No 1 completes a ton

This week our statistician looks at Wojciech Szczesny's first 100 Premier League appearances.

On Saturday, Wojciech Szczesny became the fourth Arsenal goalkeeper to make a century of Premier League appearances, marking the occasion with a clean sheet.

The Pole is the 43rd player overall to reach 100 Premier League outings for the Club, and joins David Seaman (325), Jens Lehmann (148) and Manuel Almunia (109) as the other goalkeepers on the list.

He made his league debut, aged just 20, on December 13, 2010 - a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford. Szczesny has started each of his 100 games, and hasn't been subbed off once, meaning he has played 9,000 minutes of Premier League action.

He has missed just 20 league games since making his debut, and has therefore been on the pitch for 83 per cent of the available time. In fact no one has played more minutes for Arsenal since he made his debut.

Szczesny has kept 39 clean sheets so far in his Premier League career, and made 266 saves, of which exactly half were from shots outside the area.

Also according to Opta stats, Szczesny has a 70.5 save percentage from shots faced in the Premier League - broken down to 59.2 per cent for shots in the area and 86.9 per cent for shots from outside the box. He has made 113 catches, 64 punches and just seven drops. He has saved four out of 17 penalties faced.

Only Ali Al-Habsi has faced more penalties than Szczesny in the same time frame (21) and only Joe Hart has kept more clean sheets (but has played 12 more games).

Arsenal have conceded 111 goals in Szczesny's 100 games and the Gunners' record in that time is W57 D22 L21, for an average of 1.93 points per game.
In the 20 games he's missed since his debut, Arsenal have taken 1.85 points per game.

Szczesny is one of 59 goalkeepers in Premier League history to play at least 100 games; David James leads the way with 572. Among these 59 goalies, Szczesny is in eighth in terms of clean-sheet percentage - Seaman and Almunia also appear in the top 10.

Szczesny is the first Pole to reach 100 Premier League games for Arsenal – the 17th different nationality on the list. At 23 years and nine months old he is also the ninth youngest to the landmark and, by some distance, the Lehmann was 36 years and five months at the time of his century, Almunia was 32 and 11 months, and Seaman was 31 years and five months - though he did already have a number of Division One appearances to his name.

 After Almunia's departure, Szczesny was given the No 1 jersey at the beginning of the 2012/13 season, and has played 47 times since then. This provides us with a useful point at which to dissect his Premier League career and compare the first and second parts, to witness his improvement over the past year and a half or so.

Since taking the No 1 shirt, Szczesny's clean-sheet ratio has improved to one every 2.35 games (compared to one in 2.79 previously) while his save percentage has risen from 65.1 per cent to 76.2 per cent. 

He has conceded 0.91 goals per game as the official No 1, compared to 1.28 goals per game before that. His handling of long shots has notably improved - from an 80.7 per cent save percentage from shots outside the area pre-August 2012, to 91.2 per cent in the past season and a half.

Szczesny's appearance against Fulham on Saturday was his 28th consecutive Premier League game, a run stretching back to April 16, 2013.

His period out of the starting XI just prior to that (he missed four league games while Lukasz Fabianski took over in goal) seems to have benefited Szczesny.

His save percentage for the 28 games since is 79.4 per cent, better than any other Premier League keeper who has played more than once over the same timescale. He's conceded just 21 goals in those 28 matches, keeping 14 clean sheets.

Ten of those clean sheets have come this season, which is more than any other side have kept in the Premier League in 2013/14.

It means Arsenal have stopped the opposition scoring in 45 per cent of matches so far this term, a better rate of clean sheets than in any of the Club's previous 12 seasons.

The game against Fulham was also Arsenal's 200th London derby in the Premier League, and their 104th win over opposition from the capital.

The overall record is W104, D55, L41, F340, A190.

Arsenal have averaged more points per game (1.84) from London derbies than any other team, have won more games and scored more goals.

Stats correct as at January 21, 2014