Arsenal are going to win the Premier League. That, my buddies and my enemies, is definitely the almost certainly final result of the present Premier League season.
Sure, the Gunners solely have a four-point lead over second place and a five-point lead on third by way of 9 matches. The issue, for anybody eager to refute the sentence of this piece, is that the second place workforce is Bournemouth, who got here into the season with high-mid-table aspirations, and tied for third are Tottenham, who completed final season in seventeenth, and Sunderland who had been one of many three favorites to get relegated.
With Manchester Metropolis shedding their third recreation of the season and with Liverpool shedding their fourth Premier League recreation in a row over the weekend, Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday put them six factors away from Man Metropolis and 7 factors away from Liverpool. These had been the 2 different pre-season title contenders. And if there have been a fourth, it was the inaugural Membership World Cup champions Chelsea, who’re doing even worse: presently eight factors again of the Gunners.
Now, for those who can persuade your self that Bournemouth, Tottenham and Sunderland will preserve this up, then (A) congrats on being associated to somebody on both of these three groups, and (B) we nonetheless have a title race. If you cannot, then, effectively, some issues might want to essentially change for there to be a title race.
We’re 9 video games into the season and Arsenal are clearly one of the best workforce within the Premier League. Additionally they have an enormous lead on the 2 different groups who had a authentic declare to that designation earlier than the season started. With greater than 29 video games to go, one of many higher public projection methods provides them a 79% probability of profitable the league.
How did we get right here so abruptly? And is there something, outdoors of a North London plague or plenty of dangerous bounces, that may cease Mikel Arteta from profitable his first main trophy as a supervisor?
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How every little thing at Arsenal went unsuitable — and it did not matter
If I advised you, earlier than the season, that Arsenal would have a commanding lead atop the Premier League, you most likely would’ve believed three issues.
The primary: Liverpool’s signings had didn’t gel and all the cash spent on attacking gamers had imbalanced the workforce. This has been true: Liverpool have arguably been one of the best attacking workforce within the league, and solely 5 different groups have conceded extra objectives.
The second: Rodri would not instantly return to his Ballon d’Or-winning type, and Manchester Metropolis’s questionable summer season signings would not make the workforce materially higher. This additionally has been true: Rodri has solely performed about 290 minutes to date, and Metropolis are averaging 1.8 factors per recreation after averaging 1.9 factors per recreation final season.
After which, the third: Arsenal’s stars would all keep wholesome, and the $70-million funding into Viktor Gyökeres would repay. This one would’ve been unsuitable.
After a season the place nearly each key participant spent vital quantities of time on the sidelines, Arsenal’s key gamers have … continued to get injured. Kai Havertz received injured within the opening recreation of the season and hasn’t performed since. Martin Ødegaard has solely performed 1 / 4 of the minutes to date, because of a succession of various accidents. Bukayo Saka and William Saliba have every missed in regards to the third of the season. After which Saka’s backup or probably Arsenal’s new beginning winger on the left, Noni Madueke, injured his knee in September and is not anticipated again till round Thanksgiving.
Gyökeres, in the meantime, has been very accessible. Solely 6% of Arsenal’s league minutes this season have not featured the previous Sporting striker. However regardless of the entire gametime, he is nonetheless solely scored two non-penalty objectives, and he is solely tried 19 complete photographs. Add all of it collectively, and the mixture of Gyökeres, Havertz, Ødegaard, Saka, and Madueke have mixed for 3 non-penalty objectives and one help. Crystal Palace’s Ismaïla Sarr has that very same stat line — all by himself.
Now, if I outlined all of that to you earlier than the season and advised you the place Arsenal can be within the desk after 9 matches, you’d’ve advised me that you just thought lobotomies fell out of shape many years in the past. After I established that my whole mind was nonetheless intact, you may’ve assumed that it was some sort of luck driving this unlikely final result. Possibly Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester Metropolis had been all effectively beneath the standard title-winning stage however the Gunners transformed their possibilities at the next price or dodged a pair bullets in entrance of their very own purpose?
