With the season at an end and the transfer market set to kick in to overdrive soon, the early weeks of June give us a good chance to reflect on the season. The highs, the lows, the key statistics, and whether we consider this season progress in the never ending search for glory. Below are some of the best stats I have assimilated from our season. Some are very well known, others less so, but all provide a picture of the season and help to conclude whether this season should be considered a success or not…
Premier League
Final position – 3rd
Top Scorer – Alexis Sanchez, 16 goals
Most Assists – Santi Cazorla, 11 assists
Most Cards – Calum Chambers, 7 yellows & 1 red
Most Minutes – Per Mertesacker, 3150 minutes
Arsenal were late scorers throughout the season. In the league, they scored 44% of goals in the final 30 minutes of the match. A further 20% came in the final 15 minutes of the first half. It shows our players were slow starters from kick off, but improved as the game went on. The high fitness levels of the side and strong bench could be factors for this.
The team scored on average 1.87 goals a match, a figure which increased to 2.16 goals when we played at the Emirates. What is interesting though is in the five games that we failed to score, three were at home. Those three games were consecutive against Chelsea, Swansea and Sunderland towards the end of the season. Ultimately that cost us second place.
Our biggest home win and away win were 5-0 and 0-3, respectively. No surprise to see that these were both against Aston Villa. A similar performance in the FA Cup led us to the trophy (it was never in doubt!).
A few other interesting player stats (min 500 minutes playing time) which are worth a mention:
- Although only playing 11 games of the season, Mathieu Debuchy, ahead of his French compatriots Giroud and Koscielny, was the player that won the most aerial duals per game.
- No surprise our top scorer had the most shots per 90 mins, 3.7 shots a game with a 41% shot accuracy, similar to Giroud. It was a surprise though that Walcott, who although fell an hour short of the 500 minute mark, had a shot accuracy of 66%. Two thirds of his shots tested the goalkeeper.
- Francis Coquelin, many fans’ surprise of the season made the most tackles per game, 5.3 with a 72% success rate, and also the most interceptions, 4.4 per game.
FA Cup
Winners!!!
Top Scorer – Alexis Sanchez, 4 goals
Most Assists – Alexis Sanchez, 3 assists
Most Cards – Gabriel Paulista, 2 yellows
Most Minutes – Santi Cazorla, Laurent Koscielny, Wojciech Szczesny, all on 480 minutes.
The most important number here is 12. Our record breaking 12th FA Cup win was the highlight of our season. Consecutive Cup wins show this team have the mentality to win trophies, and now need to take that attitude and desire into the Premier League. The quality has been there for a couple of seasons now and back-to-back FA Cup wins can do no harm to the self-confidence.
We averaged 2.5 goals per game in the Cup this season, and had a tendency to score earlier than we did in the league. Maybe the thought of being knocked out kicked us into gear a lot earlier. A third of our goals in the six FA Cup matches this season came between the 15th and 30th minute of the game.
With our 12th victory, Arsene Wenger is now the most successful manager in FA Cup history, joint with Aston Villa’s legendary manager George Ramsay. It’s a competition he has always enjoyed, and when he takes it seriously the team are genuine contenders.
Champions League
Knocked out in the Round of 16 by away goals.
Top Scorer – Alexis Sanchez, 4 goals
Most Assists – Santi Cazorla, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, both with 2 assists
Most Cards – Wojciech Szczesny, 1 yellow & 1 red
Most Minutes – Per Mertesacker, 810 minutes
Another season of ‘oh so near’. Five years in a row now the team has fallen short at the Round of 16 stage. In identical circumstances to 2013, the team played poorly in the first leg and did just enough to create hope for all Arsenal fans in the second leg. Ultimately it proved fruitless and we couldn’t pull off the comeback.
However, what would hurt most fans this season is the opposition we played. No disrespect to Monaco, but in the four years previous we have played Barcelona, AC Milan and Bayern Munich twice. Even the most optimistic of fans would have had some doubt in those fixtures. But against Monaco, we were the inform side and boasting the better squad. This wasn’t the Monaco side that qualified for the Champions League they had lost Falcao and Rodriguez over the summer. But a poor performance at home, which was really made to sting when we conceded in the 93rd minute after halving the deficit just moments later, cost us the tie and any chance of progress.
The 3-1 defeat to Monaco was our biggest home defeat of the season and one of only two losses in the ten Champions League games we played this season. The 3-3 home draw to Anderlecht (another poor result), was our highest scoring game of the season.
The Champions League exit was disappointing, and the team can only blame themselves. A group containing only Dortmund as a real threat (who were languishing in the relegation zone of the Bundesliga at the time), should have been executed a lot better and seen us take top spot. Even after having the luck of the draw, the side showed they were still falling short in confidence.
So what does all this say about our season? The FA Cup euphoria has calmed down now and we can look at the season as a whole. The performance in the league started very poorly. The upturn in 2015 was welcome but by then the league title was already lost. Second was in our grasps with a month to go but even that slipped away. The final league table shows a frustrating lack of progress. We finished with fewer points, less wins and further off the top than last season. The questions are being asked of the team’s tendency to fall short at the end of the season. Ten years of sitting on sidelines of the title race is too long. As far as the Champions League goes, the less said the better. The FA Cup was the saving grace. That will keep the fans happy over the summer, but no doubt we all want to see improvements and more big players ready to make an immediate impact (à la Alexis Sanchez).
Oh and don’t forget we won the Community Shield as well! Time to defend that too!
RK
Stats courtesy of Soccerway and WhoScored.
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