There are loads of challenges from there, namely home matches against Tottenham Hotspur on Oct. 1, they play only one team currently projected to finish in the top seven (at Manchester United on Sept. If the Gunners can avoid injury and maintain form, the schedule offers an opportunity to keep gobbling up points. But after years of bouncing between a long-term approach and short-term misfires, and with a fun combination of vital new blood and holdovers from previous underachieving squads, Arsenal is playing optimistic and openly confident ball. Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty ImagesĪrteta has plenty of other exciting younger players on the bench - 22-year olds Emile Smith Rowe, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Fabio Vieira (this summer's most expensive transfer signing, who has yet to make his Premier League debut), 23-year olds Takehiro Tomiyasu and Eddie Nketiah, 25-year old Kieran Tierney - and they will eventually have to figure into his plans if this team is going to have the depth it will need over 38 matches. Gabriel Jesus left Manchester City in the offseason and joined Arsenal, where he's off to a promising start. Last season's rebound and this season's early rise have given proof to the idea that it takes a long time to put together the pieces you need and an even longer time for those pieces to gel.Īrteta has thus far leaned on a concrete starting XI featuring two players acquired this past summer (forward Gabriel Jesus and left back Oleksandr Zinchenko), three acquired in 2021 (attacking midfielder Martin Odegaard, right back Ben White and goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale), two acquired in 2020 (midfielder Thomas Partey and center back Gabriel Magalhaes), two acquired in 2019 (left winger Gabriel Martinelli and center back William Saliba) and two longtime Gunners (right winger Bukayo Saka, signed at 17 in 2018, and midfielder and captain Granit Xhaka, signed in 2016). Inside Jesse Marsch's Leeds revolution: 'it's not harmony, it's about identity'.It seems like a pretty sustainable recipe.
They're nearly doubling up opponents in terms of shot attempts, and they're averaging 0.12 xG per shot (fourth in the league) while allowing 0.09 (seventh). None of these opponents are likely contenders for Champions League spots, obviously, but Arsenal has done exactly what was asked of them thus far, generating the second-best xG differential in the league (+1.1 per 90, behind only Manchester City's +1.2). Mikel Arteta's Gunners are atop the Premier League table thus far, having manhandled Crystal Palace, Leicester City and Bournemouth by a combined 9-2. Stock rising quickly Arsenal: up 7 points (from 61 projected points to 68)Īs it turns out, easily winning your first three matches of the season is a much better idea than losing them. Using FiveThirtyEight's Soccer Power Index as our guide, here are the teams from Europe's Big Five leagues that have seen their projected point totals change the most in the season's first 2-3 matchdays.Īnd yes, this list once again includes Arsenal. But the early points still count, and quite a few teams have already created a different outlook for themselves in 2022-23. That's good news for the likes of Bayer Leverkusen and perhaps less-than-good news for a club like Leeds United.
No matter how a team has looked thus far, then, there's no guarantee this form will remain. From there they rebounded, recording the third-highest point total in the league over the final 35 matchdays, but the damage from those three matches was costly: the Gunners fell two points short of a top-four league finish and therefore missed the Champions League for the fifth straight year.
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The Amazon All or Nothing series on Arsenal's 2021-22 season began this month, and it's helping to emphasize a couple of key points that we sometimes convince ourselves to forget: (a) How you play in the early stages of the season isn't guaranteed to continue, good or bad, but (b) it can still play a massive role in where your season ends up.Ī recap for anyone who needs it: Arsenal began last season in the poorest imaginable form, dropping matches to Brentford, Chelsea and Manchester City by a combined 9-0, and finding themselves at the bottom of the Premier League table heading into the first international break.
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