That, too, would’ve been unsuitable. At this level within the season, probably the greatest measures of workforce high quality — what finest predicts future efficiency — is a workforce’s adjusted purpose differential, which is a mix of 70% anticipated objectives and 30% precise objectives. And by that metric, Arsenal are, by far, one of the best workforce within the Premier League:
So, uh, how on earth are they doing it?
Why Arsenal is perhaps one of the best defensive Premier League workforce we have ever seen
We are able to take that adjusted purpose thought and apply it to a workforce’s offense and protection. This is the highest 5 defenses for a full Premier League season since 2008-09:
1) Liverpool, 2008-09: 0.6 adjusted objectives allowed per recreation
2) Manchester Metropolis, 2018-19: 0.65
3) Manchester Metropolis, 2017-18: 0.65
4) Manchester Metropolis, 2021-22: 0.66
5) Chelsea, 2008-09: 0.67
By way of 9 video games, Arsenal have allowed an adjusted purpose variety of 0.51. That might be a 15% enchancment on one of the best defensive workforce within the Stats Carry out dataset.
For a lot of the fashionable historical past of the game you had to decide on between two trade-offs: you could possibly press excessive, preserve the ball away out of your purpose, however then permit a small handful of high-quality alternatives every time the opponent did handle to interrupt by way of. Or you could possibly preserve our bodies again, permit your opponents to try extra photographs, however restrict the standard of these possibilities.
Extremely, although, Arsenal are presently main the Premier League in photographs allowed and xG, or anticipated objectives, allowed per shot. They’re such an outlier that they are nearly actually mendacity on the skin of this chart:
The Premier League file for fewest objectives conceded in a season is the 15 allowed by Chelsea underneath Jose Mourinho in 2004-05. I might all the time seen that as maybe the unbreakable file. (Liverpool, the defending Premier League champs, have already allowed 14 objectives, and it isn’t even Halloween but!) Fifteen objectives allowed in 38 video games is a kind of stats that appears unattainable — like how Wayne Gretzky might’ve scored zero objectives in his profession and he’d nonetheless be the NHL’s all-time factors chief. Or how 26.3% of Barry Bonds’ profession plate appearances resulted in both a stroll or a house run.
However I am beginning to let myself consider that Arsenal might really give Chelsea’s file an actual run. They’ve allowed three objectives in 9 video games. Over a full season, that will add as much as nearly precisely between 12 and 13 objectives conceded.
Now, they’ve conceded 5.24 anticipated objectives:
However a few of that discrepancy ought to get credited to Arsenal.
In the event that they conceded objectives at their anticipated price from right here on out, they will concede 17 extra, bringing them as much as a disappointing 20 objectives allowed, which solely can be the third-best mark in league historical past. However they’ve additionally executed this whereas already taking part in the 4 groups that comprise the present prime 4 in adjusted objectives scored: Manchester United, Manchester Metropolis, Crystal Palace, and Liverpool — in that order.
The Gunners allowed two objectives throughout these 4 matches, and solely considered one of them got here from open play.
So, can Arsenal be stopped?
What makes Arsenal such a dominant protection workforce? Briefly: the personnel.
In purpose, David Raya is an above-average shot-stopper and one of many higher sweeper-keepers within the league. Arsenal can play the next line than most quality-suppressing defenses as a result of the athletic Raya is so fast to react to any ball performed excessive.
Within the backline, William Saliba and Gabriel are one of the best center-back pairing on the planet. After which they’re flanked by Jurriën Timber and Riccardo Calafiori, two gamers who’ve performed vital minutes for his or her earlier golf equipment and present nationwide groups at heart again. So, they’re each higher defenders than most conventional fullbacks, and maybe extra importantly, they’re each far more bodily imposing than your conventional fullback.
Timber, specifically, is a hellacious defender, consistently swarming the winger or midfielder on his facet of the sector. If we had a stat that checked out how usually a participant was capable of flip after receiving a go when a specific defender was inside a pair ft, I am fairly assured Timber would prime the chart.
