9 stats that explain how Arsenal became one of the...

playArteta: It is one of the best feelings I've ever had (2:20)Mikel Arteta reveals the moment he found out that Arsenal had won the Premier League and says Arsenal must continue to 'reinvent' themselves ahead of the Champions League final. (2:20) While it got a little hairy there for a couple of weeks, the best team in the Premier League is going to win the Premier League. I called it in October, back when Manchester City and Liverpool were already six and seven points back, respectively. And my reasoning then is the same as why Arsenal -- ultimately and finally -- won their first Premier League title in 22 years: This is one of the greatest defensive teams we've ever seen, and it's probably the best set piece team we've ever seen, too. Of course, "defense and set pieces" is typically the remit of overachieving lower-to-midtable clubs, isn't it? Don't you need to score lots of goals to win a 38-game-season title? As the fantastic Arsenal blogger Scott Willis put it a couple of years ago: If you pair the greatest-ever Premier League defense with an average attack (based on goals scored and conceded), you'd get a plus-36 goal differential. Flip it around -- best-ever attack, with an average defense -- and you'd be looking at a plus-57 margin. So while they might not produce the kind of risk-taking, goal-hungry soccer that'll pull you out of your seat, Arsenal under manager Mikel Arteta have produced a new and unique version of title-winning excellence. It's rare -- especially since Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp shoved the modern version of the sport in a new direction -- to see a team that' has been as good as Arsenal have, in the way that Arsenal have. Here are nine numbers that explain how -- and why -- it all worked. - Inside Arsenal's five-phase plan to win the Premier League - Top 50 USMNT players, ranked by club form for World Cup - Wherever Messi goes, pitch invaders (and arrests) follow They still have one game to go, but Arsenal's current mark of 26 goals conceded would be tied for the 11th-fewest allowed in Premier League history -- along with Liverpool and Manchester City from 2021-22 and a handful of other clubs. The worst finish for a team with 26 or fewer goals allowed in a Premier League season was third place, the worst goal differential was plus-32, and the worst point total was 77. The floor here is incredibly high. And though we tend to think of the pre-Arteta era of Arsenal as a kind of free-flowing, vibes-based, utopian version of the sport lorded over by Arsene Wenger, the 1998-99 Gunners allowed only 17 goals -- the second fewest in league history. They drew 12 games, won "just" 78 points and finished in second place. Of course, all of these individual seasons happened in their own kinds of talent distributions, economic environments and tactical eras. Allowing 26 goals in two different seasons are two totally different achievements. Arsenal are competing in a new version of the Premier League -- one where set piece goal scoring eats up a larger chunk of production than ever before, largely because of their influence. But that version of the Premier League is also more competitive, top to bottom, than it, and perhaps any other league, has ever been. The current 16th-place team made the Europa League final; the current 17th-place team reached the round of 16 in the Champions League. If you wanted to make the case for the Gunners as the best defensive team in the modern era of the sport, here's the chart I'd suggest you use: Obviously there's more to defending than suppressing the quantity and quality of opponent shots, but, well, there's not much more. And by xG (expected goals) allowed, the gap between Arsenal in first and Manchester City in second is bigger than the gap between City and Wolves, who have the second-worst defense in the league. It's a barely believable gap -- and the Gunners did it during the most competitive Premier League season of the modern era. If we extend beyond the borders of the United Kingdom, it starts to look even better. Since 2010, only one team that played at least 10 games in the Champions League allowed fewer goals per game than the 0.4 Arsenal currently have, as they now prepare for the upcoming final against Paris Saint-Germain. And that's Chelsea's 0.3 in 2020-21, when they won the whole thing. The big difference between the two teams: Chelsea conceded 58 goals in the Premier League that season -- more than twice as many as Arsenal. The defining feature of Arsenal's impenetrable defense is just how hard it is to create quality chances against them. Here's how they stacked up to the rest of the Premier League, for what American Soccer Analysis has referred to as "great" chances (shots worth at least 0.33 xG): Not only are they nearly lapping the field again in another defensive stat, but they're pushing back against perhaps the defining trend of the last decade-plus of European soccer. With each passing year, teams take fewer lon

9 stats that explain how Arsenal became one of the...

Key takeaways

More in sports