Arsenal have stood out in many ways this season, but their use of substitutes might be the biggest factor in them storming ahead of Manchester City at the top of the table.
In the first 74 minutes of their win over Everton on Saturday evening, Arsenal hadn’t given much indication that they would find a winner.
With the pressure slowly ramping up as the hosts toiled in attack and, at times, rode their luck at the back, concerns grew, as they have done in almost every Arsenal game of late, that this could prove to be costly slip-up.
Everton had created the better chances and hit the woodwork. They led on expected goals, and despite Arsenal dominating possession and having eight opportunities to put corners into the box, the Premier League leaders were struggling for clear-cut openings. Eberechi Eze was their most dangerous attacker, but six of his seven shots came from outside the penalty area.
At that point, Manchester City were breathing down Arsenal’s neck at the top of the table. Dropped points for Arsenal here would have meant an opportunity later in the day for City to close the gap to four points with a game in hand and a meeting between the teams at the Etihad Stadium still to come.
As it happens, they needed not worry as City went on to draw at West Ham, but with a quarter of an hour to go at the Emirates, nerves were certainly jangling.
It was curious, then, to see Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta turn to 16-year-old Max Dowman for only his third ever Premier League appearance as his side searched for a winner.
This was a bold call from a man who has been criticised in the past for being too conservative, too risk-averse. And what’s more, the move came in spite of Everton’s threat, particularly on the break, and he withdrew the near-ever-present Martín Zubimendi from the base of his midfield.
It could have backfired. Who was to know how a youngster who is still studying for his GCSEs would contend with the pressure of this game, with 60,000 Arsenal fans growing increasingly anxious in the stands?
But it proved a stroke of genius. First, Dowman’s cross – a rather hopeful delivery from a position on the right in which Bukayo Saka or Noni Madueke probably wouldn’t have put a ball in – tempted Jordan Pickford just far enough off his line to leave his goal empty for Viktor Gyökeres to open the scoring.
Then, Dowman broke upfield after an Everton corner, carrying the ball 61.3m before scoring to smash the record as the youngest player ever to score a Premier League goal. Aged just 16 years and 73 days, he broke the previous record by a whopping 197 days. It was also the sixth-longest ball carry before a goal on record in the Premier League (since 2015-16).
Dowman rightly grabbed the headlines on a historic day for him, but Arteta’s daring move deserves credit. The late goals from subs Dowman and Gyökeres added to Arsenal’s impressive numbers when it comes to contributions by substitutes this season.
The club went big last summer to improve the depth of their squad, and their efforts in the transfer market appear to have worked perfectly.
Arsenal lead the Premier League this season for both goals (11) and assists by substitutes (10). Their total of 21 goal contributions by players introduced from the bench is at least seven more than any other club.
most goals and assists by subs - Premier League 2025-26
Some of those assists have set up goals by a fellow substitute, but even when counting those goals only once, Arsenal have still more goals which have been scored or assisted by a sub than any other team in the Premier League this season (16).
Not all of them have been as crucial as Gyökeres’ on Saturday night, of course. Dowman’s, for example, was about as memorable as they come and it settled any remaining nerves as Everton threw men forward in search of an equaliser, but it didn’t affect the result; Arsenal still would have won without it.
Indeed, plenty of Arsenal’s other substitute goals or assists have added gloss to a result, including Martin Ødegaard’s assist for Eze to make it 4-1 at Spurs last month and Gyökeres’ brace against Sunderland a fortnight earlier, with Arsenal already 1-0 up.
But from Gabriel Martinelli’s equaliser at home to City on Matchday 5 and Mikel Merino’s at St James’ Park a week later, right through to Gyökeres’ tap-in against Everton this weekend (which was assisted by another sub in Piero Hincapié), key contributions by substitutes have been a consistent theme of Arsenal’s season.
The two points Gyökeres earned Arsenal on Sunday took their total for points won by their goals or assists from subs to eight for the season. Aston Villa (14), Brighton (10) and Bournemouth (nine) have all won more points through contributions from substitutes, but they all tend to have much closer games than Arsenal. And crucially, Arsenal’s main rivals in the title race, City, have fared much, much worse.
In fact, City have scored fewer goals via substitutes than any other team in the Premier League this season, with just one. And that came on the opening weekend of the season, when Rayan Cherki came off the bench for his City debut to make it 4-0 against Wolves. So, their only Premier League goal from a substitute all season came 29 matches ago, when they were already 3-0 up against a team who would take just two points from their first 19 games of the campaign.
They aren’t quite bottom of the pile for assists from subs, but with just one, they are only ahead of Everton (zero). That assist, also by Cherki, did at least earn City a couple of points as he set up their stoppage-time winner against Leeds back in November. But City’s tally of two points earned through substitute goal contributions is the second-lowest in the top flight this season, ahead only of Brentford.
Their two goal contributions by subs is the worst record in the league.
fewest goals and assists by subs - Premier League 2025-26
It’s hardly as though City can only look enviously at the depth Arsenal boast. In Saturday’s 1-1 draw at West Ham, they introduced Cherki, Jérémy Doku, Phil Foden and Tijjani Reijnders, four attack-minded players who would walk into just about any team in the division. Mateo Kovacic, Nathan Aké, Rúben Dias and Nico González all remained unused subs.
They have a wealth of options few other teams in the world can match, and yet manager Pep Guardiola has been almost entirely unable to affect games with his changes.
Until the last couple of weeks, that hasn’t really mattered. Before their last two games – draws against Nottingham Forest and West Ham – the title race was in their hands. They knew winning their remaining games would be enough to overtake Arsenal.
But now nine points behind, having slipped up to two relegation-threatened opponents in the last couple of weeks, the failure of their substitutes to change games all season looks like it could be fatal.
Arsenal, meanwhile, could go on to set a record for the most goal involvements by subs in a season, currently held by Brighton, who managed 25 only last season (15 goals, 10 assists).
There have been many ways in which Arsenal have outperformed City this season, but in an era when substitutes play a bigger role than ever before, Arteta’s use of them could prove to be the single-most important difference in the 2025-26 title race.
Premier League Stats Opta
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