Low-quality shots and a wasted advantage: How Arsenal squandered huge opportunity against United

Renee Slegers' side may have accumulated 25 shots on Saturday but their attacking threat was still missing

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Arsenal were held to their fifth draw of the season in Saturday’s WSL stalemate with Manchester United. Despite playing the final 25 minutes against ten players, the Gunners were unable to make their numerical advantage count. It was another frustrating day for Arsenal, who missed the chance to regain the momentum they had begun to build heading into the winter break.

Bought a ticket, lost the raffle

Despite failing to score, for the third time in a WSL match this season, Arsenal could not be accused of being shot-shy on Saturday. The Gunners mustered a total of 25 attempts on goal, generating, 2.8 xG. On the face of it, this evidence would suggest that, but for better finishing, Arsenal would have scored the goals necessary to come away with three points in this match, and while that is true, it is worth saying that the figure generated had more to do with Renee Slegers’ side generating a large volume of shots as opposed to carving out high-quality chances.

Against United, Arsenal averaged an xG per-shot of 0.11. For comparison, the league leaders Manchester City average 0.14 xG per shot and have the highest xG in the league (28.7 to Arsenal’s 24.0) despite having taken seven shots fewer than the Gunners to date. Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with peppering your opponent’s goal with lower quality shots – as attritional as this method may be, it is an effective way of breaking down a stubborn defensive block, but these numbers do give an insight into the problems Arsenal faced on the afternoon.

We see this theme of high volume, low quality shooting at its most stark in the final 20 minutes of the match, when Arsenal had a player advantage. From the 70th minute, to the full-time whistle, Arsenal managed 15 attempts on goal, but individually, the highest xG mustered from any of these shots was an Alessia Russo effort worth 0.22 xG.