Arsenal: Should Mikel Arteta be under more pressure?
'Wenger Out.' A movement that garnered support from Arsenal FC to Zimbabwe, from the White House to Wrestlemania.
Last Tuesday marked the three-year anniversary of campaigners getting their wish, when Arsene Wenger announced he would step down in the summer of 2018.
At this point, it's clear they were guilty of peeking over the fence, adamant that the grass is greener on the other side.
Arsenal have since finished fifth and eighth in the Premier League, and currently sit ninth in the table, highlighting their demise since the Frenchman left the club.
Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta - who met in the Europa League semi-final with Emery's Villarreal outlasting Arsenal over two legs to reach the final - have been the two men charged with moving the Gunners forward.
But despite Emery getting one over on his former charges to book a final date with Manchester United in Gdansk, the data shows Arteta has Arsenal on a much more positive path than his fellow Spaniard did.
Arsenal started life under Emery positively, rebounding from two opening defeats with a ten-game win streak, followed by a further ten-game unbeaten run.
However, contrary to the toxicity around the club prior to his arrival, Emery inherited a team that was performing relatively well from a data perspective.
What is expected goals (xG)?
- Expected goals (xG) is a metric that measures the quality of any given scoring opportunity
- Expected goals for (xGF) is the xG created by a team
- Expected goals against (xGA) is xG conceded by a team
Despite excellent early results and maintaining a reasonable gap between their 10-match rolling xG averages for some time, Emery ultimately failed to improve Arsenal compared to Wenger's final season.
Unai Emery's end at Arsenal
A convincing Europa League final defeat to Chelsea is viewed as the beginning of the end for Emery, but his Arsenal team had been on the slide for an extended span entering that game, especially on the defensive end.
They averaged 2.27 xGA per game across the last five matches of the 2018/19 Premier League season, dropping out of a coveted top-four spot with a whimper as a result.
Emery's efforts to correct his leaky defence came at a cost at the beginning of the 2019/20 campaign.
As shown by the visualisation above, Arsenal's xGF trendline plummeted in unison with their xGA trendline. The Gunners had become boring to watch, a characteristic that doesn't sit well with their fans.
In the ten games prior to Emery's December sacking, Arsenal managed just one win while averaging 1.37 xGF and 1.32 xGA per game, underlying numbers more aligned with a mid-table team.
Sitting in eighth place, a change was needed. Enter Arteta.
Arsenal's underlying numbers remained underwhelming for the rest of the 2019/20 season, ending the campaign in the same position as when Arteta took over, but his success in the FA Cup displayed the potential the Spaniard has as a manager, outfoxing his old boss Pep Guardiola before beating Chelsea in the final.
Are Arsenal better under Arteta?
Arteta has managed Arsenal for almost exactly the same number of games as Emery did. Although their records are eerily similar, the data paints a different picture.
The Gunners may have won more games with Emery at the helm, and lost to his team in their Europa League semi, but after a disappointing start to the 2020/21 season, the course Arsenal are on under Arteta is far more encouraging than results would have you believe.
Arsenal have averaged 1.66 xGF and 1.19 xGA per game since Christmas, numbers that are worthy of a team fighting for a place in the top-four.
Unfortunately, results haven't quite mirrored the data, leaving Arteta's side floundering in ninth position.
That was reflected over the two legs of their Europa League semi against Emery's Villarreal. Infogol numbers suggest the first leg should have finished level with the Spaniards' 1.27 xG only marginally better than Arsenal's 1.25, while the Gunners registered 1.08 xG compared to Villarreal's 0.33 in the return fixture.
Those numbers suggest it should have been Arsenal, not Villarreal, edging their way into the final via a 2-1 aggregate triumph but that's just the way things are going for Arteta's Gunners right now, a picture painted by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang twice striking the woodwork in the second leg.
It leaves Arsenal, barring a miraculous series of results in the Premier League run-in, facing a season without European football for the first time in 25 years next term.
A top-four place may look a distance away to an Arsenal fan, but, perhaps blinded by the vitriol surrounding the club, it's closer than they believe. Infogol's xG table suggests they should be three places higher, in sixth, than they currently are, in ninth.
The future of their manager will once be again be up for debate after his Gunners were knocked out of Europe by their old boss, but the underlying metrics certainly tell us this: 'Emery Out' and 'Arteta In' is wholly justified.
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