Mikel Arteta has never hid his ambitions for Arsenal this season.

„Suffocating the opponent more,“ he explained when quizzed on his side’s strategy this term. „Conceding zero chances and play further from our goal.“

Arsenal’s backline has been imperious throughout the campaign but clicked into a different gear at the turn of the year. Arteta’s side were slumped in fourth place after a chastening loss to Fulham on New Year’s Eve but have reignited a rare three-horse title race with a record-breaking sequence of six league victories on the spin. This is the best start Arsenal have made to any calendar year since the club’s foundation in 1886.

While much of the focus has been stolen by the 25 goals in six games a fully-firing frontline has scored this year, the rearguard has been even more impressive.

---

Data from Opta (via The Athletic).

All an expected goal (xG) model does is provide an estimate of the chance of scoring from each shot. A wide range of criteria – position on the pitch, which body part was used and so forth – for every attempt is compared to thousands of past efforts to provide a value between zero and one which represents the likelihood of scoring.

As each shot is unique and the probability spat out is only an estimate, xG works best in the aggregate, when lots of shots are analysed over a long period of time. However, the yawning chasm between Arsenal’s figures and those posted by the rest of the Premier League stretches beyond the small sample size.

Arsenal’s miserly tally of 1.9 xG conceded across six matches is three-and-a-half times smaller than the figure recorded by Manchester City – the next-best backline. This calendar year alone, there have been 37 occasions when a team has exceeded that value in the space of one match.

David Raya has endured a below-par shot-stopping season during his debut campaign in north London and conceded three times when an average goalkeeper would only be expected to let in two goals this year. But those in front of him have done their utmost to limit the amount of work Raya has to get through in each game.

Not every Premier League keeper is so fortunate. Manchester United, for comparison, have conceded at least 16 shots in each of their six Premier League matches in 2024. Arsenal have not shipped more than 15 efforts in a single league game this season.

While the ever-present defensive core of Gabriel, William Saliba and Ben White are owed plenty of credit, the entire Arsenal team has contributed to their exemplary parsimony.

Johan Cruyff used to say that the striker was the first defender in his team. Arteta – who credits Cruyff as the figure that made him fall in love with football as a boy gripped by the Dutchman’s Barcelona ‚Dream Team‘ – has adopted the same approach.

Arsenal’s blistering and brilliantly coordinated press pins opponents into their defensive third. Never was this ferocious focus more evident than in the club’s 4-1 evisceration of Newcastle United last Saturday. The Gunners won possession in the final third 11 times and denied the Magpies a single shot inside the opening 45 minutes. No wonder Martin Odegaard was beaming after a comprehensive victory: „We are living the dream.“

---

Arsenal’s dominance is put into greater perspective when you consider the performance of every other Premier League club in 2024.

Manchester City rank second for xG against, totalling 6.8 from the seven games they’ve played this year, with Everton, Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur rounding out the top five.

Things don’t make for great reading at Manchester United, though their actual goals against is better than what they are predicted to have conceded, and Aston Villa can perhaps count their lucky stars for shipping just eight goals against an expected xG of 11.2.

Bringing up the rear are Brentford and West Ham United, who played out a six-goal thriller at London Stadium on Monday, and Newcastle United, who comfortably have the worst expected xG of any side in the division.

---

Data from Opta (via FBref)

Arsenal are the only team yet to trail in any Premier League game this year. The contrast to the club’s final fixture of 2023 could not be more stark. After a bleak 2-1 loss to Fulham, Arteta admitted that it was a „really tough“, „sad“ and „difficult day to swallow“.

The Gunners have enjoyed a relatively gentle start to the new year in terms of fixtures; going up against relegation-threatened Burnley and Nottingham Forest (though both were away from home) while also facing capital rivals West Ham United and Crystal Palace during a considerable dip in form for each club.

However, this winning sequence also included the visit of league leaders Liverpool, who were limited to just a single shot on target and only equalised courtesy of a bizarre own goal from Gabriel.

With rock-bottom Sheffield United and an out-of-sorts Brentford side Arsenal’s next two opponents, the Gunners may not concede many more chances in the weeks to come.

---

READ THE LATEST PREMIER LEAGUE NEWS, RUMOURS & GOSSIP