The five games Arsenal failed to score in last season: What lessons can be learned (2024)

As Arsenal have improved in recent years, the emphasis on ‘small margins’ that can define a season has grown considerably.

Manager Mikel Arteta referenced them routinely throughout the title races of the last two seasons. Club captain Martin Odegaard mentioned them last month ahead of the new campaign: “It was a good season. We made history and we have to be proud. We all felt disappointed with being so close, but in football, it is small margins.”

One of those margins, the five league games Arsenal failed to score in, was identified by The Athletic readers as a priority topic for this summer. Arsenal finished the season having broken their record for league goals scored, their most in any top-flight season since 1952-53 (91), but those five outliers underlined the importance of margins.

Here, we look back through those games to assess where Arsenal fell short, what themes emerged, and how they can improve in 2024-25.

Newcastle 1-0 Arsenal

It took until November (matchday 11) for Arsenal to fail to score in a Premier League game last season: the 1-0 loss away to Newcastle United, remembered mostly for the VAR controversy of the hosts’ winner. Although that took up much of the focus in the aftermath, there were 64 minutes of football played before Arsenal went behind when the momentum of the game had already been set.

Momentum and how it is generated at St James’ Park are interesting factors in Arsenal’s failure to score there last season. They struggled there two years ago, losing 2-0 when chasing Champions League qualification, with Eddie Howe public in his desire to “high-press Arsenal, make the game difficult and not let them settle into any type of rhythm”. It forced defenders to rush passes back to Aaron Ramsdale in goal, who would then pump clearances forward — a fate David Raya would experience in November.

Arsenal drastically improved their ability to deal with these challenges away from home in 2022-23, which culminated in their 2-0 win away to Newcastle in May 2023 after a shaky start. Arteta describes this as how Arsenal ‘live’ the game: “It is how we deal with moments when we lose that control and we are able to reset and take the game into a direction that we want and finding different ways to do that.

“It’s down to that. It’s not about the leadership of the team. It’s about the understanding of certain situations in the game, not to continue to put the game into that mood.”

His side failed to cope with that Newcastle pressure well enough in November, which gave the home players and supporters encouragement inside the Arsenal half. That was evident at goal kicks in both halves, seen below, as well as the way they forced Arsenal wide to ensure no quick combinations were played through midfield.

The lack of coherence from Arsenal on the ball was represented in just one of their 14 shots being on target. A collection of the types of efforts taken are below.

Simply put, players across the pitch were taking speculative, low-value shots through bodies. No real openings were made and when that is the case, there is always a risk of being caught out by the side who seem to have more initiative on the day — whether by luck or otherwise.

Thankfully, Arsenal did not have too many performances like this in 2023-24 and they have already shown an ability to wrestle control of matches back consistently.

Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal

Arteta’s side put a five-match winning run together before they failed to score again. In this match, Arsenal went behind within seven minutes and were chasing for most of the game.

The goal came from a theme that cropped up again throughout 2023-24 and has done again this pre-season. A pass in behind Oleksandr Zinchenko at left-back appears to be the best way for opposition teams to hurt Arsenal. It was evident within a minute of kick-off at Villa Park, with Leon Bailey running off the left-back, and again when he was not tracked in the build-up to John McGinn’s winner.

Riccardo Calafiori’s arrival should help ease these issues as, while he is comfortable inverting from left-back, he is a natural defender more physically suited to the role.

Against Villa, Arsenal, a goal down, were repeatedly gifted possession but at a cost. Slightly different to Newcastle, Villa were happy to sit in a mid-block and force Arsenal to play through them. Rather than pressing high, they would let Arsenal have the ball until they got near the halfway line and then apply pressure. Zinchenko attempted to move into midfield, but Villa’s structure rendered that ineffective.

It also did not help when he and Declan Rice took as long as they did below to move the ball on, as Villa just needed to be patient and pick their moment to pounce.

Arsenal looked best that night on the counter. A break at 0-0, involving two cross-field balls between Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, created a decent chance. but the former squandered it. Chances fell to Saka and Martin Odegaard later in the first half after good challenges in midfield allowed Arsenal to counter, but the pair were too safe with their shots. A golden opportunity fell to Odegaard in the second half after Zinchenko did well to find Havertz in behind, but the captain skewed his effort wide.

The main issue, other than those mentioned, was a lack of decisiveness. It reared its head for those chances in the final third but was littered through the match with loose passes and touches from Odegaard, Saka and Jesus. Arsenal struggled to progress the ball through midfield well and then paid the price for their early sloppiness.

They did manage to bundle the ball over the line late on with Havertz pushing into the box, but it was ruled out for handball. The angle of Odegaard’s cross to the German would feature later in the season as he moved forward from midfield, giving Arsenal a different way to attack teams.

As for their other shortcomings at Villa Park, much better movement off the ball and sharpness on it helped them improve after Christmas. Mid-blocks were tricky for Arsenal to navigate even in games they won last season, so being less predictable in their build-up with Calafiori and Timber should help more this term.

Arsenal 0-2 West Ham

Of all the games Arsenal failed to score in last season, this is one of the most frustrating. They started the game on top, but a moment of confusion between Gabriel and Zinchenko gifted West Ham an early lead.

