Are Arsenal unlucky with the goals they concede? What the numbers say

After yours truly boldly claimed that only an unprecedented injury crisis could stop Arsenal this season, Brighton & Hove Albion humbled the Premier League champions, Mikel Arteta and their over-optimistic fans in a Saturday South Coast shock.

Aiming for an exceptional eighth win from eight in all tournaments at the Amex Stadium, Arsenal instead slumped to a 3-0 defeat, courtesy of stunning strikes from Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas before Chema Andres headed home from a corner.

Arteta slammed Arsenal's lack of respect and was under no illusions that his side deserved to head home with nothing, as the Gunners failed to match Brighton's pressing intensity and were made to pay for their failure to close down Gross and Kostoulas before the duo let fly.

Arsenal have now conceded each of their three Premier League goals in 2026-27 from outside the box, after Morgan Rogers's effort for Chelsea, and an intriguing David Raya statistic emerged shortly after full time.

Of every goalkeeper to concede 100 or more Premier League goals, Raya has conceded the second-highest share from outside the box - 33 of the 160 he has let in (20.6%) were fired in from 18 yards of further.

Only Hans Segers - formerly of Wimbledon, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur - shipped a higher proportion from outside the area (22%), giving rise to a number of theories.

Are Arsenal's defenders simply not closing down the opposition well enough? Is Raya's 6ft frame to blame - Segers stands at just 5ft 11in - or, are the champions simply unfortunate in the sense that players score an unnatural amount of world-class goals against them?

Here, Sports Mole explores the latter theory, answering whether Arsenal could do more to stop long-range goals or if Arteta's men are just unlucky with the strikes they ship.

How many goals do Arsenal concede from outside the box?

Arsenal's status as one of the meanest defensive teams in the land has held true for a number of years, but in 2023-24 and 2024-25, Arsenal conceded just four Premier League goals from outside the box in each campaign - a 13.8% and 11.8% share respectively.

The latter campaign saw Fulham let in 14 from outside the area, while West Ham United and Southampton shipped 12 such goals, and Arsenal were near the bottom of the raw table for goals conceded outside the box.

However, Arsenal's share rose to 22.2% in the 2025-26 season - six long-range goals from 27 conceded - although that was still significantly below Tottenham Hotspur's league-high 13.

Among those long-range strikes were Patrick Dorgu and Matheus Cunha's stunners for Manchester United, and Eli Junior Kroupi's world-class effort for Bournemouth earlier in January, three strikes that many goalkeepers would fail to keep out.

In the earliest days of 2026-27, 75% of Arsenal's goals conceded have been from outside the penalty area, and of the last 18 Premier League strikes that the Gunners have let in, seven have been from 18 yards or further.

Furthermore, Arsenal actually generated more Expected Goals than Brighton - 1.58 to 1.33 - on Saturday, but they were simply undone by the quality of the Seagulls' finishing.

Is David Raya's height a problem?

Owing to Arsenal's usually-solid defensive structure restricting opponents from breaking the lines and getting into close-range shooting positions with intricate passing sequences, teams are often forced to resort to long-range attempts, thus increasing the likelihood of such strikes beating the shortest starting goalkeeper in the league.

At 6ft tall - or 183cm - Raya is inferior to all other 19 number ones height wise; Jordan Pickford comes in closest at 6ft 1in, while the gigantic Kjell Scherpen of Ipswich Town is 6ft 9in.

The fact that the only Premier League goalkeeper to concede a higher share from outside the area is even shorter than Raya is difficult to ignore, but actual, hardcore evidence does not back up the theory that the Spaniard's height is a major factor.

A 2025 study from the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching analysed 1,751 shots on target in the men's and women's 2023-24 Champions Leagues, and found no correlation between goalkeeper height and performance measured using expected goals on target.

Therefore, Raya's reaction time, positioning and anticipation should be called into question more than his 6ft frame when it comes to conceding long-range strikes, as well as any outfield players obstructing the Spaniard's vision.

Are Arsenal bad at closing down opponents?

© Iconsport / PA Images

The evidence from one afternoon would suggest so, as Gross and Kostoulas could hardly believe the time and space they had to pick their angles, but Brighton's aggressive play style played a significant part.

The Seagulls won possession in Arsenal's defensive third nine times - the most one team had managed against the Gunners in a Premier League match since Liverpool in December 2023 - thus forcing Arteta's men into quick resets that hampered their defensive organisation.

However, the general trend of Arsenal failing to close down opponents is not supported by the statistics, as teams with perpetual weaknesses in that regard would allow lots of attempts, concede high xGA and allow lots of shots on target.

Arsenal have generally done the opposite; last term, Arsenal allowed the fewest shots per game in the Premier League (8.16), and 38% came from outside the box, the highest proportion in the league.

Furthermore, the Gunners' defensive line was the highest in the league, and only Brighton themselves allowed fewer passes per defensive action than the champions, suggesting that what happened at the Amex can be chalked up to a rare off day for Arteta's side as the Seagulls' pressing intensity shocked their system.

The biggest 'Arsenal are unlucky' argument

© Imago

Perhaps the most striking evidence comes from Raya's post-shot expected goals numbers against efforts from outside the penalty area.

By February 19, Raya had faced just 13 shots on target from outside the box in the 2025-26 Premier League season, but six of those attempts had resulted in goals. FotMob's post-shot expected goals model valued those efforts at only 1.25 xGOT in total, meaning that an average goalkeeper would have been expected to concede little more than once from those shots.

Instead, Raya conceded six times, leaving him 4.75 goals below expectation against long-range efforts. Put another way, opponents converted 46.2% of their shots on target from outside the box against Arsenal, compared with an expected conversion rate of just 9.6% based on the quality and placement of those attempts.

That contrast becomes even more notable when set against Raya's record from closer range; over the same period, the Spaniard conceded 14 goals from 45 shots on target inside the penalty area worth 15.67 xGOT, meaning that he actually prevented around 1.7 goals compared with expectation. 

While Arsenal remain so strong at defending their penalty area, opponents will have no option but to have a crack from long distance. And if those attempts are perfectly placed, once-in-a-lifetime strikes, there is little more the champions can do.