Let’s start by looking at the key statistics from yesterday’s vital 1-0 win over Swansea City.
Possession
One main downfall in our recent poor form has been our lack of possession, however yesterday; we were able to use the lack of keep ball to our advantage. The visiting Swans had the edge over possession, with 53.9 percent to our 46.1 percent possession. Despite the Welsh side keeping the ball more, they rarely threatened us and we cruised to the 3 points at the London Stadium.
Shots on and off target
We managed to create plenty of chances yesterday whereas the Swans hardly managed to test Darren Randolph, this can be clearly seen in the attempts on and off target. We dominated the visitors in this stat with 14 shots, 6 of which were on target whereas the Swans managed only 4 shots, with only 1 of them directly at Randolph’s goal. We were certainly accurate in creating chances and testing Lukasz Fabianski in the Swansea goal, compared to our opponents, who only forced Randolph into relatively 1 easy save.
Corners and passing accuracy
There is no denying that our performance wasn’t perfect yesterday and this is displayed in the passing accuracy department. Our visitors were able to successfully complete 78 percent of their passes, which was more than our 74.5 percent passing accuracy. There is no doubt that our step forward yesterday; we need to improve our passing ahead of tougher games to come. At the Emirates last Wednesday we failed to win a single corner, but yesterday we managed to get the better of Swansea in terms of winning corners.
We managed to win 4 corners to our opponents 3; however we still failed to make the most of them. One main reason why we couldn’t capitalise on the corners and crossing opportunities we had was the absence of our tall frontman Andy Carroll. The big striker was only fit enough to make the bench after picking up a knock against the Gunners. We certainly managed to improve our all-round attacking play yesterday and that has been displayed in the stats.
Blocks and clearances
In terms of defensive stats we were much improved across the back 4, compared to recent weeks. We were able to make 39 key clearances whereas the Swans could only successfully clear 12 of our rampant attacks. We also managed to ward off most Swansea attacks before they got into our danger area, only needing to make 1 key block whereas we forced our Welsh opponents to make 3. Swansea didn’t seem to pose us any real threat at any point in the game yesterday and that was due to our fantastic defensive display, which can be seen just from the defensive stats.