 – Percent of his 45 passes that Kieran Gibbs completed
7 – Passes in the final third by Bellerin (of 9 attempted)
3 – Key passes by Bellerin (led Arsenal)
2 – Assists by Bellerin (led all players)
4 – Successful dribbles by Bellerin (of 6)
0 – Successful dribbles by Ramsey (of 4)
0 – Successful dribbles by Sanchez (of 5)
0 – Successful dribbles by Alley, Lame, Kane, and Eriksen combined (of 10)
14 – Ball recoveries by Ramsey (led all players)
10 – Ball recoveries by Elneny
7 – Tackles by Dembele (of 7, led all players)
5 – Tackles by Bellerin (of 7,  led Arsenal)
4 – Tackles each by Ramsey and Welbeck
0 – Tackles by Elneny (of 1)
8 – Matches Ramsey had started since his last goal
7 – Matches Sanchez had played since his last goal
1 – Pretty special back heel goal by Ramsey
1 – Well taken shot from the right side by Alexis
2 – Superb assists by Bellerin, did I mention that already, that he got both assists? He did you know. Man of the match that kid.

@7amkickoff

All stats via Opta or my database