Time-wasting or game management? However you define it, Arsenal have become masters of winning ugly. They will need to do the same again to beat Manchester City this weekend.
Mikel Arteta is never far from the conversation when talk of time-wasting/game management (delete depending on your allegiance) looms.
Whether that’s complaining about it (see Newcastle at home January 2023) or being accused of it (see Newcastle away May 2023, Wolves at home December 2023), Arteta’s name is always close to the surface.
It seems a little unfair, given every side does it – albeit to different extents – but the Arsenal manager does seem to draw more than his fair share of ire.
With that in mind, it’s been slightly surprising we’ve not heard more murmurings about the Gunners this campaign.
Across the first four league games of the 2024-25 Premier League season – and against Atalanta in the Champions League this week – Arsenal have had to grind out some tough results. They had to play almost an entire half against Brighton with 10 men to hold on to a point. More recently, there was the gritty 1-0 north London derby win against Tottenham, built on the back of an exceptional defensive performance.
Both of those games saw Arsenal spend long periods without the ball, totalling just 35.8% possession against Brighton and 36.3% against Spurs, as they bunkered down in each of those to earn a result.
It was all very un-Arsenal like, traditionally speaking, at least. But for all the talk of Arteta being an acolyte of Pep Guardiola – and there are definitely similarities with the Spaniard in the way his side plays – there is something very José Mourinho-esque about how Arsenal play defensively. There’s a steel and a needle in this side that for so long has been cripplingly absent.
Their defensive numbers are outstanding: they’ve conceded just 10 times across the whole of 2024, a lower total than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues. Away from home they’ve been astonishing, and haven’t trailed in any of their last 11 away league games. Arteta has turned this team into the best defence in Europe.
The Brighton game was influenced by Declan Rice’s sending off, but against Tottenham, Arteta continued his approach from last season against the bigger teams; very comfortable ceding possession, prioritising defensive shape and playing on the counter-attack. There are more than just a few shades of Mourinho here.
In the Premier league last season, Arsenal had 38.5% possession against Manchester City, 41.9% against Liverpool, 45.7% against Tottenham, 50.1% against Chelsea and 50.4% against Manchester United. They did not lose a single one of those games.
Taking that approach to games gives you more incentive to deploy some of football’s darker arts – to break the game up, to disrupt the opposition’s flow in possession, to let your team get back in its shape. Sound like anyone you know?
And that has been on show in Arsenal’s games.
Before we go further, it’s important to note the season has only just started. Four games is a very small sample size. But the Gunners have the longest average delay of any side in the Premier League in 2024-25. By “delay” here, we’re talking about the time between being awarded and taking the following: corners, goal-kicks, free-kicks, penalties, throw-ins and kick-off.
At 31.8 seconds, Arsenal take longer to restart play than any other team in the Premier League, just ahead of Brentford and Wolves. At the other end of the spectrum are West Ham, Liverpool and Tottenham. Manchester City aren’t far off the bottom either.
We can also isolate these events to look at where teams are specifically choosing to take their time. On corners, for example, Arsenal take 44.6 seconds before taking each one on average. Again, that’s the highest mark in the league.
Given their efficiency from set-pieces – Arsenal have scored more goals from such situations across the past two seasons than any other Premier League side (24) – we wonder whether the time and attention they clearly pay to corners is a conscious part of their strategy. Liverpool, also known for their set-prowess, similarly take plenty of time before delivering.
But the primary aim of a team taking their time at corners is to maximise their attacking threat, rather than to run down the clock.
The same can’t really be said for time taken over throw-ins. And definitely not your own goal-kicks.
Arsenal’s game against Brighton shows they’re really not afraid to slow the game down. Rice got sent off in the 49th minute of that game with Arsenal 1-0 up. After that moment, Brighton had 19 shots to Arsenal’s three. The Gunners were holding on for dear life, and they took any opportunity to break up play.
In that match, David Raya took 10 goal-kicks; two in the first half, and eight in the second when Arsenal were down a man. On average he took 48.4 seconds to take each one, meaning he was able to milk 484 seconds off the clock with his goal-kicks alone. That’s over eight minutes.
Only Nick Pope (487 seconds vs Southampton) has taken more off the clock with goal-kicks in a game this season. That was a game in which Newcastle were also down to 10 men (see everyone does it!).
Arsenal also had 13 throw-ins against Brighton. Each one, on average, took them 26.6 seconds to take. That’s the fourth-longest average of any team in any game this season.
The longest? Arsenal (31.3 seconds per throw-in) against Aston Villa.
All-in-all, it meant Arsenal’s draw with Brighton saw them have the longest average delay of any team in a game this season:
Raya did the same against Tottenham. Each goal-kick took him an average of 38 seconds to take. Only six other games this season – including Raya against Brighton – have seen a goalkeeper take longer than that on average.
One thing you might be wondering is whether this a new habit; have Arsenal always been like this under Arteta?
Well, sort of. Last season, Arsenal ranked sixth for the longest average delay in the Premier League (29.1 seconds). As mentioned, this season they are first on that measure.
As the below graphic shows, only Wolves (+4 seconds) have increased their average delay compared to last season to a greater extent than Arsenal (2.6 seconds). While Arteta’s men weren’t exactly speedy with restarting the game in 2023-24, they’ve been even slower this term.
That increase is more than likely a result of small sample size. We’re only four games into the season after all, and Arsenal have had a very difficult start to the campaign both in terms of opposition strength and the game state of those matches. Being reduced to 10 men against Brighton, playing away against their rivals without Rice and Martin Ødegaard, and holding on to a lead at Villa Park; all of that has encouraged Arsenal to manage those games in such a way. And they’ve done so expertly well.
However, this style of game management hasn’t come without its punishment. With yellow cards to Raya and Declan Rice (both against Brighton) and William Saliba (vs Tottenham), Arsenal have been shown more bookings for time-wasting than any other side.
Officials have also been pretty good at adding on the requisite time in Arsenal matches, too. The match clock in both of their games against Aston Villa and Brighton ticked over the 100-minute mark. Meanwhile, the ball is in play during Arsenal matches for 55.8% of the total game time. That is a little lower than the league’s average (56.7%), but there are eight other teams with a lower rate.
In other words, it’s not exactly like Arsenal are getting away with chewing up the clock without any punishment. Now, whether the punishment is proportionate to the ‘crime’ is a whole different debate.
For the time being though, the reward is clearly worth the risk for Arteta, who has turned this team into the most hard-nosed, stubborn and successful Arsenal team in the last two decades. In attack, there are shades of Guardiola. But in defence, this is a Mourinho team. And that’s a pretty good blend, don’t you think?
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