The final look at how Arsenal performed this season compared to the Key Performance Indicators for the 2024-25 season
We have made it through another season and this one ended up a disappointment in the League.
It was a season that never really seemed to get started and every step forward seemed to be matched by some sort of step back. The team never had the chance to get settled and it was apparent given that the team never really got into any sort of rolling form, Arsenal never won more than 4 in a row in all competitions and there was always something that seemed to disrupt the flow.
I am pretty glad to see the back of this season and I am excited to be moving into postmortem mode and starting to look forward to next season, because even if this season didn’t go to plan, I am still incredibly high on this team and think the big trophies that we all want are right around the corner.
For the items presented below the blue line is the average for the season, the red line on the current season is what I set out as my goal for Arsenal’s season to be a ‘success’.The baseline goal this season is “title winning team” and set the expectations high.
Crab Stats is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I don’t anticipate that my expectations will change for next season. This is a team that has the ability to hit those marks and they really should be doing that next season to be where we want them.
Points
Season Avg: 1.9 per match
Last 10 Avg: 1.9 per match
Season Goal: 2.5 per match
↘️ On points, Arsenal ended below my expectations
Arsenal ended up in second place on the table for the third year running but they did those 15 points worse off than they were last season. Some of the late season form of dropped points can be attributed to the Champions League run; they dropped points in the matches before the first leg of the Madrid match and after the one before the second leg and also in all three matches around the PSG match.
Even if some of those points were wins, it would have really just been a bit of lipstick on the season given they were going to fall short of Liverpool at that point regardless, but it doesn’t look great.
There was just never a run this season where the team was firing on all cylinders looking like a title team.
Goals
Season Avg: 1.8 per match
Last 10 Avg: 1.7 per match
Season Goal: 2.3 per match
Season Avg: 0.9 per match
Last 10 Avg: 1.0 per match
Season Goal: 0.7 per match
Season Avg: +0.9 per match
Last 10 Avg: +0.7 per match
Season Goal: +1.6 per match
↘️ Below expectations here for Arsenal
This is the big one that hurts for Arsenal, they scored 22 fewer goals this season compared to last. Points to goals scored aren’t perfectly 1 to 1 but it is often pretty close and not scoring enough was the problem for Arsenal this season.
Arsenal had 10 matches this season where they failed to score out of 58 played (17%), with 26 where they scored just 1 or 0 goals (38%).
Liverpool had just 4 out of 56 played (7%) and just 14 where they failed to score 2 or more goals (25%).
Arsenal matched them on the times scoring 3 or more at 16 each but they just had too many times where they stopped and that led to Arsenal having too many draws this season.
The defensive numbers are plenty good enough, even with a bit of a blip at the end of the year I don’t have any real worries about that side right now.
Expected Goals
Season Avg: 1.6 per match
Last 10 Avg: 1.5 per match
Season Goal: 2.0 per match
Season Avg: 0.9 per match
Last 10 Avg: 1.0 per match
Season Goal: 0.8 per match
Season Avg: +0.7 per match
Last 10 Avg: +0.5 per match
Season Goal: +1.2 per match
↘️ Unsurprisingly, the story for expected goals matches the actual goals. The team finished below expectations here.
Like the goals scored, the story is the drop off from last year in the creation numbers where Arsenal created 16.1 fewer expected goals than last season. This is again an area where Arsenal just never really were able to be at the level consistently enough this season.
Between the Champions League and the Premier League Arsenal had 14 matches where they were at 1.0 or lower for expected goals. Again, going to the Liverpool example they had just 6 of these matches in those competitions.
Shots
Season Avg: 10.3 per match
Last 10 Avg: 11.4 per match
Season Goal: 13.1 per match
Season Avg: 7.2 per match
Last 10 Avg: 6.1 per match
Season Goal: 5.2 per match
↘️On the goals for shots, Arsenal were well below my expectations.
Sometimes it is pretty simple. The team needs more shots and that will go a long way towards fixing the problems in attack.
Deep Completions
Season Avg: 25.5 per match
Last 10 Avg: 26.0 per match
Season Goal: 30.0 per match
Season Avg: 13.5 per match
Last 10 Avg: 13.9 per match
Season Goal: 10.1 per match
↘️On the goals for deep completions, Arsenal are below my expectations and again the story is that the attack is more concerning going into next season.
Arsenal have never been the most efficient at turning possession in dangerous areas into shots at a high volume because they favor working for a higher quality shot. Generally, I have not problem with that as it is generally a superior option to work for a 30% chance vs spamming 3% chances.
The issue however is that the number of times Arsenal have gotten into the zones has not been as good as we want to see from a team with title winning goals. The team is missing 5-6 passes per match, and maybe even more like 7-8 given they need more to generate the needed shot volume.
I look at this as a big indicator for how things are going and it screams to me the team needs to figure out another way of getting the ball into those spots. Maybe it is the lack of targets and a striker fixes it. Maybe it is that Arsenal don’t have a secondary creator and a new midfielder fixes it. Maybe a new winger comes in and adds more there. Maybe it is a fullback.
It doesn’t really matter to me where it gets fixed, just as long as it does.
Field Tilt
Season Avg: 66.7% per match
Last 10 Avg: 66.9% per match
Season Goal: 73.8% per match
↘️On field tilt, Arsenal are below my expectations but not really a concerning amount below here.
After a slow start of the season down to the 10-man matches and the early injuries Arsenal have bounced back to basically back to where I expected and the differences here are pretty small and honestly I really don’t diagnose this as the problem right now for Arsenal.
Overall
Arsenal ended up in second place island this season. They clearly have a defense that is more than good enough but were let down by the attack that was just above average this year.
It does point to my long-held belief that attack is what wins you championships and that you’d rather be the pretty good defense with the elite attack than the flipside. We just saw the flipside this season and it’s just often on the edge and leaves things up to chance too often.
I don’t doubt that the club know this, I just hope that they can keep the players healthier next season and supplement the team to push them to the next level.