In midfield, Martín Zubimendi is tiny however he is perhaps the neatest defender of his place on the planet — all the time getting in the best way when an opponent may acquire momentum, consistently cleansing up free balls. Declan Rice is Declan Rice — probably the most bodily dominant participant at this place within the sport. After which whoever is taking part in within the attacking-ish midfield position, Eberechi Eze, Martin Ødegaard, or Mikel Merino, is a significantly better defender than the sorts of gamers we sometimes affiliate with that place.
Even up prime, there are not any dangerous defenders. For all of his struggles, Gyökeres is a livid presser. And amongst star wingers, Saka does extra defensive work than anybody else on the planet, by an excellent margin.
So, all of it provides as much as a workforce that may each press excessive and defend deep, at world-class ranges. It is actually exhausting to maneuver the ball previous their entrance line, it is an enormous ache to get past the midfield, and for those who’re one way or the other capable of get past the primary two strains: there’s Gabriel and Timber able to pound your into submission or William Saliba studying your go earlier than you have even determined to make it. Good luck!
Now, though Arteta and Arsenal have managed to create a protection with none trade-offs, there are some trade-offs on the opposite facet of the ball.
If in case you have a protection this gifted, then there’s actually just one approach you may pair it with a world-class assault: be Bayern Munich, Actual Madrid, Barcelona, or a membership owned by a sovereign wealth fund. These are the one groups we have ever seen do each within the fashionable period. If all of Arsenal’s world-class defensive gamers had been additionally world-class attacking gamers, then they’d merely simply have a roster of the entire finest gamers on the planet. Now, it’s a improbable roster, however that is due to the depth they’ve constructed up, moderately than absolutely the high-end expertise.
By adjusted purpose differential, Arsenal presently price because the Thirteenth-best Premier League workforce since 2008 — nearly precisely nearly as good as final season’s Liverpool. However among the many prime 15 groups since 2025, Arsenal are the one one with an adjusted goals-scored price beneath 2.0, they usually’re all the best way down at 1.71. That ranks as simply the 63rd-best mark since 2008.
And that is counting the entire set items. By way of 9 video games, Arsenal have scored a league-leading 9 set piece objectives. Throw within the two penalties, they usually’ve scored 16 complete objectives — as many as Liverpool and only one fewer than Metropolis and Tottenham. However which means the Gunners have solely scored 5 objectives in open play — fewer than all however 4 groups within the Premier League.
They have been operating chilly in entrance of purpose once they’re not in set-piece conditions, however they’re nonetheless solely seventh in open-play xG by way of 9 matches:
We have by no means seen a protection nearly as good as Arsenal presently are. We have by no means seen a workforce nearly as good at set items as Arsenal presently are. And we have by no means seen a workforce nearly as good as Arsenal presently are create as few possibilities as Arsenal presently do.
Most outliers finally regress to the imply, however not all of them. There exists a world the place Arsenal keep this dominant on protection and set performs, whereas they enhance at open play as Saka will get extra minutes and the likes of Havertz, Ødegaard, and Madueke return to well being. There may be one other world the place the set items and protection decline from their generational heights, whereas the open-play assault stays caught the place it’s.
That’s the world the place Arsenal do not go on to win the league: the set-piece objectives begin to dry up, the open-play efficiency would not enhance, and the protection turns into merely elite, moderately than all-time nice. They begin tying a bunch of video games, lose just a few 1-0s, and both Metropolis or possibly Liverpool discover one thing that clicks, considered one of them will get sizzling and goes on a protracted win streak whereas the Gunners decide up a bunch of ones as a substitute of threes.
The almost certainly final result, although, might be this one: the protection and set-pieces decelerate a bit however the open-play efficiency picks up sufficient to select up the slack. Arsenal finish the season with a heavier defense-to-offense and set-play-to-open play skew than most prime groups, however they give the impression of being slightly extra regular and preserve the general stage they’re presently at.
And in that world? Arsenal are profitable the Premier League.