Arsenal’s five away-day tricks

Going into the match against Man City, Gunners have conceded only three goals on the road in the Premier League in 2024

Winning 10 of 11 Premier League away games stands as a highly commendable record, but the bare results fail to do Arsenal’s fearsome form on their travels justice.
Since the start of 2024, Mikel Arteta’s team have scored 31 goals and conceded just three away from home, keeping nine clean sheets. The three goals conceded were an 89th-minute Taiwo Awoniyi consolation when 2-0 up at Nottingham Forest in January, and two shipped to Tottenham when 3-0 up at their north London rivals in April.
Essentially, Arsenal have not conceded a goal of significance (that is to say, one that changes the game state) in more than 1,000 minutes of away Premier League football this year. They have spent precisely zero minutes trailing.
This will not last forever. If only through sheer variance, Arsenal will eventually concede the first goal and how they overcome that hurdle will be another test of their title credentials.
Arteta has built one of the most impressive defensive units in Europe, on account of the quality and athleticism of Arsenal’s players, the addition of David Raya in goal, Arsenal’s hybrid high pressing, deep-lying defending in a 4-4-2 when required, hours of coaching and much more besides.
However, Arsenal have also become masters of pushing the margins in their favour, sometimes attracting the attention of Premier League referees in the process. Arsenal are wily operators, knowing how to manage a game, silence a crowd and win the psychological battle. Tactics are important, but so is match strategy, and these are some of the tricks Arsenal deploy to make themselves at home in hostile arenas.
Arsenal have kicked-off in seven of their 11 Premier League away games in 2024, and on six occasions they have gone back to Raya before going long, usually towards one flank or the other. The one exception was at West Ham in February, when Arsenal went back to their goalkeeper, who played short to William Saliba to start a spell of more considered possession. Perhaps this was because Arteta expected a David Moyes team to retreat, or because his West Ham side excelled in the air.
Arsenal have won six corners in the opening 10 minutes of their away games this year, as well as a dangerous free-kick in a crossing position after only 14 seconds at Brighton in April (from which Gabriel missed a good chance). Kai Havertz had a shot on target inside the first minute at Wolves in April. At Old Trafford in May, Arteta’s team forced a corner after 55 seconds, and at Tottenham on Sunday they did so after 20 seconds.
That corner was earned by a throw-in routine which Arsenal love, with an attacker making a deep run towards the byline and being picked out by a longer throw. Timing the run is not an issue because you cannot be offside from a throw-in, which forces the defender to track. Arsenal usually trust Martin Odegaard as the recipient of these throws, but at Spurs it was Havertz on the end of Ben White’s delivery.
Home teams find their way into the game, but these initial squalls of pressure have helped Arsenal avoid the early slip-ups that plagued them at home to Bournemouth, Southampton and Fulham in 2023.
What does every home manager tell their team? They want a fast start, high intensity and moments that can increase the volume as their fans get involved.
Visiting teams slowing the game down to draw the venom out of the contest is a tale as old as football, and Arsenal are willing to indulge in the dark arts (or street smarts, depending on your perspective).
It took 42 seconds from the ball going out of play for Arsenal to take their early corner at Spurs, with Bukayo Saka in no hurry to deliver. Arsenal scored twice from corners in the same fixture last season, and giving Spurs’ players extra time to think and stew could well have been a psychological ploy, like Shane Warne making a batsman wait, wondering which variation was coming. Every Arsenal corner brought a hush to the stadium, and on social media there was footage of Spurs fans turning their back on the corner that led to Gabriel Magalhães’s winner, unable to watch.
White is the player Arsenal frequently use to slow down restarts. In the 11th minute, he took 23.5 seconds to take a throw-in, and a couple of minutes later he took 16 seconds over a free-kick which left Ange Postecoglou with arms outstretched.
James Maddison struck the same pose as his manager in the 17th minute, when Gabriel and Jorginho circled around a free-kick for 27 seconds before the defender decided to go long.
Comparing Arsenal’s 11 away games with their last 11 Premier League matches at the Emirates reveals broadly similar underlying performances. Their average start distance — which measures how far up the pitch attacking moves begin — is fractionally higher at home, but their possession numbers are almost identical.
Despite keeping fewer clean sheets at home, Arsenal have conceded 0.74 expected goals per 90 at the Emirates compared to 0.72 expected goals per 90 away. This suggests there has been an element of good fortune in Arsenal conceding just three times in 11 away games.
Arsenal have moved the ball fractionally slower in away games, wary of being exposed to transitions if they try to force passes through crowded central areas. They have completed more passes in their own half on the road, while the ‘direct speed’ of their attacks has been 1.63 metres per second compared with 1.77 at the Emirates. In a sign that Arsenal spend more time in a defensive shape on their travels, they allow opponents around one more pass per defensive action.
This strategy verged on sterility at Villa Park last month, when Saliba and Gabriel exchanged 62 passes between themselves, but it was clear Arsenal were briefed to avoid Villa’s pressing traps. Resting on the ball also helps keep the crowd quiet.
Arteta introduced three new starters to his team last season: Raya, Havertz and Declan Rice. They have many virtues but their qualities combine when Arsenal decide to go long.
Raya excels at long-range distribution, Havertz competes for or wins the first ball in the air, while Rice is a second-ball magnet. In the hottest atmospheres against the best pressers, Arsenal can play for territory and relieve pressure. These sequences may not make the highlight reels, but they disrupt opposition momentum, win fouls and make Arsenal a hard team to wear down.
Arsenal had no Rice at Spurs, but Havertz was crucial as a release valve. Raya to Havertz was Arsenal’s second-most successful pass combination. The German drifted towards Arsenal’s right flank, usually their strongest with Saka and White in tandem and Saliba also on that side of the pitch.
Arsenal sceptics will wonder if Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Havertz are potent-enough scorers to propel the team to the game’s biggest trophies, and those fears could prove to be well-founded. However, in addition to Saka and Odegaard, they form an outstanding collection of ‘defensive forwards’.
They work tirelessly, and Jesus and Havertz are unusually adept at the art of tackling, stealing the ball off opponents repeatedly with a hooked leg. An awful lot was asked of Saka and Martinelli in the derby win at Spurs. They were Arsenal’s counter-attacking threat, but also had to cover back into wide midfield positions in Arsenal’s 4-4-2 shape against the ball. This helped ensure Thomas Partey and Jorginho were not overwhelmed, with Arsenal’s wingers tucking in narrow.
Their reaction to defensive transitions was also exceptional. When Leandro Trossard was dispossessed to end a promising attack, they had five players, including Jorginho, out of the game at the edge of the Tottenham box.
This was one of the few times in the game when Arsenal gifted Spurs the chance to run through the middle of the pitch, with Jorginho and Partey nowhere to be seen as Dejan Kulusevski carried the ball forward.
However, Arsenal ended up outnumbering Spurs in the box by six players to two, with Martinelli winning a tackle in his own box and the old stager Jorginho back in the picture after a recovery run of some 70 yards.
Words such as desire and determination are thrown around too loosely in football analysis but they are certainly necessary, if not sufficient, components of a successful team. Arteta called it the “ugly side” of the game, but Arsenal fans will not have struggled to find the beauty in such a selfless team performance.