Shots, goals… the untold statistics machine keeps on rolling – part 3 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Walter Broeckx
Now let us try to have a look at the goals against and the way they were scored in the last season of the EPL. And we all know a lot of critics said about Arsenal and defending and now we can see how the goals went in.
| Shots/Goals 10-11 | 6 yard | % goals | 18 yard | % goals | outside | % goals |
| Chelsea | 7 | 21,21% | 20 | 60,61% | 6 | 18,18% |
| Manchester United | 12 | 32,43% | 22 | 59,46% | 3 | 8,11% |
| Arsenal | 12 | 27,91% | 24 | 55,81% | 7 | 16,28% |
| Manchester City | 10 | 30,30% | 20 | 60,61% | 3 | 9,09% |
| Tottenham | 11 | 23,91% | 25 | 54,35% | 10 | 21,74% |
| Liverpool | 12 | 27,27% | 27 | 61,36% | 5 | 11,36% |
| Fulham | 9 | 20,93% | 27 | 62,79% | 7 | 16,28% |
| Bolton | 20 | 35,71% | 28 | 50,00% | 8 | 14,29% |
| Aston Villa | 16 | 27,12% | 36 | 61,02% | 7 | 11,86% |
| Everton | 12 | 26,67% | 28 | 62,22% | 5 | 11,11% |
| Newcastle | 14 | 24,56% | 40 | 70,18% | 3 | 5,26% |
| Wigan | 20 | 32,79% | 35 | 57,38% | 6 | 9,84% |
| West Ham | 18 | 25,71% | 44 | 62,86% | 8 | 11,43% |
| Sunderland | 19 | 33,93% | 31 | 55,36% | 6 | 10,71% |
| Stoke | 17 | 35,42% | 24 | 50,00% | 7 | 14,58% |
| Blackburn | 14 | 23,73% | 39 | 66,10% | 6 | 10,17% |
| Wolverhampton | 9 | 13,64% | 47 | 71,21% | 10 | 15,15% |
| Birmingham | 24 | 41,38% | 23 | 39,66% | 11 | 18,97% |
| Total | 256 | 540 | 118 | |||
| Average | 14,22 | 28,03% | 30 | 58,94% | 6,55 | 13,02% |
And I must say that when we look at the average percentage down below and compare them to the actual percentages we don’t do that bad when you look at the table with the goals scored from within 18 yards. And also our defending in the 6 yard box is slightly better than the average EPL defence. The worst defensive record for Arsenal is in fact the shots from outside the penalty area in which we concede more goals on average than the rest of the EPL.
If you look at the other teams we see some strange things. Birmingham conceded the most goals from short distance. And also Wigan and Bolton conceded a lot of goals from within the 6 yard box. I also look at the numbers of Stoke who concede a lot more goals from close range than Arsenal does and also more than the average % in the EPL.
If we look at defending in the penalty box we see that the best defensive team in this range seen in % is…Birmingham. I must say some numbers can catch you and leave you surprised. This is one of those occasions. In fact Birmingham did better than us even when you look at numbers themselves. Only the other top teams like Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City did better in numbers than Birmingham. I don’t care that much but it looks that Birmingham lost their place in the EPL because of bad defending in their 6 yard box.
When it comes to goal scored from outside the penalty area I had to praise Tottenham for scoring the most of the whole EPL. But when it comes to conceding goals from outside the penalty area they also are top of the table in the percentages. In real numbers they only have to let Birmingham in front of them and have the same number as Wolverhampton.
So I think this is a bit strange that Tottenham score a lot from a distance but also concede a lot from a distance. The team that concedes the least goals from a distance is Newcastle. I just wonder if this is because of their strong and nasty defending at times in the middle of the field which leaves the opposing team not much time and space to even think about taking a shot? The same can be said of Manchester United and Manchester City who also only conceded 3 goals from outside the penalty area.
