Hey folks, Tim here from 7amkickoff. I’m filling in for Scott who is on vacation. I don’t have access to the same databases and data that Scott does and Scott does a fantastic job with the graphics for this column, so I’m not going to imitate him or pretend I can do a similar job. We are going “old school” on this post.
(all stats are for the Arsenal 0-1 Olympiakos match today unless otherwise noted)
Arsenal did enough to win this
12 – Shots by Arsenal
9 – Shots by Arsenal inside the 18 yard box
1 – Shot by Arsenal inside the six yard box
5 – Big chances by Arsenal (xG > 0.15)
3 – Big chances for Auba
2 – Big chances for Pepe
1 – Big chance created by Ceballos
1 – Big chance created by Ødegaard
1 – Big chance created by Martinelli
2 – Shots which hit Smith Rowe in the face
1 – Big chance blocked by Smith Rowe’s face
2.6 – Shot-based expected goals for Arsenal
0.7 – Shot-based expected goals for Olympiakos
0.8 – Non-shot expected goals for Arsenal
0.6 – Non-shots expected goals for Olympiakos
60 – Percent chance Arsenal would win before kickoff (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/europa-league/)
83 – Percent chance Arsenal would win this match based on shots taken
1 – Big chance for Olympiakos
1 – Big chances created for Olympiakos by Jose Sa (their keeper)
1 – Big chance saved by Bernd Leno
Olympiakos pressured
18 – Possessions lost by Kieran Tierney (led Arsenal)
63 – Percent passing by Tierney (19/30, 2nd worst of any Arsenal outfield player)
16 – Possessions lost by each of Pepe and Auba
18 – Ground duels by Pepe
8 – Ground duels won by Pepe
81 – Percent passing by Pepe (25/31)
14 – Possessions lost by Gabriel
79 – Percent accurate passing by Gabriel (48/61)
27 – Clearances by Arsenal
8 – Clearances by Olympiakos
Ceballos’ numbers weren’t bad
39 – Touches by Ceballos
87 – Percent pass completion by Ceballos (26/30)
3 – Key passes by Ceballos (led all players)
1 – Big chance created by Ceballos
9 – Possessions lost by Ceballos
1 – Moment you remember where he turned the ball over before their goal
1 – Interception he’d made to win that ball in the first place
1 – Person who will point out that he probably could have created more and that the attack was better when he went off (I agree)
Sources: sofascore.com, whoscored.com, fivethirtyeight.com, danny.page
the ceballos stats are interesting. he did not have a bad game statistically but he takes such crazy risks all the time in dangerous areas. he just doesn’t seem to have the right mentality. i’ll give him some leeway because he is still pretty young despite looking about 53.
we have a number of guys like this at moment – luiz/xhaka/ceballos/auba/bellerin. all good players on the whole but all liable to making silly mistakes/errors on a regular basis. i won’t be surprised to see most of that group replaced in the summer.
Don’t count on it. Arteta loves Xhaka and Luiz. Ceballos hopefully won’t be back. He’s not terrible but we’re not weaker without him. Not sure about the last 2 granted Auba misses his share of chances and probably others share too
Luiz didn’t have a bad game and definitely adds something with his passing ability, though if they could play together, Mari and Gabriel would be my CB choice
I don’t see MA going with two left-sided CBs. I think Mari panics less than Gabi but Gabi can progress upwards with his skills.
2 – Number of games the opposition had a player sent-off
0 – The number of times we had the mental strength to impose ourselves when we had the numerical advantage
We have beaten some big teams like Pool, Man U, Chelsea, Leicester, etc (no Spuds are not a big team) but our confidence is brittle. We need to improve on it more than anything else to win the EL.
0 – number of times we actually needed to score a goal in those situations
Hahaha that’s correct.
I suspect if we were chasing the game in either of those situations we might have scored. However, it’s the panic that set in, in both the occasions. I can
picture us scoring early then struggling with should we stick or twist and doing neither.
0 – number of goals Spuds scored in Zagreb
3 – number of goals scored in Zagreb.
Lots – number of people on the Liveblog last night who got more enjoyment by switching to Spuds game instead of ours
And under the heading of “I didn’t think this could possibly get any better, but it did” – Spurms’ back-up keeper Joe Hart’s media team misread the result as a Spurms win, and posted a “Job done” picture on all his social media. Hart has deleted the posts and issued an apology.
A lot of people have been unnecessarily doom and gloom about the game.
My takeaways – We dominated and should have won, but missed our chances. Our players were tired after the NLD. Ceballos is talented but not secure. They kicked lumps out of us.
At the same time we never looked like going out, and that’s ultimately what mattered.
I agree; I understand the comments of Leno and Arteta about how bad we were. But, no matter how many times you tell yourself “play the second leg like it’s nil-nil to begin,” it’s very hard not to think “if we stop them from scoring three, which they show absolutely no signs of doing, we go through”. We know this is the wrong mentality, that sometimes it will cost you. But, as it actually happened, we were never in any danger of not going through.
Let’s play better against West Ham and not worry too much about this.
Infinity- amount of people who laughed when sp*rs got eliminated
Checked the stats on FBref and there are some discrepancies. I wish I’d waited until I got the FBref data to write this.
Auba made Arsenal to loose the game by amount of chances he lost
I’d like to see Elnenys stats, he looked to me like he had a really poor game in terms of keeping possession, especially since his passing % stats are normally pretty high
Ceballos ball carrying is predictable often trying to run directly towards goal.