X Privacy & Cookies This site uses cookies. By continuing, you agree to their use. Learn more, including how to control cookies. Got It!

Advertisements

Two good things stand out from the stats and shotmaps from the Arsenal game.

The first is that we registered higher xG than the Gunners, with a number of shots from really good positions in front of goals. Meanwhile, Arsenal’s efforts — except for their opener — are from less favourable angles.

The second thing is the number of touches we had in the opposition box. At 26 it was more than Arsenal’s 21, and came from what was quite a direct display. (Directness is the proportion of forward pass distance to overall pass distance).

You can tell those touches in the box are the result of quite direct play because they heavily outnumber the number of deep completions (passes in the final 20m), so there was clearly not a lot of fannying about before arriving in the danger area.

Other things to note:

Another good pressing performance, where we went toe-to-toe with a costly, quality-laden, athletic side to almost match them on PPDA (opposition Passes Per Defensive Action).

We seem to be playing up the right a lot more than the left these days (see passmap and heatmap below)