After paraphrasing Bruce Lee, let’s go for Hannibal from the The A-Team this time — because ‘it’s nice when a plan comes together’.
Not much may have stood out about Martin Zubimendi’s opener in Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Sunderland at first glance, but it brought about a full-circle moment that began with a random question a day earlier.
While pre-match press conferences are dominated by team news and title talk, they provide opportunities to get a manager’s views on wider footballing issues.
A week earlier, The Athletic had highlighted that this season Arsenal had the highest proportion of goals scored from outside the box since the 2013-14 campaign. Zubimendi and Leandro Trossard had contributed three at that point and with Mikel Arteta well-known for long-range strikes as a player, the manager seemed well-placed to give an opinion.
Arteta had alluded to more shots being taken from range because of teams defending deep. “The more density there is inside the box and the more contact there is, the more difficult it is to score goals in open play, so you have to find other ways,” Arteta said.
“I’m not surprised that number is increasing. The quality of the players is increasing as well. It happened in basketball especially, going from twos to threes which started going incredibly high. It’s not that easy to score here because of the distance and the crowd (of players) that is around the goal but it is another weapon to have.”
Arteta often refers to different ‘weapons’ his side possess, and Zubimendi being one outside of the box has been a surprise. His 42nd-minute strike was his second and Arsenal’s eighth league goal from outside the box this season, which ranks them third of the Premier League teams (behind Bournemouth’s 11 and Aston Villa’s 13) for that metric.
Arsenal PL goals outside the box 2025-26
DatePlayerOppositionScore after goal
13th Sept 25
Nottingham Forest
1-0
8th Nov 25
Sunderland
2-1
27th Dec 25
Brighton & Hove Albion
1-0
30th Dec 25
Aston Villa
3-0
30th Dec 25
Aston Villa
4-0
3rd Jan 26
Bournemouth
2-1
31st Jan 26
Leeds United
2-0
7th Feb 26
Sunderland
1-0
While Arsenal’s set-piece goals dominate the narrative for how they break deadlocks, these goals from range have grown in importance. Five of their eight goals from outside the box have given them the lead, with Sunderland away (a 2-2 draw) the only match they did not go on to win.
As half-time approached during Sunderland’s visit, there was a growing desperation for an opener from the Emirates crowd. Sunderland had their moments in the first half, but had started to drop to protect what they had, and these are the moments where something different is needed in attack.
Zubimendi’s effort kissed the post on its way in, but Declan Rice and Kai Havertz had shots from similar distances whizz just past the frame of the goal in the 15 minutes before half-time.
Speaking after the game, Arteta said: “It’s situations that you get with time and space. If the space is not in one place, it will be somewhere else. They were three really good shots, and Zubi’s is a special one. He’s contributing to the team in a way that we probably didn’t expect that much but he really has an intuition and quality to deliver those moments.”
Finding space elsewhere helped in both matches against Sunderland, with an overlapping run from Riccardo Calafiori creating space for Trossard away from home. At other times, like for Gabriel Jesus and Rice’s goals against Aston Villa and Bournemouth, they have taken advantage of the forward momentum from quick breaks.
Below is a quick snapshot of each of Arsenal’s Premier League finishes from outside the box this season.
With such a big weekly focus on how Arsenal break down deep defences, fashioning these chances has been refreshing in a time when it has felt like the long shot has gone out of fashion — especially at Arsenal.
In recent seasons, Martin Odegaard has often found himself in good shooting positions just outside the box but not backed himself in the way he did for his goal against Brighton & Hove Albion in December.
The willingness to shoot from further out was noted when assessing Viktor Gyokeres’ first half of the season at Arsenal. At that point, he had been taking shots closer to the goal than he had done in his entire career, but most of these were under pressure. Of his goals, the strike just outside the box away to Inter carried the most threat.
Eberechi Eze’s second and third goals against Tottenham Hotspur showed how effective quick snapshots from just inside the area can be.
These may not have been perfect opportunities, but they are often the best times to shoot. Arsenal have outperformed their expected goals (xG) tally with shots from outside the box.
An xG overperformance is when a team or player score a higher number of goals than they would have been expected to. Arsenal have scored four more goals from outside the box than xG suggests they should have.
“I don’t think you can be thinking about that (xG),” Arteta said when asked if he would back himself to take the shots he did as a player in today’s game. “If you are in the right position, with the right timing and the right angles in front of you, you have to take the shot.
“The objective has to be to score. If you have somebody else free next to you, yeah probably pass it, depending on who it is, but footballers have to make decisions in milliseconds and you cannot be thinking ‘OK, they have 0.1 more expected goals probability to score from there’. I cannot see that happening.”
Part of the surprise at Zubimendi contributing another goal from outside the box will have come from that being his sixth goal for Arsenal in 34 games. That is as many as he scored in his final two seasons at Real Sociedad combined (six in 93). The 27-year-old’s goal against Sunderland makes him Arsenal’s joint-second top scorer in the league alongside Trossard with five goals.
As a pair, they are responsible for half of the eight goals from outside the box, which equals the tally from last season.
With 13 league games left, there is more than enough time for Arsenal to separate themselves from the rest — not just at the top of the Premier League.