If we look at it in detail and try to see how unsuccessful teams have been when it came to conceding goals I come up with these tables.
| Shots/Goals 10-11 | % shots 6 yard | % goals | Succes/failure |
| Chelsea | 9 | 21 | 12 |
| Manchester United | 9 | 32 | 23 |
| Arsenal | 9 | 28 | 19 |
| Manchester City | 6 | 30 | 24 |
| Tottenham | 7 | 24 | 17 |
| Liverpool | 9 | 27 | 18 |
| Fulham | 6 | 21 | 15 |
| Bolton | 9 | 36 | 27 |
| Aston Villa | 10 | 27 | 17 |
| Everton | 8 | 27 | 19 |
| Newcastle | 12 | 25 | 13 |
| Wigan | 6 | 33 | 27 |
| West Ham | 6 | 26 | 20 |
| Sunderland | 5 | 34 | 29 |
| Stoke | 15 | 35 | 20 |
| Blackburn | 11 | 24 | 13 |
| Wolverhampton | 11 | 14 | 3 |
| Birmingham | 11 | 41 | 30 |
| Total | |||
| Average | 8,83 | 28,06 | 19,22 |
If you compare the % it shows that with the same % of shots taken we have defended them better than Manchester United. The worst record is Wolverhampton who with from some 11% shots from within the 6 yard box have 14% of their goals against them.
| Shots/Goals 10-11 | % shots 18 yard | % goals | Succes/failure |
| Chelsea | 50 | 61 | 11 |
| Manchester United | 52 | 60 | 8 |
| Arsenal | 59 | 56 | -3 |
| Manchester City | 51 | 61 | 10 |
| Tottenham | 46 | 54 | 8 |
| Liverpool | 52 | 61 | 9 |
| Fulham | 50 | 63 | 13 |
| Bolton | 49 | 50 | 1 |
| Aston Villa | 53 | 61 | 8 |
| Everton | 52 | 62 | 10 |
| Newcastle | 56 | 70 | 14 |
| Wigan | 47 | 57 | 10 |
| West Ham | 50 | 63 | 13 |
| Sunderland | 48 | 55 | 7 |
| Stoke | 53 | 50 | -3 |
| Blackburn | 57 | 66 | 9 |
| Wolverhampton | 49 | 71 | 22 |
| Birmingham | 45 | 40 | -5 |
| 0 | |||
| Total | |||
| Average | 51,06 | 58,94 | 7,89 |
So when it comes to defending shots from within the penalty area we are one of the teams who have a negative record which in this case means in fact a good defensive record. And Birmingham have the best defensive records of them all when it comes to defending in the penalty area. Wolverhampton have the worst and this is in stark contrast with their success at defending in the 6 yard box. Maybe this shows that Wolverhampton have defended too close to their own goal line?
| Shots/Goals 10-11 | % shots outside | % goals | succes |
| Chelsea | 41 | 18 | -23 |
| Manchester United | 39 | 8 | -31 |
| Arsenal | 32 | 16 | -16 |
| Manchester City | 42 | 9 | -33 |
| Tottenham | 48 | 22 | -26 |
| Liverpool | 39 | 11 | -28 |
| Fulham | 44 | 16 | -28 |
| Bolton | 41 | 14 | -27 |
| Aston Villa | 37 | 12 | -25 |
| Everton | 39 | 11 | -28 |
| Newcastle | 32 | 5 | -27 |
| Wigan | 47 | 10 | -37 |
| West Ham | 44 | 11 | -33 |
| Sunderland | 47 | 10 | -37 |
| Stoke | 32 | 15 | -17 |
| Blackburn | 32 | 10 | -22 |
| Wolverhampton | 40 | 15 | -25 |
| Birmingham | 44 | 19 | -25 |
| Total | |||
| Average | 40,00 | 12,89 | -27,11 |
And again this table just shows that shooting from outside the penalty area is not very successful. Unless you play Arsenal and Stoke. When it comes to Stoke I think this is down to them very much defending deeper. For Arsenal I really wonder if this has something to do with the fact that we sometimes seem to lack aggression in that part of the pitch. Or some kind of attitude that spells: well we know that you don’t score much from such a position so just have a go. Only to see it being successful a bit too often. Certainly this is true compared to the other teams. Because almost half the attempts seem to hit the net against Arsenal compared to 1 in 3 for most other teams.
Or have we been suffering from some goalkeepers problem when it comes to shots from a distance? Now 7 goals is not that much of the total but every goal you can prevent is a goal won.
In the next days I will try to give some more information on how the goals have been scored.