No matter what happens in the final weeks of the 2022/23 Premier League campaign, Arsenal have had a stellar season.
The north London outfit have guaranteed a top-two finish, currently sitting one point behind league-leaders Manchester City, albeit Pep Guardiola and co have a game in hand on their title rivals. The Gunners have accrued 81 points in 35 league fixtures this term, 12 points better than they managed last season and they have three extra games to increase this tally.
In fact, if they are able to secure maximum points from their remaining fixtures, they will equal their best-ever points tally for a Premier League campaign - the 90 they accumulated during their famous 2003/04 Invincibles season. A huge reason for their upturn in form is their potent attack.
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City are the only team across Europe's top-five leagues that have scored more league goals than Arsenal this season, a hugely impressive feat when you consider they are the second youngest squad in the English top-flight. And their two top scorers, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard rank among the four best finishers in the division when you look at the underlying data.
Martinelli and Odegaard have both netted 15 times in the league this term, overperforming their xG (expected goals) by 5.7 and 5.2 respectively, as per fbref. Manchester City striker Erling Haaland and Tottenham Hotspur frontman Harry Kane are the only two Premier League players that have overperformed their xG by a greater margin.
Effectively, this means that their elite finishing has resulted in them scoring goals at a much higher rate than they would be expected to when considering the position on the field where all of their shots have been taken. But Odegaard's impressive numbers haven't surprised Arsenal boss Arteta.
"That’s something our attacking midfielders have to have the ability to do, and that’s why we play in a certain way to exploit those spaces," he told football.london when asked about the Nowegian's ability to finish from cutbacks ahead of the 2-0 win at Newcastle on Sunday. "Martin has the capacity to do that, he’s finding himself in those positions and then he is being very effective in the final action. It’s something very important for us."
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