Weaknesses - Arsenal WFC
Disclaimer - this is a long ass post. Read this on the toilet or something. Idk. Whatever floats your boat 😌
Ahhh Arsenal 🥲 They really do my mind in because there’s so much quality but they make sooo many mistakes 👀 It’s not like an ungodly number of mistakes but ungodly by their standards. I’ll get into it.
I’ve attempted to quantify their weakness by analysing shots they’ve faced from their opponent. That is, scenarios that caused an attack resulting in a shot or goal. Okay leggo 😄
Arsenal have faced a total of 110 shots. 37.3% were from long shots (I’ll go into what caused them later), 21.8% were from defensive errors, 17.3% were from set pieces, 15.5% were from defensive duels lost (eg. dribbled past, ball protected, poor marking) and 8.2% were from poor positioning (i.e. counterattack and pressures).
Let’s start with the long shots AKA shots outside of the box. Their opponent were able to attempt these long shots from dispossessing the Arsenal defender, dribbling past the defender, intercepting Arsenal passes, being on the end of clearances (set pieces and live play) or simply just passing their way into position. Luckily for Arsenal, only 4.9% of all the long shots attempted have been converted. Arsenal is an attacking team that is quite lethal on the counterattack. At times when they are dispossessed or a pass is intercepted, the front 4/5 would stay higher up the field in the case of a counterattack. If the opposing team is able to get into an attacking position on the wing, a sideways pass or a cutback to a player outside the box is available. That divide between the defense and attack creates space outside the box. A perfect example is Katie Zelem’s first shot vs Arsenal (80th minute).
Arsenal makes too many defensive errors for the team that they are. They made a total of 24 defensive errors, 3 resulting in goals. 4 came from the opponent dispossessing the defender, 6 from the opponent intercepting passes, 11 from poor clearances, 2 from poor touches and well there’s that own goal 🥲 Given Arsenal’s quality idt they should be making so many errors in and around the box. I started taking note of who made the errors but I lost track so I just squashed it. You’ll just have to take my word for it when I say Katie McCabe is the gem of the Arsenal defense in terms of not making a lot of mistakes 💎
Next up is set pieces. They’ve conceded 15.8% of the shots they’ve faced from set pieces which isn’t too bad considering they’ve only conceded 3/19 shots. They’ve only conceded one penalty which was such a powder puff foul 👀 and it was saved! I’d say they’re okay with the set pieces.
Coming in fourth is their defensive duels lost i.e. being dribbled past, being unable to dispossess an attacker protecting the ball and poor marking of an attacker. These usually occurred on the wings with the defender failing to prevent the cross from entering the box. 47.1% of the time they were dribbled past while 41.2% of the time was a result of poor marking. Bear in mind this only shows defensive duels they’ve lost and not how much they’ve won so the FBs could very well be efficient at 1v1 situations 🙂
Lastly we have poor positioning as a result of counterattacks and pressing. As I stated earlier, Arsenal is an attacking team and in attack they have a front 5, the usual front 3 in Foord, Miedema and Mead as well as the AM and an advanced FB. Most of the time McCabe is the advanced FB but sometimes she isn’t. When she advances most of the time there is a vacancy in that position so when a team counters they’re able to run into that space and punish Arsenal (see Man Utd goal vs Arsenal). In the case of pressing, sometimes a defender will try to press an attacker from the opposing team. Unfortunately for Arsenal some teams see the space that defender vacates and are able to exploit it (eg Caroline Weir - 17th minute). No team has been able to convert their chance however, them having a chance is where the problem lies.
No team is perfect and all I’ve pointed out happens to every team. However, the frequency is what makes or breaks the defense. For instance, if Arsenal puts a lid on the amount of defensive errors they make that’s approximately 20% of the shots they face gone, poof, disintegrated 🔥 I think a lot of their defensive woes are really due to their injury problem and not having enough replacements like with Maritz and Catley. Will their stats improve once everyone returns? We’ll see. Also with respect to the advanced FB vacating space, I feel like one of the Walti could easily slot in there to fill the space which would minimise avenues for the opponent to take during a counter. But that’s just me haha.
Since this is the first team I’m doing I have no other stats to compare it to but I will return to this one as I do more teams 😌
Hope I didn’t waste your time 😂 Have a good day 🙂