How every Premier League club ranks for xG against in 2024 - Arsenal way ahead

Mikel Arteta has never hid his ambitions for Arsenal this season.

«Suffocating the opponent more,» he explained when quizzed on his side's strategy this term. «Conceding zero chances and play further from our goal.»

Arsenal's backline has been imperious throughout the campaign but clicked into a different gear at the turn of the year. Arteta's side were slumped in fourth place after a chastening loss to Fulham on New Year's Eve but have reignited a rare three-horse title race with a record-breaking sequence of six league victories on the spin. This is the best start Arsenal have made to any calendar year since the club's foundation in 1886.

While much of the focus has been stolen by the 25 goals in six games a fully-firing frontline has scored this year, the rearguard has been even more impressive.

Rank

Team

Played

Goals against

xG against

1.

Arsenal

6

3

1.9

All an expected goal (xG) model does is provide an estimate of the chance of scoring from each shot. A wide range of criteria — position on the pitch, which body part was used and so forth — for every attempt is compared to thousands of past efforts to provide a value between zero and one which represents the likelihood of scoring.

As each shot is unique and the probability spat out is only an estimate, xG works best in the aggregate, when lots of shots are analysed over a long period of time. However, the yawning chasm between Arsenal's figures and those posted by the rest of the Premier League stretches beyond the small sample size.

Arsenal's miserly tally of 1.9 xG conceded across six matches is three-and-a-half times smaller than the figure recorded by Manchester City — the next-best backline. This calendar year alone, there have been 37 occasions when a team has exceeded