Arsenal recorded a run of six straight shutouts in October, a sequence that began with a 2\u20130 Champions League win over Olympiacos on Oct. 1 and concluded with Wednesday night\u2019s 2\u20130 Carabao Cup victory against Brighton. Per Opta, no top-flight side in the 137-year history of the division has played, won and not conceded across six games in the same month.<\/p>\n
The sequence of results reads: Oct. 1 Champions League Olympiacos (H) 2\u20130 W; Oct. 4 Premier League West Ham (H) 2\u20130 W; Oct. 18 Premier League Fulham (A) 1\u20130 W; Oct. 21 Champions League Atl\u00e9tico Madrid (H) 4\u20130 W; Oct. 26 Premier League Crystal Palace (H) 1\u20130 W; Oct. 29 Carabao Cup Brighton (H) 2\u20130 W.<\/p>\n
Defensive statistics underline the run: Games 6, Goals conceded 0, xG against 4.15, Shots conceded 59 and Shots on target conceded 11. Kepa Arrizabalaga made six saves in the cup tie with Brighton, while over the previous five matches David Raya faced only five shots on target.<\/p>\n
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has set a clear defensive objective: \u201cMore than control, I want dominance,\u201d he once said. \u201cDominance in the right area and not allowing the opponent to breathe. This is what we do.\u201d Even so, Arteta was frank about weaknesses in the Brighton match: \u201cIt\u2019s some very sloppy giveaways that we did give, in very dangerous areas. We didn\u2019t apply two or three rules that we always have in second phases, for example, and we could have been punished,\u201d he huffed.<\/p>\n
Brighton fired off 18 shots at the Emirates, the most any side has produced there since Brighton in August 2024, when Arsenal were reduced to 10 players for almost half of that contest. Few opponents have found the net this season; only three players have scored against Arsenal: Dominik Szoboszlai courtesy of a staggering free kick, Erling Haaland on a quick breakaway for Manchester City and Newcastle United\u2019s Nick Woltemade with a towering header back in September.<\/p>\n
After the 4\u20130 Champions League defeat, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid coach Diego Simeone said: \u201cI would say [they are] the best team we have faced this season,\u201d a visibly defeated Diego Simeone sighed after that 4\u20130 Champions League reverse. Context remains important: five of the six matches were at the Emirates and opposition varied in attacking threat, but the statistical and historical significance of the run is clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal completed six successive clean sheets in October, a top-flight first in 137 years. Record set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1067,172],"tags":[1162,841,1100],"class_list":["post-4136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-carabao-cup","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-david-raya","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}