Since the full-time whistle blew to conclude our 5-0 win against Wolves on Sunday, we've been busy crunching the numbers to unearth a number of statistics from a hugely successful campaign.
We've done our calculations to discover who played the most minutes and which records were broken, and went right into the minutiae to even find out which days and months were our most successful, and how we fared in our different kits!
Here are our findings:
The players
Just as he did last season, Mikel Arteta called upon 28 different players during the campaign, with six of them (Gabriel, Bukayo Saka, Granit Xhaka, Ben White, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard) each playing at least 45 out of our total 49 matches.
We had four players who featured in every Premier League game – Gabriel, Saka, White and Aaron Ramsdale. For Saka it’s the second season in a row he’s not missed a single league game for us - the last Arsenal player to do that across back-to-back seasons was David Seaman in 1990/91 and 1991/92. Saka also played in both FA Cup games and every Europa League game, missing just our Carabao Cup game against Brighton & Hove Albion.
Ramsdale was the only player for us to be on the pitch for every minute of the league campaign, our first player to do this since Wojciech Szczesny in 2011/12.
During the first half of the season especially, we had a very settled side, and in fact, Arteta made the fewest changes to his starting XI of any Premier League manager (just 38 across the whole season). It’s the fewest changes between matches in any of our 31 Premier League seasons to date.
Throughout the season, no player missed a game through suspension. We didn’t receive a single red card and no player reached the threshold for bookings in the Premier League either.
Our line-up was also the second youngest on average, at just 25 years and 52 days, with only bottom-placed Southampton named a younger side on average.
Of the 28 players used, all but two (Matt Turner and Karl Hein) appeared in the Premier League. They were two of 11 debutants this season, with William Saliba, Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Fabio Vieira, Marquinhos, Ethan Nwaneri, Leandro Trossard, Jorginho and Jakub Kiwior all making their first appearances.
When Nwaneri made his debut – away to Brentford in September – he broke the record for the youngest player in the club’s history, at just 15 years and 181 days, as well as becoming the youngest ever Premier League appearance-maker.
Total appearances:
PL | FAC | UEL | LC | Total | |
Gabriel Magalhaes | 38 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 48 |
Bukayo Saka | 38 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 48 |
Granit Xhaka | 37 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 47 |
Ben White | 38 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 46 |
Gabriel Martinelli | 36 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 46 |
Martin Odegaard | 37 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 45 |
Aaron Ramsdale | 38 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 41 |
Thomas Partey | 33 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 40 |
Eddie Nketiah | 30 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 39 |
Kieran Tierney | 27 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 36 |
William Saliba | 27 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 33 |
Oleksandr Zinchenko | 27 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 33 |
Gabriel Jesus | 26 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 33 |
Fabio Vieira | 22 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 33 |
Takehiro Tomiyasu | 21 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 31 |
Rob Holding | 14 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 24 |
Leandro Trossard | 20 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 22 |
Reiss Nelson | 11 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 18 |
Jorginho | 14 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 16 |
Albert Sambi Lokonga | 6 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 15 |
Emile Smith Rowe | 12 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 14 |
Jakub Kiwior | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 8 |
Mohamed Elneny | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
Matt Turner | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 |
Marquinhos | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
Cedric Soares | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
Ethan Nwaneri | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Karl Hein | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
The goals
In total we plundered 103 goals this season, including a club-record 88 in the Premier League. We had 19 different goalscorers in all, as well as benefitting from five own goals, and 16 different scorers in the Premier League – no other team had more.
For the first time since the 1970/71 double-winning season, we had two players scoring at least 15 league goals for us. Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard both topped our scoring charts in the league, while Bukayo Saka also netted 15 in all competitions - scoring once in the Europa League to add to his 14 league strikes. You have had to go back to 1932/33 for the last time we had three players all net 15+ league goals.
Gabriel Jesus also reached double figures – all his 11 goals came in the league and he maintained his extraordinary record of never losing a Premier League game in which he’s netted (now 56 games).
We scored five goals timed in the 90th minute or beyond, including Reiss Nelson’s 97th-minute winner against Bournemouth, but we also made several fast starts. In fact we scored more goals inside the opening half-hour of games (28) than any other Premier League side, and conceded just nine in the same period (the second-fewest).
As well as appearances and goals, Saka led the way for assists this season for us, with 11 – all in the Premier League. It’s the 10th time we’ve had a player reach double figures for us in both departments, and the first since Alexis Sanchez in 2016/17. Bukayo ended the season with a combined 26 goal involvements, ahead of Odegaard (22) and Martinelli (21).
Leandro Trossard, despite only making his debut in late January, racked up 10 assists for us in his 20 league games (10 starts). No player in the league contributed more during that same timespan, and against Fulham in March, he became the first player in Premier League history to assist three first-half goals in an away game.
Find out more on our scoring stats from the season as we look back on all 103 of them!
