Trust in Arteta pays off! Arsenal are moving in the right direction

Mikel Arteta has chosen to follow a very thorny path, believing above all in youth. After one third of the league season, it is safe to say that they still have a long way to go to reach perfection. However, great steps forward are visible at Arsenal, with which he can celebrate success sooner or later.

The Spanish coach was practically a write-off at the beginning of this season, when speculations about his early departure had already started. That was August, however, in which Arsenal took on Brentford, Chelsea and Manchester City. Those three games meant three losses and no goals scored.

The Gunners did subsequently manage to win two in a row, beating Norwich and Burnley. However, two meagre 1-0 wins and a very lacklustre display of play did not suggest that Arteta was going to stay at the Emirates Stadium for a long time.

Considering that the management of the London team invested 165 million euros in new reinforcements, unusually the most of all teams, everyone expected much more. Only Arteta knew why he brought the players in question, was patient and believed in his team.

After 12 rounds it has to be said that patience paid off, as the statistics confirm. Arsenal lost clearly 4: 0 to Liverpool in the last league round and if it wasn’t for the excellent goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, it would have been a lot more, but they are currently in 5th place with 20 points.

The youngest team in the league

Arteta has used 26 players so far in the current Premier League season, along with Watford the most of any team. However, the average age of the Gunners is 24.1 years, so we are talking about the youngest team in the league.

It must be added that, especially in the final phase, this fact is visible. From my personal point of view, the thing I miss most about Arsenal is the final pass into the box. The experienced duo of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette could usually handle it already.

We saw exactly that in the Liverpool game. Taking only the first half into account, compared to other teams in the league, Arsenal played an even match with the Reds (a lot in quotes), where the Gunners lacked the better interplay in attack to overcome a virtually impenetrable defence led by Virgil van Dijk.

Of course, Liverpool beat Arteta’s team with complete ease. However, it was a completely different story than, for example, the Manchester United vs. Liverpool match.

This young team, which welcomed a number of other “youngsters” in the summer, still needs time to mature and, above all, to play. After that, we can expect Arsenal to be a very interesting team indeed.

Premier League 2021/22 – Statistics

Arsenal don’t exactly have a problem with not scoring goals. They send 13.3 shots per game at their opponents, which is the 7th best number, but only 13 goals scored, which in turn ranks them only 14th, is not good.

In creating chances, Bukayo Saka is the best in the Gunners with an average of 1.6 key passes per game. That’s up to 23rd of all players in the Premier League, by the way. This is where Arsenal are taking so many shots and logically not scoring as many goals.

Moreover, Arsenal aren’t exactly bothered by not having the ball often, their average this season is 46%. Then again, the passing success rate isn’t great either, as the London side is up to 10 in this statistic with 81.5%.

The player ratings are not good at all either, they are even as low as 15th in this stat. This is of course due to some really bad games played.

Despite the not so good statistics, Arsenal are still in 5th place, but many points were earned rather by luck. But that’s part of it…

Anyway, Arteta has a lot to improve. The gameplay, for the young players he has at his disposal, is constantly improving and it is important that the team keeps developing. If that is the case, Arsenal will soon be big favourites to finish in the top 4 again. However, it will take a lot more than that to fight for the title!

Source: Premier League, Whoscored