Two games, half a chance
Eleven shots. That is everything Arsenal’s opponents have managed across two Premier League matches this season. Their combined value comes to 0.54 expected goals.
Break the number down and it reads worse for anyone hoping to score against the champions. The average shot Arsenal concede is worth 0.05 xG. That is the sort of chance a forward buries roughly once in twenty attempts, on a good day, with the wind behind him.
Coventry managed a single shot on target on the opening weekend. Aston Villa, on Monday night, did not manage one at all. Emiliano Buendia clipped the crossbar at Villa Park and that remains the closest anyone has come, though a VAR check for a foul in the build-up would likely have ruled it out in any case.
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The record is back within range
Arsenal have stood here before, and not long ago. Ten games into last season they had conceded three goals, and the conversation had already turned to Chelsea’s Premier League record of 15 goals conceded across a full campaign. Mikel Arteta’s side eventually finished well short of it.
This start looks different in kind rather than degree. The volume of shots faced has dropped. The quality of those shots has dropped further. The clean sheets are arriving without the late scrambles that usually decorate them.
What makes the numbers stranger still is the name missing from the team sheet. William Saliba is not playing. A defence without its best defender is producing the best defensive figures in the division.
Only one other side matches them
Arsenal and Hull are the only teams in the Premier League yet to concede a goal this season. One of those two lifted the trophy in May.
Two wins from two, both secured with more than 60 per cent of the ball, place Arsenal alongside Manchester City as the only sides winning games the traditional way while much of the division prospers with less possession. Opta’s Power Rankings currently rate Arsenal and Bayern Munich as the two strongest teams on the planet, and the early evidence in England does nothing to argue with that.
Arteta’s team topped the Champions League league phase last season and still ran into the limits of a squad stretched thin. The defensive baseline they have set in August suggests those limits have moved.
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