Arsenal’s Season So Far | Stats Analysis

Arsenal Attack

If you compare this season to last season, Arsenal have made slight improvements this year.  Arsenal have scored a goal every 48 minutes this season, as opposed to every 50 last season.  Arsenal have been slightly more clinical finishing 19% of their chances this year, as opposed to 17% last year, and converted 45% of their clear cut chances,as opposed to 42% last year.  Like stated above slight improvements.  The only major improvement has been their shooting accuracy which has gone from 48% up to 57%.  The top two goal scorers this season have been Olivier Giroud and the magical Aaron Ramsey.  Ramsey leads the team with six league goals and 11 in all competitions.  Giroud comes in second with five league goals and eight in all competitions.  Ramsey has a 32% conversion rate and has converted all three of his clear cut chances.  Giroud has a 17% chance conversion rate and has converted three of his six clear cut chances.  Giroud has taken the most shots on the team with 40 while Ramsey has put the most shots on target with 14.

Ramsey has been in the form of his life.  It is completely pointless to compare his goal scoring this season to last season because it’s just not comparable.  His massive boost in confidence has allowed this amazing form in front of goal.

As he has told reporters tirelessly, Ramsey has always been in positions to score but has lacked the composure in front of goal in the past.  Giroud on the other hand, has had a massive improvement in front of goal in his second season. Giroud has improved his chance conversion rate from 13% to 19% but the major improvement has been he has not spurned the great chances this year. Last season, Giroud converted only four of his 23 clear cut chances, one of the worst conversion rates in the league.  This season, Giroud has converted three of his six clear cut chances.  Giroud will need to keep a similar conversion rate or even improve upon it if Arsenal are to sustain their title challenge.

With the lack of depth in the striker department, Arsenal will want to put Olivier Giroud in bubble wrap when he is not playing.  While they still have Theo Walcott, Lukas Podolski and even Yaya Sanogo to return from injury, it is clear that Nikolas Bendtner will not be able to get the job done and Arsenal will need to pray for Giroud to stay fit at least until January.  While their is always room to improve, Arsenal’s current goal scoring numbers are very similar to last season’s champions, Manchester United, numbers in front of goal.  As is the way in Arsenal’s system, they will need the goals to keep coming from the midfield.  While Aaron Ramsey will eventually stop scoring at such a ridiculous rate, the Gunners do have other options.  With Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski coming back from injury along with players like Santi Cazorla and Mesut Ozil already in that midfield, Arsenal should be able to keep the goals from midfield rolling in.

Comparison to Last season

Arsenal have made major improvement in comparison to this stage of last season.  At this point last season, Arsenal had 16 points while right now they have 25 points.  That is massive improvement and has allowed Arsenal to be top of the table going into the November international break.  Arsenal have started playing the bigger teams in the league and have still been getting on pretty well.  While Arsenal have had a great start to the season, they are actually three points worse off than they were with the same fixtures last season. While many assumed Arsenal would crumble when they played the top teams, they have shown they can beat better teams like Dortmund, Liverpool and Napoli. While they did just lose to Manchester United, a loss at Old Trafford is one a team can budget for in a title race.

Arsenal have had a strong start to the season. In the last “Arsenal’s season so far” story I said that the key part of the schedule for Arsenal was not the first seven games but the next eight to ten games. So far Arsenal have done well grabbing nine points from games eight to eleven.  If Arsenal can get through the Christmas period and still be competitive, they will have as good a shot as any team at the title.