Arsenal dominated possession and territory against Manchester City on Sunday afternoon, although Mikel Arteta’s team struggled to create clear chances.
The Gunners had to play the majority of the game one goal down, after Erling Haaland’s neat strike gave City the lead after just nine minutes.
Pep Guardiola’s side subsequently decided to sit deep and look to hit the North Londoners on the counter for the remaining 81 minutes, and they almost did so successfully.
However, Gabriel Martinelli snatched Arsenal a point with an exquisite late lob over Gianluigi Donnarumma, after being played through by Eberechi Eze in the 93rd minute.
Man City made 60 clearances against Arsenal
Arsenal had 67% of the ball against City.
Despite this, and being generally camped inside the Citizens’ half, they mustered up just 12 shots and accumulated just 0.89 expected goals throughout the game.
Arteta’s side’s domination can therefore be described as sterile, as they sought to take as few risks as possible while controlling the affair through ball retention.
However, these stats perhaps aren’t even the most damning regarding Arsenal’s general inability to convert possession into high-quality efforts on goal.
According to Scott Willis on X, using data from FBRef, the Gunners forced City to make 60 clearances on Sunday. This is more than the Sky Blues have made in a match since FBRef started collecting this data in 2016.
This indicates that whilst Arsenal did a good job of pinning City back into their own defensive third, they were also incredibly inefficient when crossing or cutting the ball back.
The Gunners consistently resorted to hopeful balls into the box which were comfortably cleared away from danger by City, highlighting the bluntness of Arsenal’s attack.
Man City had less possession against Arsenal than they’ve ever had in a Pep Guardiola match
While the clearance stat is a piece of data that reflects poorly on Arsenal, City’s lack of possession is an indictment of how Guardiola approached holding a narrow lead in N5.
City had just 33% of the ball, which is the lowest they’ve had in any match under Guardiola since the Spaniard took charge.
This was clearly intentional, with the manager instructing his team to sit deep and try to absorb pressure, before hitting Arsenal on the counter-attack.
This was close to working, but Martinelli had other ideas.
Ultimately, Guardiola will presumably regret setting his team up to try and hold on to their slender lead, rather than pushing for another goal, particularly against an Arsenal team that looked meek as an attacking force on the day.
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