Are Arsenal’s strikers scoring as expected?

Arsenal strikers Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah are both cited as two of the top 5 worst finishers in the league this season, according to Understat.com.

This season, both of Arsenal’s main strikers have underperformed their expected goals. So, is this cause for concern?

The short answer is no.

Ok, that’s all thanks for reading, everyone!

Alright, alright, I guess I’ll do my job here.

Let’s start with Jesus. he has traditionally been a less-than-stellar finisher in his career. His NPG-NPxG (non-penalty goals minus non-penalty expected goals) since the 17/18 season is as follows: (stats from FBref.com)

• 0.8 xG overperformance in 2017/18
• 4.5 xG underperformance in 2018/19
• 3.4 xG underperformance in 2019/20
• 0.3 xG overperformance in 2020/21
• 2 xG underperformance in 2021/22
• 2.7 xG underperformance in 2022/23

An 11.5 xG underperformance for his career does not depict an efficient finisher, but that’s ok! We have seen just how influential Jesus has been to this Arsenal team when in the side, even when he has failed to finish the chances created for him; that is by no means cause for alarm.

The part of Aaron Catterson-Reid’s post that started a conversation for Arsenal fans is Eddie Nketiah. The Englishman has played well during his extended run in the team since Jesus’ injury, but given his xG underperformance, there has been cause for concern. Nketiah’s always been associated with the fox-in-the-box tag given his finishing capabilities from close range. So, what has happened to him lately?

Expected goals are an excellent tool for establishing trends in players. If a player usually performs how they’re expected and then has a season where they massively overperform, they’ll likely revert to the mean. This rule bodes well for Nketiah. While he has a much smaller sample size than Jesus, Nketiah has traditionally performed right around where he is expected to do so. The largest xG discrepancy in his career to this point was in 2019/20 when he scored two goals from 3.1 xG (FBref). Given this, Nketiah’s discrepancy of a 3.7 xG underperformance this season can be interpreted as an outlier, and over a long period of matches, he would be expected to return close to the mean.

Arsenal’s strikers have not taken on the bulk of the scoring, with only nine of the Gunners’ 59 league goals coming from the traditional number #9s this term. This has been mainly down to the setup of the team. Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, and Martin Ødegaard have taken on far more prominent scoring roles, resulting in less burden on the strikers.

Gabriel Jesus is due to return soon for Arsenal, which will be vital for the Premier League title push. His goalscoring has never been the Brazilian’s strength, but he’ll bring so much more to this team in the season’s closing months.