What's changed since the Liverpool game?
In yesterday’s post-match thread, I got this ping out of the blue:
“We need the BBQ guy to tell us wtf is going on with these performances”
I’m not sure being called “the BBQ guy” will ever feel natural, particularly with my replacement-level real-life grilling skills. But while I consider my life choices, I’ll say this: I’m flattered, I’m clueless as ever, and I’m here to help.
By means of level-setting, this will be a shorter edition, as I’ve already met my weekly quota. The piece I posted on Thursday conveniently dove into one of the core issues with the team at the moment, so I’ll point you to it now: Looking at Jesus and co’s missed chances to see what’s due to luck, what’s due to finishing quality, what’s due to getting suplexed in the box, and what can improve from here.
So what’s changed since the Liverpool game? To start, there’s the obvious.
The schedule
Autumn coincided with a breezy run of form, punctuated by the most faultless performance of the season at Brentford, and followed by three successive home wins against Tottenham, Bodø/Glimt, and Liverpool. In all, it was 10 days of rest followed by four wins in 22 days.
From there, the schedule has compressed considerably, while the travel plans have gotten more arduous. It’s been five games in fifteen days, including trips to the Arctic Circle, Elland Road, Southampton, and Eindhoven.
There's been some squad rotation during this run. Broadly speaking, the defense has performed admirably, allowing only .6 goals per 90 (last night’s struggles included). The problem is on the other net: across lineups, the offense has gone cold, dropping from 2.55 goals a game to 0.8.
How much has the travel impacted performance? It’s a question that has been studied extensively in the NBA, where traveling across time zones is the norm, and the “bubble” offered a helpful control group:
Research points to the general negative influence of air travel on health and recovery, for every NBA team. According to this research, when traveling on a plane, breathing air from a pressurized cabin, the amount of oxygen stored in the blood drops to a level that might alarm a family physician during a checkup. That, in combination with the inactivity of prolonged sitting, can lead to stiff muscles and joints, impeding recovery.
Travel appears to have a particular impact on actions where finely-tuned accuracy is needed. In basketball, that’s shooting and rebounding. In other competitions, that includes stuff like the below:
Decrements in accuracy have also been reported in other types of elite athletes, namely competitive marksmanship, when traveling multiple time zones. In professional baseball, the greater number of time zones a team travels has been found to be associated with winning percentage, potentially driven by impaired pitching accuracy as observed through an increased number of home runs allowed by a jet-lagged pitcher.
Decrements in accuracy… Like, say, finishing accuracy? 🤔
Then there’s the sleep factor. Evidence seems to indicate that workload and competition schedules — especially during congested competitive periods — are likely to impair athletes’ sleep, which can lead to injury, illness, and reduced performance. The impacts of planes and sleep loss can contextualize why lethargy can impact everyone, and not just the players who are doing back-to-back full shifts.
Is this an excuse? Nah. Working within these realities is part of what you sign up for as a professional athlete, and it’s one of the reasons top teams have such full complements of physios and sport scientists.
On top of that, there’s a clear mentality that Arteta is trying to build into the team:
“If we start to put something different in the minds of our young players I think we are making a huge mistake because then it’s one yes, one no, now I don’t play, on astroturf I don’t play, I don’t want that … I want them to be ruthless every three days. They are going to be knocking on my door, [saying] ‘I want to play, I want to win the game.’”
So it’s not an excuse. But is it a bit of added context for we fans freaking out about the recent run of form? Hopefully.
What hasn’t changed?
To figure out what else is going on, I split the season into two segments:
All games up to, and including, Liverpool (11 games in all)
All games after Liverpool (5 games in all)
With sample size and opponent quality caveats abound, I wanted to see what had changed in terms of play style and analytics between the two periods.
So I pulled 91 different variables for comparison — anything from passing to corners to tempo to line height—to see what’s been ailing The Arsenal.
The first reaction? As you’ll see, there are many areas in which the underlying data actually hasn’t changed much. Here are some of them:
What hasn’t changed for Arsenal. I couldn’t think of a better phrase than “Liverpool and prior,” sorry.
They’re playing marginally higher-possession; the tempo is the same; they’re passing more, and more accurately; their duel numbers haven’t fallen off a cliff; they even seem to be progressing the ball at similar or higher rates.
So what gives?
It’s the pressing
Aggressive pressing, in all its forms, is a critical part of the identity Arteta is trying to forge. A defining image of the early-season heroics was a tireless high-press dogging the opponent’s backline into mistakes, with Martinelli and Jesus in particular running directly at terrified center-halves, Saka holding his own, and Ødegaard picking up the scraps.
