Last season Arsenal played with a three headed goalkeeper: Szczospiniano. Together they conceded 36 goals but only three goals from shots outside the 18 yard box. Arsenal weren’t the very best at shutting down on shots from distance and allowed 43 shots on target from outside the box, but Szczospiniano saved 93% of the shots from distance that they faced. In terms of stopping shots from distance, that was the best record of any team in the Premier League.

This season, Arsenal have played with Petr Cech for 33 matches and Ospina for the other 4. Arsenal have conceded more shots from outside the 18 yard box this season than last (65 v. 43) but the saves percentage has plummeted from 93% to 83% as the Gunners have allowed 11 goals from distance in the Premier League this season. In terms of stopping shots from distance, that’s the second worst record of any team in the Premier League.

Kevin de Bruyne’s scuffed goal added one more to Cech’s total on the season and he has now allowed the most goals from outside the 18 yard box with 10. Cech also has the worst saves % of any keeper who has faced more than 20 shots on target from outside the 18 yard box with just 82%. Over the last two seasons, the League average has been 86% so, Cech is performing well below League average on shots from outside the 18 yard box.

Ospina allowed the other goal from distance in League play and he ended up saving 9/10 shots from that area. Little known fact, Ospina’s middle name is small sample size, David “small sample size” Ospina.

Cech has the worst record for saves outside the box but the best record for saves inside the box. Shots on target inside the 18 yard box are scored at about a 40% rate over the last two seasons. Cech has stopped 71% of the shots he’s faced in the 18 yard box – meaning that the opposition scored just 29% of the shots on target that they created inside Arsenal’s 18. That’s incredibly good. The best in the League! De Gea is second best at 69%, Schmeichel 66%, Lloris is slightly better than average with 63%, and Joe Hart is bog average with 58%.

This odd record is compounded by the fact that Arsenal have allowed 36 goals this season — the (second) most from the outside but the least from the inside. Using a rudimentary “expected goals” application if you take the shots Cech has faced and multiply them by the season averages (14% inside, 40% outside), we would expect to see 36.5 goals but Cech has only allowed 31 goals. In other words, Cech is well below average saving goals from distance, but also well above average from inside the box, and combined, he’s a slightly above average keeper this season.

I suspect that part of the problem with Arsenal’s goals from distance is systemic with Arsenal this season. The first problem is that the team is allowing more shots on target from distance than they have in seasons past. That “on target” bit is important as it indicates that overall shot quality from the opposition is higher than expected.

For Arsenal the shots on target trend for the last three years is mixed: 148 this year, 125 last, and 151 two years ago. I suspect many people will ask whether Coquelin’s inclusion has anything to do with this and the answer is maybe. Szczesny and Ospina’s reigns are almost exactly bifurcated along the Coquelin line. Szczesny allowed 21 goals, 19 from inside the 18 yard box. His save percentage from outside the box was great, but his save percentage from inside the box was just 25/44, 57%. Meanwhile Ospina allowed just 10 goals inside the 18 yard box and faced 6 fewer shots on target saving 28/38, 74%. Oddly, both keepers faced exactly the same number of shots from outside the 18 yard box, 18 with Ospina allowing 1 and Szczesny allowing 2.

All shots from distance score at about a 3% rate. So, in theory, you want the opposition shooting from outside the box. However, shots on target from distance score at a 14% rate. That’s a substantial increase in chances. In which case, your defense needs to close down on those shots and especially right in front of the box where the player has the best angles.

This gets to another reason why Cech might be letting in more goals from distance this season compared to Szczespina. This season, we have all seen Arsenal beaten from distance with shots that weren’t properly closed down: Bolasie, de Bruyne, Routledge, Herrera, Martina, and Joel Ward (Palace) come to mind.

But just as equally, Arsenal have been unlucky with some of these drives from distance: Yaya Toure’s chip was unstoppable, as was Harry Kane’s curler from a tight angle, Ross Barkley’s shot was deflected off Gabriel, and Firmino’s shot into the top right corner couldn’t have been stopped if Cech had those Betelgeuse comedy long arms attached to his real arms.

Cech has been beaten more often from distance than anyone would like and on some of the goals conceded he’s looked quite weak. But every keeper is going to have a few mistakes. More to the point, players are going to jump out of the way of shots (all defenders do it), not close down, and generally make it look bad from shots from distance. I suspect, and it’s something I’m going to look at this summer, that shots from outside the 18 yard box (from open play) are basically all flukes — there is too much random variation in distance shots to make them something to blame on the keeper.

What I’d much rather have is Cech’s 71% saves from inside the 18 yard box. This is a much more important metric because once the opposition gets that type of penetration and gets the shot on target, their chances of scoring jump from 14% to 40%.

The only two questions is whether Arsenal can get the defense together to defend the distance shots better and whether Cech can repeat his incredible saves percent from shots in the 18 yard box again next season.

@7amkickoff

Sources: exhaustively sourced from Whoscored.com and Squawka. This information is seriously not readily available.

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