Arsenal’s decision to upgrade on Aaron Ramsdale and replace him with David Raya last summer was driven by a belief that even a five per cent improvement in just a few areas can prove decisive.
Mikel Arteta believed the Spaniard was superior in his distribution and decision-making in possession. In modern football parlance, that usually means a goalkeeper who can resist going long under pressure, backing himself to find an intricate escape pass instead.
But Opta research last month showed how playing out from the back in a league dominated by pressing teams is actually leading to more errors, turnovers and high-quality chances conceded than at any point in the previous decade.
Goal kicks are a fundamental building block to a team’s style and the numbers underlined the overarching strategy in the Premier League, with 16 of the 20 clubs playing fewer than half of their goal kicks beyond their own third.
The focus was not on the teams who do play long more than short from goal kicks. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Arsenal are the Premier League team who go long most often from goal kicks — and it is not even close.
Last season, Arsenal ‘launched’ — a kick of more than 40 metres — 34 per cent of their goal kicks, the seventh-lowest figure in the division.
In their opening seven league games this season, that number has shot up to 78 per cent of all goal kicks going long. That is 15 per cent more than the next closest team, Everton.
While the league shifts one way, Arteta’s side are going the opposite.
It is a limited sample size that includes two games in which they played with 10 men but, while Raya being inclined to go long in the second halves against Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester City may skew the numbers slightly, this is clearly a pre-determined choice. With a visit to Andoni Iraola’s high-pressing Bournemouth next up on Saturday, it is likely to continue.
For any team to be such an outlier in anything, however, there must be logic as to why they are going against the grain.
Kai Havertz’s role as the team’s centre-forward is a factor. Arteta would be naive if, having watched the development of Havertz as an aerial force since joining the club last summer, he did not exploit that progress. Against City he was a one-man battering ram, twice almost nipping in to score before the ball reached Ederson.
The German tends to drift all across the front line in his new role, but the default target for Raya has more often than not been the right wing, with Havertz the challenger.
Raya’s long open-play kicking has increased from 32 per cent to 38 per cent, but there has notably been a skewing to the right flank, too.
(This graphic actually notes Arsenal’s long goal kicks as being at 88% — this is because it does not include the five times Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba have taken them and passed to David Raya.)
The goal-kick idea that has permeated top football since a rule change in 2019 has been for teams to play short initially, drawing a man-for-man press and then playing over the top to isolate their forwards in one-versus-one situations. The risk with this is that it creates a huge hole in the middle of the pitch, so the long ball can be risky if the team does not win the first contact as there could be a counter-attack on its way.
This feels like a way for Arsenal to ensure they retain control at a time when teams are finding risk versus reward a tricky balance to strike.
Goal kicks are simply another form of set piece and so fall into set-piece coach Nicolas Jover’s remit. Arteta has empowered him with a carte-blanche mandate in that department, delivering the best results of any team in the league over the past three years.
Against Wolverhampton Wanderers on the opening day of the season, Arsenal went long with all six goal kicks, one of which included a smart piece of blocking. As the ball travelled in the air, Declan Rice grouped next to Havertz and blocked Yerson Mosquera.
It meant that, instead of a centre-back challenging the first kick, it was actually a diminutive midfielder, allowing Havertz to win the flick-on. Bukayo Saka is usually the player Arsenal have going beyond Havertz to pick up the loose ball, but Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard were also on the move to anticipate where it was dropping and secure possession high up the pitch.
This switch is another way Arteta is proving to be an open-minded and flexible manager. Arsenal have already adapted shape and become more direct in the absence of captain Odegaard. They are prepared to win any way necessary and this is another part of their identity that shows the caricature of Arsenal being City-lite is lazy.
Compare the tendencies of other possession-heavy sides. Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Brighton, Fulham, Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur keep the first pass within the width of their own six-yard box the vast majority of the time. Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs side have yet to play a single goal kick long all season.
Arteta is not tied to one single dogma and has built a style that binds strength and style in equal measure.
Arsenal are not reinventing the wheel, but there have been other thought-out routines to take advantage of Raya’s ability to kick deep into the opposition half.
Against Atalanta in the Champions League, rather than play through the press, Raya went long. Rice sprinted from deep in midfield and had the ball hung up in the air for him to attack. It became a front two with Havertz running off him and both wingers, Saka and Martinelli, inverting for any loose balls.
In open play, Raya has also taken up a higher position in some games, not being afraid to clip a long pass over the top for Saka to run onto. Against Brighton, it caused them problems on several occasions, with the shorter distance meaning they could not be as aggressive in stepping up.
In the 1-0 win over Tottenham, Arsenal looked like they had worked on how to manipulate an innocuous throw-in situation in their own half into a four-versus-four situation via a long kick.
Instead of looking to play infield, Ben White went back to Raya, who went long to Havertz. Tellingly, Jorginho was already on the move by the time the ball was kicked and Martinelli had already run off Cristian Romero to get on the end of the flick-on. Were it not for poor execution, Arsenal could have converted.
Raya going long more often than any other goalkeeper will be further ammunition for those who have mocked Arteta due to Arsenal’s strength at corners and his happiness to let his team defend deep when necessary.
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand joked that he was “moving like Mikel Pulis” — a reference to the former Stoke City boss Tony Pulis, who became synonymous with a direct approach — but with the margins so fine at the top of the Premier League, Arsenal will not mind doing things their own way if it brings them results.
(Top photo: Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images)
