{"id":608,"date":"2026-03-18T19:46:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/?p=608"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:46:29","slug":"i-love-danny-murphy-heaps-praise-on-really-impressive-arsenal-after-bayer-leverkusen-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I love&#8230;&#8217; &#8211; Danny Murphy heaps praise on &#8216;really impressive&#8217; Arsenal after Bayer Leverkusen win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Arsenal\u2019s pursuit of an unprecedented quadruple continued on Wednesday night as Mikel Arteta\u2019s side strolled past Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, and Danny Murphy has subsequently heaped praise on the Spaniard\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<p>A stunning strike from Eberechi Eze and a controlled finish from Declan Rice secured the Gunners\u2019 passage in the last eight of Europe\u2019s elite competition. The North Londoners looked assured throughout, limiting Kasper Hjulmand\u2019s side to very little, while creating a host of chances themselves.<\/p>\n<p>A quarter-final tie against Sporting awaits, while Arsenal have Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, as well as an FA Cup tie against Southampton, to look forward to. Talk of a quadruple is starting to circulate in the public sphere, and Gunners supporters will no doubt be starting to dream.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Danny Murphy praises \u2018impressive\u2019 Arsenal <\/h2>\n<p>Arsenal\u2019s success this season has been built on their defensive resilience, and Tuesday night\u2019s victory over Leverkusen was as solid from a defensive standpoint as any Gunners display this season. They prevented die Werkself from threatening them for the majority of the match, with David Raya\u2019s late save from Christian Kofane the only real chance for the away side.<\/p>\n<p>Leverkusen ended the game having accumulated just 0.52 expected goals \u2013 a reflection of Arsenal\u2019s dominance. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking on talkSPORT, former Premier League midfield and now pundit Murphy waxed lyrical about the North Londoners\u2019 defensive mindset, claiming that it all stems from Arteta.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p>\n          <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Simon Jordan EXPLAINS why Arsenal will &#039;ABSOLUTELY&#039; Win &amp; how their Season will go down as a SUCCESS\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i60Y6yBGpGE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n        <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI mean, they\u2019ve still had a little wobble at times, but they\u2019ve not had anyone who\u2019s flying enough to put the pressure on, but they\u2019re still so impressive,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the thing I love about them most is their mindset in terms of how to defend, and they don\u2019t carry anyone defensively. They\u2019re so good defensively, even when they\u2019re not playing well. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really impressive, and that comes from the manager because he won\u2019t have anyone not doing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Arsenal\u2019s defensive numbers this season have been out of this world<\/h2>\n<p>Arsenal haven\u2019t just been impressive defensively this season, they\u2019ve been one of the best defensive teams the Premier League has ever witnessed.<\/p>\n<p>They simply don\u2019t give the opposition a sniff throughout football matches, and this is reflected in the data. The Gunners have kept 15 clean sheets in 31 league matches this term, while they\u2019ve prevented the opposition from scoring in 25 of their 49 games across all competitions.<\/p>\n<p>Beneath the surface, their underlying numbers are equally astounding. Arteta\u2019s outfit have conceded just 21.7 non-penalty expected goals in the Premier League this term. Manchester City boast the second-lowest xG against, 31.8, over 10 xG more than the North Londoners.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\">\n<table class=\"has-fixed-layout\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Position<\/td>\n<td>Team<\/td>\n<td>Pld<\/td>\n<td>NPxGA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Arsenal<\/td>\n<td>31<\/td>\n<td>21.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>City<\/td>\n<td>30<\/td>\n<td>31.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Liverpool<\/td>\n<td>30<\/td>\n<td>32<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>United<\/td>\n<td>30<\/td>\n<td>33.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5<\/td>\n<td>Brentford<\/td>\n<td>30<\/td>\n<td>34.4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>Newcastle<\/td>\n<td>30<\/td>\n<td>34.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong><em>Premier League top six defensive teams 2025\/26 based on non-penalty expected goals against \u2013 via FotMob \u2013 correct as of 18\/03\/2026<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On top of this, Arsenal have conceded 0.5 xG or less in 25 of their matches across all competitions. They\u2019ve allowed more than one xG in just eleven games. This is an absurd level of defensive security, and Arteta should receive more flowers for it.<\/p>\n<p>Alan Pardew has criticised Arsenal\u2019s style of play this season, but it\u2019s ultimately proving to be extremely successful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal\u2019s pursuit of an unprecedented quadruple continued on Wednesday night as Mikel Arteta\u2019s side strolled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}