Arsenal are less exciting this season – but that makes a title win more likely

For Mikel Arteta, football is a game of different gears and paces. The Arsenal manager’s belief is that there are times when a match requires his players to put their foot down, to savage their opponents with high-speed attacks, but that there are also moments when more patience is required.

“It is about having the ability to change gears,” he said earlier this season. “We have to play at different paces.”

After 12 matches of the Premier League campaign, it seems clear that Arteta’s message has sunk in with his players. Arsenal are evolving as a team, finding more of those “gears” and excelling in different areas, and they have already become a different side to the one which challenged for the Premier League title last season.

On the most basic level, the result of these changes is that Arsenal are defensively stronger and more mature than at any point in Arteta’s tenure. The heightened level of security and midfield control has come at a cost, though: in the eyes of many supporters, they are simply not as exciting to watch as they were a year ago.

‌Less chaos, more patience

Is that a fair assessment? Well, the numbers do not lie. Arsenal are creating fewer chances, scoring fewer goals and taking fewer shots than they were last season. So far in 2023/24, they rank 12th in the Premier League for expected goals from open play. Everton, Wolves and Brentford are among the teams who rank higher.

For much of last season, Arsenal were the league’s most thrilling attacking side. Arteta’s forward players bristled with youthful energy, and they often tore into opposition defences like attack dogs. If Bukayo Saka did not do the damage on the right wing, then Gabriel Martinelli would rip teams apart on the other.

Arsenal finished the season with 88 goals in the Premier League, their highest tally in the competition’s history and 15 more than was scored by the title-winning “Invincibles” side in 2003/04. They attacked hard and fast, seemingly whenever they could, and the Emirates Stadium was enraptured by the sight of it.

Clearly, there has been a drop-off since. The Emirates is not quite as wild, on or off the pitch, as it was last season. Arsenal, it seems, are simply not as fun as they were.

The key question is whether this decline in intensity is by design, or whether it has been forced upon them. Arteta has insisted that he has not planned, and does not plan, to sacrifice attacking threat for defensive solidity. “We want to attack better,” he said last month.

If it is not a deliberate strategy, what is causing the downturn in offensive productivity? The obvious answer is that Gabriel Jesus, Arsenal’s best striker and their self-described creator of “chaos”, has missed much of the season through injury. Arteta’s preferred front three of Jesus, Saka and Martinelli have started just one league game together.

And then one must consider the opposition. Arsenal were a surprise package last season. This year, they are feared by teams across the land. It is now customary for opponents to arrive at the Emirates Stadium and immediately set up camp in their own box, challenging Arsenal to break them down. “A lot of teams have been defending with really low blocks,” said Arteta in October.

The consequence of this is that Arteta’s side have less space to attack. They are therefore playing more patiently, completing more passes per game in the final third than last year. Their attacks are slower and more measured (their number of direct attacks has declined, while their number of lengthy passing moves — of 10 or more passes — has risen).

Against packed defences, Arsenal are seeing more of the ball in dangerous areas – but, so far this campaign, they are doing less with it.

‌The Premier League’s best defence

In the last 20 Premier League campaigns, the championship-winning side has scored an average of 85 goals. By that basic measure, with 88 goals last season, Arsenal had an attack that was good enough to win the league.

Defensively, however, they fell a long way short of the usual requirements of Premier League champions. In the last two decades, the league winners have conceded an average of just 29 goals in their triumphant campaigns. Last year, Arsenal let in 43 goals – 10 more than champions Manchester City.

The most pressing issue for Arteta and technical director Edu in the summer, as they looked to build a team capable of toppling City, was therefore to improve the defence. Arsenal spent £34 million on Jurrien Timber, a multi-functional defender, £105 million on Declan Rice, a defensive midfielder, and effectively committed £30 million to the signing of David Raya, a new goalkeeper. They did not spend a single penny on a forward (they consider Kai Havertz to be a midfield player).

A serious knee injury has prevented Timber from impacting the team but the addition of Rice has certainly made Arsenal more solid in midfield. With him patrolling the centre of the pitch, and with William Saliba continuing to excel at the heart of defence, Arteta’s side are now more resilient and durable than they were last year.

In 12 games so far this season, Arsenal have conceded only 10 goals. Along with Liverpool, that is the leading defensive record in the league. Meanwhile their expected goals against (which effectively measures the quality of the chances they have conceded) is comfortably the best in the division.

Arsenal are facing fewer shots, conceding fewer chances and allowing fewer touches in their penalty box than they were last season. They are also more secure with the ball: last year, Arsenal lost possession within 40 metres of their own goal around seven times per game. This season, that “high turnover” figure is down to just five per game.

Arteta’s view of football stems from his education at Barcelona, and the work of Johan Cruyff. The Dutchman’s philosophy was based on the importance of ball possession. “When you dominate the ball, you move well,” Cruyff once said. “You have what the opposition don’t, and therefore they can’t score.”

It might sound simple but not all managers seek to control games with possession. Some prefer to do so without the ball. For Arteta, there is only one way. “We want that ball as much as possible,” he said earlier in his Arsenal tenure.

In Arsenal’s case, more of the ball means more control, and more control means fewer opportunities for the opponent. This season they have had more possession, on average, than last year. Their number of accurate passes has increased, too, from 459 per game in 2022/23 to 499 per game this season.

The set-piece threat of Arteta’s ‘big lads’

“Against low blocks we are going to be able to generate more free-kicks and more corners than last year,” said Arteta last month. “That is going to have an impact.”

It certainly had an impact in Saturday’s victory over Burnley, when Arsenal scored twice from set pieces in the second half. The deeper the opposition sit, the more set pieces they are likely to concede – and Arsenal have worked hard to make the most of those situations.

Arsenal’s current team is their tallest since the Invincibles campaign of 2003/04 and they are now carrying a serious threat from corners and free kicks. So far this season, they have scored eight goals from set pieces (not including penalties), the most in the division. “We have big lads,” Arteta said after Saturday’s win. “It is a good way for us to score goals.”

In the Premier League, only Everton have scored a greater proportion of their goals from set pieces (six of 14, or 43 per cent) than Arsenal (eight of 26, or 31 per cent).

At this stage of last season, Arsenal were two points clear at the top of the table, with 30 goals scored and 11 conceded. Now, they are one point off the top, with 26 goals scored and 10 conceded. In the eyes of some, that will be seen as regression. Especially as the attacking play is less thrilling than it was.

But Arsenal’s hope will be that, over the course of a campaign, their newfound defensive solidity will help them to go one step further than last year. The football might not be as risky or enjoyable to watch, but that will not bother Arteta if the campaign ends with the Premier League trophy in his hands.