Arsenal enter the final stretch of the 2025/26 Premier League season leading the table with 70 points from 32 matches, but their grip on top spot feels much shakier than that number suggests. They have won just two of their last five games, scoring five and conceding six along the way.
A 1-2 home defeat to Bournemouth on April 11 was a massive blow, leaving them in what NBC Sports described as an almost unthinkable slump that has given Manchester City every reason to believe in a comeback. A trip to the Etihad on April 19 now stands as the season-defining fixture, with a Champions League semi-final also fast approaching. The pressure is coming from every direction.
Open-play creativity
Sky Sports recently pointed out a harsh reality about Arsenal’s season, and that is their attacking output from open play is actually quite worrying. According to their analysis, the Gunners produced an expected goals total from open play of just 0.18 against Bournemouth, one of the lowest figures recorded by a top-six side in the entire 2025/26 Premier League campaign.
That number puts them fifth in the table of shame, just above Chelsea‘s dismal 0.09 against Manchester United. Across the season, Arsenal rank sixth among Premier League sides for open-play expected goals. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that every title winner since 2017/18, except for Liverpool in 2019/20, finished first or second in that exact category.
Furthermore, nearly 27 minutes of the Bournemouth match passed with Arsenal technically in possession, but the ball was effectively dead, including seven full minutes spent waiting on throw-ins alone. Declan Rice’s delivery from set-pieces has kept the team moving for much of the season, but Sky Sports makes a strong case that relying too much on dead-ball situations kills fluid, open-play momentum, and that could leave Arsenal empty-handed in May.
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Does Arsenal’s set-piece obsession reflect a deeper creative problem under Arteta?
Mikel Arteta has built something impressive at the Emirates, and it would be unfair to dismiss that. However, the numbers from this season tell a story that his tactical setup is struggling to overcome. Arsenal sit sixth in the league for expected goals on open play, and the Bournemouth game showed exactly why that matters.
A team that create only 0.18 xG from open play at home against a mid-table side isn’t playing like a title-winning machine; it’s playing a set-piece lottery. Rice, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, and Martin Ødegaard are all incredibly gifted, and watching them spend seven minutes waiting on throw-ins rather than pressing high and creating chances feels like a waste of talent.
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Arteta clearly trusts his system, and it has worked for most of the year. But there is a fine line between trusting a system and having blind faith in it. The biggest clubs adjust mid-season when the evidence shows they need to. Right now, Arsenal look like a side that have doubled down on one part of their game just as opponents have started to figure it out. That might still be enough to win the league, but it makes you wonder if this version of Arsenal is truly a complete, dominant PL-winning side.
