77 – Goals scored by Arsenal this season. This is the highest goals scored tally of Arsene’s tenure since 2004/05 and the 4th highest of all his seasons at Arsenal

44 – Goals allowed by Arsenal this season. This is the highest goals allowed tally of Arsene’s tenure since 2011/12 and the second worst of all his seasons at Arsenal. Incidentally, 2011/12 Arsenal conceded 49 goals and that was the season Arsenal needed to finish 3rd to guarantee Champions League play and did so on the final day thanks to a Koscielny winner v. West Brom.

10 – Penalties conceded by Arsenal this season. This is the most penalties Arsenal have conceded in Premier League history.

24 – Goals scored by Alexis in the Premier League this season. This is the most goals a player has scored for Arsenal since Robin van Persie scored 30 goals for Arsenal in 2011/12. That was the season before he joined Man U. Unlike that season Arsenal had three players in double-digit goals scored this season (Alexis, Giroud, Walcott) and in 2011/12 only van Persie scored 10 or more goals.

6 – Headed goals by Giroud (3rd in the League behind Benteke and Llorente with 7 each). Lukaku also scored 6 goals with his head this season and 7 with his right foot and 12 with his left. Lukaku’s 12 left-footed goals was the most in the League this season.

16 – Giroud only needed 16 headed shots to score his 6 goals, Benteke scored 7 on 49, Llorente 7 on 35.

10 – Assists by Alexis in the Premier League this season (led Arsenal, 5th in the League). In the season which RvP scored 30 he also had 10 assists.

5 – Alexis assisted Özil 5 times, this was the third most common assist combination behind Eriksen to Kane (6) and Sigurdsson to Llorente (6). Alexis’ stat is unusual because the other two recipients (Kane and Llorente) are the top scorers on their team. This same pattern continued below with de Bruyne to Aguero (5), Fabregas to Costa (4), Mirallas to Lukaku and etc.: all players assisting to their team’s top scorer.

3 – Alexis also led the League in throughball assists (tied with de Bruyne and Pogba)

3.4 – Shots per game by Alexis (led Arsenal), Walcott was 2nd with 2.2 per game and Ramsey was 3rd with 1.8.

3 – Key passes per game by Özil (led Arsenal, 3rd in the League).

3 – Ozil also had three assists from corners (tied for the most in the League). Goals from corners aren’t that common and assists from them even less.

136 – Tackles by Idrissa Gueye this season (led the League) of 186 attempts (73%). Second best was N’Golo Kante. Gueye followed last season’s 4.1 tackles per game with another outstanding 4.1 tackles per game. Arsenal’s most prolific tackler was Monreal with 90 of 139 (65%). Xhaka only had 76 tackles of 118 attempts (64%). Needless to say, you don’t really want your left back to be the most prolific tackler on your team: you’d rather have a midfielder.

90 – Koscielny led the League in interceptions with 90 (tied with Kurtis Davis). Monreal was third with 89. This is a style thing with Wenger, he wants his center backs to attack passes and they are often in the top of the League stats in this category.

114 – Cech was 6th in the League in saves. The top players were Burnley’s Heaton, Sunderland’s Pickford, Watford’s Gomes, etc. The worst teams in the League. Lloris made the most saves of any of the top four teams with 78. I’ll talk about this more this summer when I have more time to look at the numbers.

145 – Wilfried Zaha led the league in successful dribbles but he was only successful in 57% of his attempts. Alexis led Arsenal with 109 (4th best in the League) and dribbled at a 68% rate. Hazard was best in the League with 77%, 143/186.

128 – Alexis was dispossessed 2nd most in the League behind Zaha. Arsenal’s second most dispossessed player was Bellerin with just 42. Though, it’s pretty awful for your right back to have such a high number of turnovers.

94 – Alexis also led Arsenal with 94 unsuccessful touches, this was 4th most in the League. Özil was second at Arsenal with 63.

Like I hint above, there will be more articles this summer. Each will be more focused on a specific stat. I’ll also do some “scouting” articles though I do want to point out how silly it is for some stats guy, any stats guy, to use the data available from Opta and pretend that they are getting the scoop on a player (“I found this guy two years ago” LOFL). By the time a player has Opta data available to the public that player is already well known by all the scouts in Europe.

@7amkickoff

Sources: Whoscored.com, my personal database

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