Stoke City vs. Arsenal: 6 Things We Learned in Gunners' Latest Draw

Arsenal took another small step toward securing their place in next season's Champions League with an away draw at Stoke City, where Robin van Persie's equaliser was enough to claim a point in a match which taught us a few things about the two sides and the Premier League in general.

Stoke have little to play for other than trying to finish in the top half now this season, while the Gunners were sitting in third place before the start of play and looking to cement their position in that ranking.

Peter Crouch's early header beat Wojciech Szczesny to give Stoke the lead, but it lasted only five minutes before Van Persie netted the response.

Neither side appeared to have much in the way of inventiveness in the final third as the match wore on, with neither Asmir Begovic nor Szczesny unduly stretched in the second half, though both did have to make a smart stop apiece from Van Persie and Cameron Jerome respectively.

Here are six things we learned.

With three matches to go, Stoke City are well clear of any threat of relegation but sit in 14th place in the Premier League—not bad, but nowhere near as good as they could finish if they manage to string together another couple of wins before the end of the season.

The Potters are just three points off eighth place following the draw against Arsenal, and with their last two games coming against relegation-threatened QPR and Bolton, there's every chance they could end up at least a few places higher in the table, possibly even in the top half.

For a side which reached the FA Cup final last season and have competed in the Europa League this term, that would represent another solid season under Tony Pulis.

A single point at this stage of the season isn't necessarily the best thing in the world for a team trying to seal a Champions League spot, but Arsene Wenger will no doubt take it as a point gained rather than two lost on this occasion since Newcastle United, the team currently in fourth place, were thrashed 4-0 by Wigan Athletic.

That leaves Arsenal a point better off with a game less to play.

The Magpies are four points behind the Gunners now with a game in hand, while further back Tottenham and Chelsea have two games in hand but trail by seven and eight points respectively.

Both the London clubs play teams at the foot of the table on Sunday.

Arsenal face Norwich City (away) and West Brom (home) in their last two games of the season, with neither side having anything to play for in the middle of the table, and Wenger will be confident of securing the points his side needs to finish in the all-important third place in the league.

Having sat on the bench for the entire match between Stoke and Arsenal, the Gunners' youngster Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain must now be running out of time to convince an as-yet unknown England manager that he deserves a spot on the plane to Euro 2012.

The powerful attacker had a great run of form after breaking into the side earlier in the season but has not been at his scintillating best of late and with only a couple of games left this term may have to wait until next year to prove his worth at international level.

Of course, any potential England manager may still decide to take him as a sort of "wild-card" player, and with the likes of Theo Walcott struggling with injury, there may still be a slot for him, but time is definitely no longer on his side.

Well, not really.

But Arsenal and manager Arsene Wenger have long complained about the physical nature of the Stoke City approach to football, but at the Britannia Stadium, Arsenal were statistically worse than their opponents in terms of both fouls conceded and yellow cards.

Just the one card was shown to a Stoke player, Dean Whitehead, while both Alex Song and Yossi Benayoun were carded for the Gunners.

Of course, Arsenal were the more aesthetically pleasing side on the ball—though Stoke had plenty of moments of clever interplay and good possession—but in the end, the only statistic that mattered was the 1-1 result.

Still, perhaps the Gunners will not be so quick to complain about Stoke next time round.

Statistically speaking, Aaron Ramsey had a "typical" of his season match against Stoke City, completing a pretty good 85 percent of his total passes during the game and creating one chance for his team.

His season average up until the game started was 87 percent of open-play passes completed, with an average of one pass per minute.

Ramsey has an average of one chance created for his team every 44 minutes, so he was a little worse off for that today but not by much.

However, away from statistics, it's clear that Ramsey's impact on the game has lessened as the season has progressed, not being able to make as many runs into the box as he would like and certainly not testing the goalkeeper much—both his shots against Stoke were off target.

It has been noted by fans that Ramsey has been unable to capture his top form since returning from a bad injury, but Arsenal need someone like him in the middle to step up and dominate a game from a creativity point of view to win these matches, especially in the absence of Mikel Arteta and Jack Wilshere.

Yossi Benayoun and Tomas Rosicky both had a good impact on the game, but Ramsey, from the centre of the park, should be looking to have more of an impact and help his team win this kind of game.

Much has been made over the past few years of Stoke City and Arsenal being the Premier League's polar-opposites in terms of footballing style.

Of course, any team is completely free to play their own way so long as they fall within the rules of the game, but the physical or long-ball approach from the likes of Tony Pulis or Sam Allardyce never sit well with the self-styled puritan Arsene Wenger.

Watching matches, it's easy to recognise that Arsenal pass the ball more often and with a generally shorter range than Stoke when they pair up, but how do they compare over a whole season?

First off and most indicative of the differentiation of each side's approach to passing is the pure number of passes made.

Arsenal almost double Stoke in this area with a whopping 19,600 passes made in this term's Premier League, compared to Stoke's 9,900. The Gunners' completion percentage is also extremely impressive with 85 percent of their passes finding the target, compared to just 70 for Stoke.

The Gunners also put over more crosses than Stoke over the course of a season, but the difference is not so great (839-765) to suggest that Arsenal typically try to use this method of attack more than Stoke, simply that because they have the ball so much more that they are likely to end up in crossing positions more often, rather than Stoke actively trying to utilise their wide areas to fashion chances.

That Stoke's accurate crosses rate more highly than Arsenal's also points to this hypothesis, with 24 percent of them finding a forward against Arsenal's 21 percent.

Finally, we'll take a look at another eye-opener, which clearly points to the perceived best method of attack for both teams.

Stoke create a chance on goal every 13 minutes, compared to Arsenal's one every seven minutes.

But look further and we see that Stoke create a single chance from a set piece for every 2.6 that they make from open play, while Arsenal rely much less on the set pieces with one chance from set plays for every 6.7 chances in open play.

Stoke also have the same number of assists for goals this season from set pieces as they do from open play (14 of each) while the Gunners have mustered just five assists from set pieces and 49 in open play.

From these few statistics, it's clear to establish a pattern that Stoke rely far more on percentage plays, set pieces and crosses than Arsenal, who prefer building up towards attacking chances through long spells of possession and trying to open up teams with movement in the attacking third and clever passes.

Statistics for 2011-12 Premier League season only and courtesy of EPL Index.

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