What would be the best option: Samba, Cahill or… « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

By Walter Broeckx

One of our readers thought it would be interesting to see how some of our major targets did last season with their team. And we are talking about our targeted defenders. So I dipped in my numbers and tried to see if there is anything special to mention about the defending of teams like Blackburn and Bolton.

What could be the result of signing Cahill or Samba just to mention the most named centre backs that are rumoured to have our interest. Will it have any affect on how we would concede goals?

The problem is that defending is not just about one player. Each defence is working as a unit. And we must not forget that Bolton and Blackburn play a completely different game compared to Arsenal. Arsenal play a high line. Bolton and Blackburn are more the teams that are defending more deep and in numbers.

So a player that looks great in one defensive system can look bad in another system. But this is something we cannot be certain of until the player actually plays in that system. But let us start with Cahill and see how Bolton conceded their goals compared to Arsenal.

Shots 2010-2011	Open against	Dead ball against	Penalty against	Goals
Arsenal	55,81% (24)	30,23% (13)	13,95% (6)	43
Bolton	62,50% (35)	32,14% (18)	5,36%  (3)	56

It is obvious that Bolton are not as good defensively as Arsenal. Now one can say all what you want about Arsenal but in fact Arsenal has only conceded 43 goals and Bolton 56. This is a first fact and it shows that despite all and everyone tumbling over each other declaring how rubbish our defenders are, we still have better defenders than Bolton.

And our defenders are certainly better when it comes to defending in open play. And this is a bit interesting but I think this comes because our defenders are always training against players with high technical ability and quick passing and are very accustomed  to defend against such things. I also mentioned it in my earlier articles about defending.

Oh move on Walter I hear some shout just look at our Achilles heel: defending set pieces. Well you probably did look at the table by now and…. if the rescue has to come from Bolton…. They have not only had a higher number in total goals against them from dead balls compared to Arsenal but also in percentages they have a worse defending record than Arsenal.

Is the Bolton defence better in any part of the game? Well there is; and this is that they concede only half of the penalties that we do. We have an outrageously high number of penalties given and scored against us so if and when we buy Cahill it could mean that we would have less penalties given against us.

Could this have something to do with any sort of bias in favour of Cahill and his partners? Would it save us a few dodgy penalties from the refs if we put in an English centre back? What do you think Phil? And I don’t men Gregory. (Even though you might answer Phil – Gregory this time).

So the bottom line is: Bolton concede more goals than us and they even concede more goals from dead balls than Arsenal.  Let us move on to Blackburn.

Shots 2010-2011	Open against	Dead ball against	Penalty against	Goals
Arsenal	55,81% (24)	30,23% (13)	13,95% (6)	43
Blackburn	66,10% (39)	23,73% (14)	10,17% (6)	59

Blackburn conceded even more goals in total than Bolton and so also have a lot more goals against than Arsenal.

Their defence in open play is even worse than Bolton. Both in numbers and in percentages. So a first conclusion we could make is that with buying Cahill or Samba the risk of us getting more goals against us in open play becomes bigger. And then we have to remember that Arsenal had to play almost the whole season without their Samba or Cahill. We didn’t have Vermaelen at all available apart from the first and the last games.

Let us move on to the dead balls. And then we see that Blackburn has one more goal against  from dead balls than Arsenal. But in percentages it sure makes a difference as compared to the total they only had some 24% of the goals against them from dead balls. Arsenal had 30%. So it looks like that on dead balls the Blackburn defence did a better job and is certainly better than the Bolton defence. But are they really better than the Arsenal defence?

If we look at the penalties it seems that there is no difference between Arsenal and Blackburn. Both teams had 6 penalties against them. And in fact it was this what made me think about Cahill being English and thus the refs being less strict in the penalty box. Because Samba is from Congo and is foreign.

So what can be the final conclusion of these numbers? What did we learn today?

1. The Arsenal defence is not as bad as it is painted (but can improve of course!)
2. If we want to have a better record against dead balls we need to buy Samba.
3. If we want to have less penalties against us we need Cahill.
4. Who ever comes to Arsenal will have to adapt to our style of play
5. Could Bartley be the answer?

Or is there another possible answer?

Because, I also took the liberty of looking at the numbers of Everton and Jagielka.

Shots 2010-2011	Open against	Dead ball against	Penalty against	Goals
Arsenal	55,81% (24)	30,23% (13)	13,95% (6)	43
Everton	80,00% (36)	15,56% (7)	4,44% (2)	45

When it comes to defending goals in open play it looks a complete disaster. Not better or worse than Bolton or Blackburn but certainly very bad compared to Arsenal.

But then I looked at the dead ball goals and then we find out that Everton are the team with the lowest numbers of goals scored against them from dead balls. So this looks rather promising. And still I can’t remember Jagielka being that tall!  Certainly compared to Samba. And yet they have only conceded half the goals compared to Blackburn from such situations. So do you really need a big lump to defend dead balls?

And if we look at the penalties we can also see that with an English centre back they don’t have many penalties against them. Oh well, this will be a coincidence I guess.

I think it will be interesting to see who we will buy and how we will play next season. My guess would be that unless injuries get in the way we will have two pairings of centre backs and then depending on the opponents who will play. It does make a difference if you play Stoke or Manchester United.

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