While Arsenal ending the game with 30 shots may suggest a barrage throughout the 77 minutes they were behind, just six of those efforts came in the first half. At this stage, and early into the second half, they were falling victim to what hurt them at St James’ Park, with most of their shots either too tame or hit into a crowd of bodies.

The last half-hour, when they were 2-0 down, is when their better chances came as they had 22 of their 24 second-half shots in this period. A chunk of these were still hopeful, with some coming either outside the box or under great pressure, but openings were fashioned when they were more patient.

The best example came when Arsenal’s right flank did what it does best, with Odegaard sliding in Ben White on the overlap. He clipped a ball into the six-yard box but Jesus got his execution all wrong, drawing a collective groan from the crowd.

Jesus has scored back-post headers before for Arsenal, against Leicester and Brighton, but this miss fueled talk of the side needing a new striker. A few months later, they were in a similar position chasing a winning goal against Brentford and the same move was pulled out. Odegaard slid the ball into an overlapping White and he crossed. This time Havertz was on hand to head the ball home and secure three points.

While there is a different solution available for such moments, the trend of bad execution/decision-making flowed right through into added time against West Ham. The shots below show how efforts were taken at the wrong moments, in particular Reiss Nelson’s hesitation, despite him scoring from a similar position against Bournemouth in 2023 with a first-time strike.

Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal

This match is the one that is set apart from the others on this list.

The approach to this game was very different, with more emphasis on just staying in the game rather than taking it to the opponent. It worked for Arsenal against Manchester City in the Community Shield, which they won on penalties after a late equaliser, and in their late 1-0 win over them at Emirates Stadium in October.

That difference is seen not just in Arsenal having 27 per cent of the ball, but also in how sparse their pass map was compared to most matches.

Although the graphic shows Jesus in a deeper average position than White, the overarching plan worked for the most part.

City did not register a shot until the 43rd minute and Erling Haaland, who has scored 63 Premier League goals in two seasons, went his third straight game against Arsenal without registering a shot on target. Arteta’s side set up to be compact, which put them in a good position to block shots as soon as they came in, as seen in the examples below.

The issues with this were that it was harder to spring into attacking situations from such a deep starting position, as below.

It put more pressure on Arsenal when they broke forward because they did so much less often than usual. They had six shots to City’s 12 but had two on target to the host’s one. They clearly defended well but came across a few familiar struggles of being indecisive in the final third.

Jesus was the main example again, either running into traffic before shooting in the first half or getting caught on his heels when he should have been at the back post in the second. By the time Odegaard freed Trossard in behind late on, the pressure to make the right decision in a split second would have been immense. He was focused on the ball, not the free man, and Arsenal missed out on crafting an even better scoring chance than they ended up with.

Despite the negative discourse around Arsenal’s approach that day, they mostly did what they set out to do. Like their two wins over Manchester City, they stayed in the game and worked a potential match-winning moment late on. They just failed to execute on the day and that’s how fine the margins can be.

Arsenal 0-2 Aston Villa

While the West Ham loss was one of Arsenal’s most frustrating scoreless games, this one tops that. That is partly because of the ramifications it had for the title race, but mostly it is due to how dominant Arsenal were in the first half without going ahead.

This was one of Odegaard’s best displays of the season, setting the tone from an intensity perspective but also pulling the strings creatively. Good openings were crafted in the first 20 minutes, with Trossard and Zinchenko finding Havertz as well as Odegaard finding Saka, but the former fluffed his lines and the latter shot from a tight angle. The next 20 minutes were driven by the emotion of the Emirates crowd, with waves of attack flowing but no luck.

Arsenal were on the front foot, which provided more chances inside the six-yard box and a much better shape in possession.

It all culminated in Trossard having an effort saved from six yards out on 40 minutes. That was the moment and it passed Arsenal by. They racked up 15 shots in the first half, but just three came in the second half. They were given two warnings of what could happen by failing to take their chances as Ollie Watkins and Youri Tielemans hit the post in either half before Leon Bailey and Watkins gave the visitors their 2-0 win.

Zinchenko had been struggling all afternoon and was on the right side of the pitch dealing with a short corner, which left Bailey free for the opener. The second then came as Arsenal pushed for an equaliser that never came. A sucker punch, the goals were a harsh lesson of what happens when you fail to capitalise while dominant and represented a major swing of momentum in the title race.

Arsenal failing to score just five times in the Premier League last season was impressive. However, on the final day, Arteta said: “It’s time to have a break, think and reflect. Please keep pushing, keep inspiring this team. Don’t be satisfied because we want much more than that (second place) and we’re going to get it.”

He was addressing the fans, but those words could apply to himself and his coaching staff, too. The 2023-24 season as a whole showed steps forward. For example, Arteta’s willingness to use Havertz as a striker helped give Arsenal a new dimension in attack after the winter break. Much better movement off the ball in midfield also benefited the team going forward.

The areas that can still do with improvement are decisiveness in front of goal, which tends to be very circ*mstantial, and being less sloppy at the start of games. Defensively, the return of Timber and the arrival of Calafiori could be exactly what is needed to improve on the latter point. Pre-season showed that Arsenal are still working towards reaching their levels from last season, but laying the foundations with recognisable solutions already may make for a smoother, more fluid start to the campaign compared to last season.

(Top photo: Mikel Arteta making notes during Arsenal’s loss to West Ham in December 2023; by Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)