Consistency of team selection is key factor in Arsenal and Newcastle's success

Arsenal have been the best side in the Premier League this season. Their position at the top of the table rewards the outstanding coaching job done by Mikel Arteta and the consistently high level of performances produced by his team.

That consistency has been boosted by a consistency of team selection. As the graph below shows, only Newcastle – one of the other significant overachievers compared to pre-season expectations – have benefited from a more settled starting line-up.

Nine Arsenal players have started at least 80 per cent of their 20 league games in 2022-23. That demonstrates that Arteta knows his preferred line-up and resists the urge to tinker unnecessarily. while it is also a reflection of the Gunners' good fortune with injuries.

Arteta named an unchanged line-up for the fifth straight league game at Everton last Saturday. That exact starting 11, and the same line-up but with Gabriel Jesus up front instead of Eddie Nketiah, are the two most commonly-named line-ups across all teams in the Premier League this term, according to Opta.

On a game-to-game basis (again, per Opta stats), Arsenal have made only 14 changes across 20 games, the fewest of any club in Europe’s big five leagues.

Of course, just because a squad was relatively healthy in the first half of the season doesn’t mean it will continue to be in the second half. However, Arsenal have points in the bag and improved their squad depth by reinforcing their defence, midfield and attack in the January transfer window with the signings of Jakub Kiwior, Jorginho and Leandro Trossard.

The second graph shows that, strictly speaking, the Gunners' title rivals Manchester City have seen players from their first-team squad miss slightly fewer games than Arsenal have. Not all injuries are equal, however, and the majority of Arsenal’s injury distribution is taken up by long-term absences to Mohamed Elneny, Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe.

Pep Guardiola raised a few eyebrows by leaving two of his most reliable midfield contributors, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, on the bench for last Sunday’s 1-0 loss at Tottenham. Guardiola is well known for rotating his midfield and attack but more of a concern is that he seems to still be searching for the right balance up top since the arrival of Erling Haaland, rather than simply rotating for freshness.

The City squad also looks thinner than it has in previous seasons with senior players such as Jesus, Raheem Sterling, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Joao Cancelo and Fernandinho all departing. 

Despite regular tweaks to the starting 11, City have used only 21 players in the league this season – the lowest number in the division, two fewer than Crystal Palace who are next on the list.

City have conceded more goals than they usually do in their title-winning campaigns. That is partly due to controlling games less comfortably higher up the pitch but also because the injuries they have suffered have mostly been to defenders. Aymeric Laporte, Ruben Dias, John Stones and Kyle Walker have all had runs of games on the sidelines, even before taking into account Cancelo’s January move to Bayern Munich.

By contrast, Newcastle’s surge into the top four has been built on their league-leading defensive record which has seen them keep 12 clean sheets in 21 games. They have been able to name the same starting back four and goalkeeper in their last 14 league games, with Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Fabian Schar, Sven Botman and Dan Burn starting together 17 times in total.

Everyone knows their roles and Newcastle are helped by having one of the most efficient high presses in the division. Only Manchester City have forced more high turnovers, which is testament to the coaching of Eddie Howe, who has been helped by having more time on the training pitch due to their lack of European football and the fact that the Magpies had fewer players at the World Cup compared to the other top clubs. Both of those factors are also likely contributors to Newcastle suffering fewer injuries than their rivals.

The same cannot be said for Liverpool and Chelsea, whose injury woes have been well documented. Manchester United had been on the fringes of the title debate before drawing 2-2 with Leeds on Wednesday in their 14th match in 50 days since the World Cup – the equivalent of a game every 3.6 days.

Manager Erik ten Hag has been reluctant to rotate so far, fielding strong 11s in the EFL and FA Cups and using the joint-fourth fewest players in the Premier League, before the Leeds match. The biggest upgrade for the Red Devils this season has been in midfield but Christian Eriksen is now a long-term absentee and Casemiro has another two games of his suspension to serve.

United's gruelling schedule of midweek and weekend fixtures continues into the first week of March so they are walking a fitness tightrope. Their top-four rivals Tottenham have been boosted by the returns of some important outfield players from injury although they will be missing goalkeeper Hugo Lloris for at least six weeks.

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