Mikel Arteta has transformed Arsenal with a dramatic tactical change: from brilliant gunners to defensive demons.

Mikel Arteta may be a student of the beautiful game, but his tactics this season have been anything but.

Pretty? No. Effective? Yes. Do Arsenal Do the fans care? Why should they?

arteta is overseeing a third consecutive title challenge after campaigns in which his team finished eighth twice and fifth.

While the north London giants fell short in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 campaigns to city ​​of manchesterThey earned rave reviews for their engaging gameplay.

Last season, Arsenal racked up 28 top-flight wins, their most wins in a single Premier League season.

And the last two years have also brought the club the most goals scored with 88 and 91 respectively.

While Arsenal have still scored 12 goals in their first six games this season (the third most in the division), there has been a clear change in their approach.

This may be due in part to the absence of the injured captain. Martin Odegaardwho so often dictates games with his quality of ball retention and his excellent passing range.

Arteta's men also played Aston Villa, Tottenham and City in their first three away games, from which they picked up seven points.

But unlike previous years, Arsenal were more than happy to sit back and refuse to go head-to-head.

gabriel and William Saliba They have shown why many consider them the best centre-back pairing in Europe: they defended imperiously even when the club was reduced to ten men against Brighton and then City.

Elsewhere, converted full-backs Ben White, Jurrien Timber and summer signing Riccardo Calafiori have been more reserved in terms of overlapping runs, focusing instead on helping defense rather than attack.

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Even the extremes Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka he has not been given as much license to move forward, and the England international himself admits that he wants I didn't have to track come back so much.

Arsenal's defensive mentality and ability to slow down play has drawn criticism from fans, pundits and even players: City quartet Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Kyle Walker and Manuel Akanji criticized their use of the “dark arts.” ” after the 2. 2-2 draw at the Etihad last month.

He is often accused of having a soft underbelly and a team that lacks 'balls' – No club intimidates Arsenal now.

His new “win at all costs” attitude even beat talkSPORT's Troy Deeneywho became famous for attacking them while at Watford.

Unbeaten in all competitions this season, Arsenal's methods are clearly working, and the statistics show how much their approach has changed.

On average this season in the Premier League, Arsenal have an average possession of 47.5 percent.

That is well below the 59.8 and 58.4 percent they controlled in the previous two terms.

This has had a dramatic impact on their average successful passes per game, where they have managed around 330 per game, compared to 481 last year.

And as expected, with Odegaard on the sidelines, they have averaged 105 passes in the final third, up from 152 last season.

This has resulted in four fewer touches in the opponent's box per game, with the goals average also dropping from 2.4 to 2.

Arsenal also have an average of three fewer shots per game, 14.

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Interestingly, they face 16 shots on goal per game (twice as many as last season), although that is largely due to the attack they received against City.

After Leandro Trossard was sent off at half-time, Arteta adopted a 5-4-0 configuration, inviting pressure from City, which led to 33 shots from the home team, 28 of them in the second half.

With three clean sheets in six games (along with two in the Champions League against Atalanta and Paris Saint-Germain), they are at 0.5 per game – the same as last season – where Arsenal kept 18 – a maximum of the Premier League.

Arteta's new strategy is sure to delight Jose Mourinho, as the Gunners are even more defensive than Chelsea's iconic Premier League team of 2004/05.

That Blues team conceded just 15 goals (a top-flight record) and boasted 55 percent possession, 365 successful passes and 17 shots per game.

The main thing that would worry Arteta would be the points on the board, and his average is almost identical to last season's record.

With 2.3 this campaign, it is only 0.1 less than last season, with three of its most difficult games already overcome.

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And while rival fans will surely continue to complain about Arsenal, the statistics show that Arteta's new method is working.

The Gunners are no longer a laughing stock, and the club can easily adopt different styles of play when the situation requires it.

Masters of the dark arts? You bet.