Total goals & assists:
PL | UEL | FAC | LC | Total | |
Bukayo Saka | 14+11 | 1+0 | 0 | 0 | 15+11 |
Martin Odegaard | 15+7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15+7 |
Gabriel Martinelli | 15+5 | 0 | 0+1 | 0 | 15+6 |
Gabriel Jesus | 11+6 | 0+1 | 0 | 0 | 11+7 |
Granit Xhaka | 7+7 | 2+0 | 0 | 0 | 9+7 |
Eddie Nketiah | 4+1 | 2+1 | 2+0 | 1+0 | 9+2 |
Leandro Trossard | 1+10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1+10 |
Fabio Vieira | 1+2 | 1+2 | 0+2 | 0 | 2+6 |
Ben White | 2+5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2+5 |
Reiss Nelson | 3+2 | 0 | 0 | 0+1 | 3+3 |
William Saliba | 2+1 | 1+0 | 0 | 0 | 3+1 |
Thomas Partey | 3+0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3+0 |
Gabriel Magalhaes | 3+0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3+0 |
Oleksandr Zinchenko | 1+2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1+2 |
Rob Holding | 1+0 | 1+0 | 0 | 0 | 2+0 |
Kieran Tierney | 0+1 | 1+0 | 0 | 0 | 1+1 |
Marquinhos | 0 | 1+1 | 0 | 0 | 1+1 |
Emile Smith Rowe | 0+2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0+2 |
Takehirio Tomiyasu | 0+1 | 0+1 | 0 | 0 | 0+2 |
Jakub Kiwior | 1+0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1+0 |
Mohamed Elneny | 0 | 0 | 1+0 | 0 | 1+0 |
Jorginho | 0+1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0+1 |
The games
Our playing record this season was P49, W32, D8, L9 for an overall win rate of 65.3 per cent, the second highest in the club’s history:
Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Win% |
2013/14 | 56 | 37 | 8 | 11 | 99 | 57 | 66.1 |
2022/23 | 49 | 32 | 8 | 9 | 103 | 53 | 65.3 |
1930/31 | 46 | 30 | 11 | 5 | 135 | 65 | 65.2 |
2001/02 | 60 | 39 | 11 | 10 | 119 | 62 | 65 |
2004/05 | 57 | 37 | 13 | 7 | 117 | 51 | 64.9 |
2003/04 | 59 | 38 | 14 | 7 | 114 | 48 | 64.4 |
1970/71 | 64 | 41 | 14 | 9 | 104 | 43 | 64.1 |
2016/17 | 55 | 35 | 8 | 12 | 121 | 65 | 63.6 |
2014/15 | 56 | 35 | 11 | 10 | 109 | 53 | 62.5 |
2007/08 | 58 | 36 | 15 | 7 | 113 | 52 | 62.1 |
It was the 10th time we have finished as league runners-up and the seventh in the Premier League era, the last was in 2015/16.
We won 26 league matches, our joint-highest return for any 38-game campaign in our history, and we have only bettered our points tally of 84 twice before. It would have been enough to win the league in nine of the 31 Premier League seasons to date.
We played in four different competitions, playing 24 games at Emirates Stadium and 25 away from home. In fact, we had the best away record in the Premier League, and also won twice on our travels in the Europa League and once on the road in the FA Cup.
We played in just one goalless draw all season (with Newcastle United in January) and scored in all but six of our games. There were 19 different scorelines, 1-0 to The Arsenal was the most common, occurring six times.
Our longest winning run in all competitions was eight games (September/October) and the longest unbeaten streak was 12, in February-April, though there was a defeat on penalties to CP Sporting during that sequence – our first ever penalty shootout at Emirates Stadium.
We had three unbeaten months (August, December and March), with Arteta winning Premier League Manager of the Month four times (August, November/December, January and March):
P | W | D | L | |
August | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
September | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
October | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 |
November | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
December | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
January | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
February | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
March | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
April | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
May | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 |
Our record before the World Cup hiatus was P21 W17 D1 L3 compared to P28 W15 D7 L6 afterwards.
We scored the opening goal in 34 of the 49 games, and we were the only team not to lose a match when scoring first in the Premier League. Overall we spent 1,984 minutes in the lead, compared to 581 minutes trailing.
We played and won at least once on every day of the week (most often on Sundays) and had 11 different kick-off times (8pm UK time the most popular, with 10):
P | W | D | L | |
Monday | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Tuesday | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Wednesday | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
Thursday | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
Friday | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Saturday | 13 | 10 | 1 | 2 |
Sunday | 16 | 11 | 3 | 2 |
We wore four different kits, the respective playing records were:
Red: P33, W22, D5, L6
Black: P13 W7, D3, L3
Pink: P2 W2 D0 L0
White: P1 W1 D0 L0
Our total attendance at Emirates Stadium was 1,442,184 (averaging 60,091).
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.