Perhaps the single most confidence-boosting period of the year was later in the second half against Liverpool, when Arsenal confidently dominated possession with a higher line. With a conservative gameplan to stem the tide early, Arsenal upped the pressure and never let up:
Late in the game with a one-goal lead, Arteta laid a brick on the accelerator, and could be seen screaming at his players to hurry up, play higher-tempo, and raise the intensity of the press. It felt significant, like the realization of a yearslong vision.
Since, though, it’s been more like the game at Southampton:
In the first half, the team had 32 ball recoveries in the middle and attacking thirds. In the second half, that number dropped to 18.
Here’s a quick visualization of advanced recoveries by half:
This has been part of a larger trend:
In the last five games, Arsenal averages 6.62 fewer “high” recoveries per 90
They allow 3.72 more passes per defensive action (in the opponent’s 60% of the field)
I’d argue that these recoveries are important for any team, but especially so for Arsenal: it’s a team that thrives with dribbling, passing, and shooting in hectic moments — and high counter-press recoveries are how you cheaply kick off those opportunities.
With the ball less advanced, Xhaka is more involved in middle-third build-up play, instead of his Balon d’Or sweet spot in the opponent's box.
With fewer of these opportunities, clinicians are required, and that’s an area where Arsenal attackers haven’t proven themselves to be world-class (yet). Speaking of...
It’s the shooting (and the crossing)
During this run, Arsenal’s shots on target have dropped from 6.36 (per 90) to 4. Their accuracy has fallen from 41.3% to 29.6%. It’s been a big part of the story, and I covered a lot of that in the aforementioned post, including some ideas on what to do from here.
Getting shots blocked has been a particular problem, and that showed up again against PSV:
Another area that stuck out was a drop in crosses: the team has gone from attempting 15.91 per game to 10. This coincides with a few factors: Zinchenko’s absence, Tierney becoming more comfortable in an inverted role, and Tomiyasu playing conservatively on the the attacking side.
Against PSV, there were only 6 attempts, and Vieira was the only player with multiple:
Early in the second half, Tomi hit it from the flank to Eddie for a near-goal (I guess Tomi was in the box, so it wasn’t technically a cross?). Nonetheless, his lack of cross volume has always confounded me, as he seems like he has all the tools to be elite there.
As shown in White’s overlap in the first PSV game, there are goals to be had.
It’s the squad depth
This is a run of games that has relied more heavily on Arsenal’s second line than any previous period, and it’s simply been a disappointing run of form for many of them. While there have been moments of talent and explosiveness, they have largely been unable to impose themselves on the opponent and get the ball in the net.
My urge is to write player-by-player analyses here, but as I started doing that, I reminded myself: I’ve met my damn quota, and I’m going to override the impulse to nerd out on something for the first time in the history of this series. Do you believe in miracles?
Put simply, they look a midfielder and a goal-scorer short. There’s good news on that front, with pervasive reports of the team adding talent to its core in the coming months, including: a skilled young attacker, a title-winning fullback-midfield-hybrid, and an experienced and steady DM.
Yes, I’m stealing a joke. 😏
🔥 In conclusion 🔥
I went into this exercise fully expecting more variance in the underlying numbers. Ultimately, the biggest number was the simplest one: Arsenal used to score 2.5 goals a game, and that number has dropped to 0.8 in the last 5.
How should we describe this run of form? It's bullet time:
They went from 4 games (3 at home) in a total of 22 days to 5 games (4 away and/or through Europe) in 15
They have maintained many of their baseline statistics, including possession, tempo, and passing
They have been unable (or unwilling) to keep up the intensity of their press for a full 90 minutes, which results in fewer dangerous scoring opportunities
They have been generating fewer shots at a lower accuracy, and are crossing less
The second line hasn’t performed well enough to offset the schedule crunch
There are plenty of reasons for calma. They only lost once during this stretch. There are only five matches until the World Cup break, and help is on the way from there. Imagine this run with Zinchenko, Smith-Rowe, Elneny — plus a possible (?) midfielder and attacker in the January window.
With no assumption the team will remain injury-free in the meantime, Arsenal should continue to look at how to keep up a press through longer periods, and generate shots in any case.
Coming out angry against Forest would go a long way.
Happy grilling everyone.
Signed,
"The BBQ Man"
🔥
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