Revealed: The position where Arsenal have the worst Premier League regular
Robin Bairner
- 11 May 2022 11:49 BST
- 3 min read
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is set to lead his side into the transfer window with ambitions for a significant summer rebuild having had a successful 2021/22 season.
The Gunners are in line to return to the Champions League next term and will be focusing on strengthening their side in attack, midfield and at full-back.
Arsenal, though, may have something of a blind spot when it comes to recruitment in one particular area of the field, where their weakness is unlikely to be addressed.
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In goal, Aaron Ramsdale won acclaim for his performances early in the season after making a €30 million move from Sheffield United. It was a move that was scoffed by critics, but the young goalkeeper seemed to have confounded them with a string of good performances after successfully ousting Bernd Leno from the No.1 spot early in the season.
Leno is out of contract 2023 and is set to depart the club in the summer, but Arteta and Arsenal might be well advised to have a re-think over their current goalkeeper, who is statistically the poorest in the league.
Aaron Ramsdale five match moving average for post shot xG this season pic.twitter.com/umOordECWt
— • (@louorns) May 11, 2022
It was a different story when he first broke into the team, as he performed exceptionally well in the early stages of the season and performed to a genuinely elite level.
Since December, though, his post-shot xG (PSxG) performance has been below average, and indeed for much of this period he has been the poorest in the league. Since the beginning of April, he has been considerably the worst goalkeeper in the league on this measure.
What is post-shot xG and why does it matter?
Post-shot xG is important because it illustrates the quality of the shot taken. Two efforts from an identical point on the field, for example, the penalty spot, would have the same expected goal (xG) figure but can vary in terms of their PSxG. A scuffed shot straight at the goalkeeper would have a lower chance of going in than a thunderbolt towards the top corner.
For goalkeepers, this figure is important because it shows the quality of they have faced. Conceding fewer goals than PSxG indicates an above-average performance.
Ramsdale’s five-game rolling average, though, is clearly in the red in this regard – and alarmingly so – suggesting it might be wise for Arsenal to start considering their goalkeeping options ahead of the summer.
