It seemed last season like Arsenal were crying out for a goalscoring striker and they will feel they have got just that in the signing of Viktor Gyokeres.
While the Gunners conceded fewer goals than Liverpool in 2024-25, Arne Slot’s side scored 17 more – arguably the key difference in the Premier League title race.
That is a problem Gyokeres has obviously been brought in to address, although it may be a bit more complicated than that.
When we look at the reasons why Arsenal scored just 69 goals to the champions’ 86, it’s clear that their problem wasn’t finishing chances but creating them…
Arsenal won seven fewer penalties
Liverpool (13.3%) had a better shot conversion rate than Arsenal (12.6%) last season, but that’s a misleading stat for one key reason – penalties.
Liverpool won and scored a league-high nine penalties, while Arsenal won and scored a paltry two.
Given that penalties were scored at a rate of 83% and non-penalty shots at just 11% in the Premier League in 2024-25, every spot-kick that a team won significantly distorted their shot conversion rate as a reflection of their finishing ability.
When we look at how ruthless the two teams were away from the penalty spot, it’s actually Arsenal who were the (slightly) better finishers…
While Liverpool winning nine penalties was a lot, 14 teams have been awarded more in a season over the past decade – including Manchester United being awarded a whopping 14 penalties in 38 games in 2019-20.
However, for a team that finished as high in the table as Arsenal to win just two penalties is unusual. In the past 10 campaigns, a side ending up with a points tally in the 70s has won an average of five penalties, while champions have won an average of eight.
In fact, the last team to win so many points and so few penalties was Arsenal themselves back in 2015-16 when they also finished runners-up, winning just two penalties. Champions Leicester were awarded 13.
Those seven extra penalties last season had a significant impact on the title race, too, as Liverpool’s nine spot-kicks won them an extra 11 points over the course of the campaign.
Since Arsenal’s two penalties both came in a 5-2 win at West Ham in November, they earned the Gunners no points whatsoever.
Arsenal took far fewer shots
Putting penalties aside, we come to the major reason why Arsenal scored so few goals compared to Liverpool – they just didn’t create enough chances!
Over the course of 38 games, Liverpool took 95 more non-penalty shots than the Gunners… exactly 2.5 more every game.
If Mikel Arteta’s side had taken the same number of non-penalty shots as the champions and continued scoring at the rate that they did (12.3%) then they would’ve scored an additional 12 goals, showing Arsenal’s main problem last season was that you can’t score the chances you don’t make.
Arsenal took worse-quality shots
Liverpool didn’t just create more shots than Arsenal last season but better ones, too, as only Brentford created higher-quality chances on average in terms of expected goals per shot (excluding penalties).
What that means is Liverpool created chances last season that have historically been scored in the Premier League 12% of the time, while Arsenal’s have been converted at a rate of 11%.
Now, a 1% difference might not sound like much but, given that Arsenal took 544 non-penalty shots over the course of last season, if they had created chances as good as the champions they would have scored an additional five goals (1% of 544).
So… Arsenal were actually pretty ruthless?
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the goals Arsenal ‘didn’t score’ thanks to the reasons above add up to 24, while in reality they scored 17 goals fewer than Liverpool.
That’s because when you take shot quality into account, Arsenal weren’t just slightly better finishers than the champions last season but much better finishers, as they overperformed their non-penalty xG by seven goals to Liverpool’s measly 0.5.
In fact, despite the narrative around Arsenal’s finishing last season, only Nottingham Forest and Wolves were more ruthless in front of goal than the Gunners.
The problem for Arteta’s side was that Liverpool created so many more, and higher-quality, chances that they didn’t need to be clinical to win the league.
So, in a nutshell, here are the reasons why Arsenal scored 17 goals fewer than Liverpool last season…
Now the good news: Gyokeres brings more than just finishing
While obviously the more Gyokeres can help Arsenal finish their chances the better, he should also help solve the Gunners’ main problem of creating enough chances in the first place.
Last season he attempted 4.5 shots per 90 minutes on average in the Primeira Liga, far more than Gabriel Jesus (3.0) and Kai Havertz (2.6) averaged for Arsenal in the Premier League.
Although clearly the number of shots a striker takes is in part down to the service he gets from his team-mates, it’s also a result of the options he gives his team-mates with his movement and anticipation in and around the box.
Given that Gyokeres also ranked second for chances created from open play in the league (60) and won the most penalties (4), he should play a major role in providing the ammunition the Gunners need to make a challenge for the Premier League title this season.–BBC
