Arsenal to play 500th match at Emirates Stadium

Wednesday’s meeting with Manchester United will be a landmark game for the club, as we play our 500th competitive men’s first-team match at Emirates Stadium.

The very first was more than 18 years ago back in August 2006 when we drew 1-1 with Aston Villa in the Premier League which Gilberto Silva scored our equaliser. Our playing record for the first 499 games is 335 wins with 93 draws and  71 defeats, meaning our win percentage at the stadium is 67%. we have scored 1,064 goals or 2.13 per game, and conceded just 427.

But those numbers barely scratch the surface of nearly 20 years of history at Emirates Stadium – here’s a deeper look behind the stats:

PLAYING RECORD

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of our 499 matches so far have been in the Premier League. We’ve played 348 league games at Emirates Stadium (69.7% of the total) winning 230, drawing 72 and losing the other 46. We’ve taken 762 points from those 348 games, at a rate of 2.19 per game, and scored 732 goals, at 2.1 per game.

The stadium has also hosted 90 European matches so far (62 in the Champions League, 28 in the Europa League) – we’ve won 61 and scored 201 goals.  

The rest of the games have been in domestic cup competition – 32 in the League Cup and 29 in the FA Cup. We have won 23 in the former, and 21 in the latter. It means our best win percentage in any competition is in the FA Cup (72.4%) and our best goals per game ratio is in the Champions League, at 2.22.

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Quiz: Most appearances at Emirates Stadium

THE GAMES

The 499 games have been played against 105 different teams. Our most frequent opponents have been Liverpool, who have visited 24 times, while the team we have defeated most often is Newcastle United (16 out of the 19 meetings) whereas Tottenham have conceded the most goals (52). We have faced 50 different English (and Welsh) teams, and beaten them all at least once. 

 

This is our 19th season at Emirates Stadium, and we have remained unbeaten throughout a campaign just once, in our second season at the venue in 2007/08, when we played 28, won 20, drew eight, scored 59 and conceded 14. 

We play an average of 27.2 games per season at the Emirates, the most fixtures held there was 32 in 2008/09. We score an average of 57.8 goals per season, and the highest total was the 78 in Arsène Wenger’s last season in charge – 2017/18. 

 

We managed only one unbeaten season in 93 years at Highbury (in 1980/81) and overall our record at our current ground is favourable to that of our home from between 1913 and 2006. We played 2,010 games at Highbury, just over four times as many as we have now racked up at Emirates Stadium, but comparing the final 500 matches there with the first 499 at our current home makes for interesting reading. 

We have won more games (335 to 314) and scored more goals (1,064 to 991) than in the last 500 at Highbury, but also lost more (71 to 64) and conceded more (427 to 413).

 

Our biggest win so far at Emirates Stadium was 7-0 against Slavia Prague in the Champions League on October 23, 2007, while the highest-scoring game was a 7-3 win over Newcastle United on December 29, 2012. 

 

We have scored in 434 (87%) of the 499 games, and kept 217 clean sheets. There have been 33 different scorelines, with 2-0 to us being the most common. There have been 65 instances of us winning by that scoreline, with 2-1 the next most popular (51). We have scored at least three times in 36% of the games and at least four times in 16%. We have won eight games by six or more goals. 

By a strange quirk, each of our first four league wins were all by a 3-0 scoreline, and the other four games among the first eight league matches were all 1-1 draws. 

 

The only month of the year in which we haven’t played a competitive match at Emirates Stadium is June. Our most successful month in terms of win percentage is October, with 48 wins out of 59 games, followed by September (43/53), while at the other end of the spectrum we have won just over half (30/58) of our November fixtures. 

Incidentally, we remained unbeaten in March fixtures at the Emirates throughout our first 10 years at the stadium, until Swansea City beat us 2-1 on March 2, 2016. 

 

We have played on every day of the week at Emirates Stadium, and weekend matches account for more than half (292) while our most successful day is Monday, when we have won 15 out of 20. We haven’t lost any of our last 21 Saturday home fixtures – the last defeat was on Saturday, April 9, 2022 when the scorer of our 1,000th goal at the stadium Leandro Trossard was on target for Brighton & Hove Albion in their 2-1 win. 

Going into our 500th game, we have won each of our last six Wednesday home matches, scoring 23 and conceding just once.

 

SEQUENCES

Our longest unbeaten run at Emirates Stadium was 36 matches – which was the sequence between our first and second-ever losses at our new home between April 14, 2007 and September 23, 2008. Our second-longest undefeated run was from stadium opening until our first defeat – against West Ham United – on March 7, 2007, a span of 22 games. That means we lost just one of our first 59 matches at Emirates Stadium. 

We go into the 500th game on a 12-match unbeaten streak, one more would match Mikel Arteta’s best sequence as manager. Our best winning run is 13 games, set between April and October 2017, while our best under Arteta was 12 games, between April and November 2022. 

Mathieu Flamini holds the record for most consecutive games without losing as a player – he went 46 games without tasting defeat, over a seven-and-a-half year period, either side of playing for AC Milan. 

 

 

Two players share the longest scoring streaks. Robin van Persie netted across seven games in a row in 2011/12, while Kai Havertz matched that achievement earlier this season.

 

THE PLAYERS

Throughout the 499 games, we have used 170 different players. Theo Walcott – who came on in the first-ever game at the Emirates – has made the most appearances at the stadium (212), and is the only player to have made more than 200 appearances. 

Eighteen players have played at least 100 times, including Bukayo Saka (114) who has the most outings from the current squad. Of the 170 players, 21 only ever made one appearance, though current youngsters Josh Nichols, Ismeal Kabia, Jack Porter, Karl Hein and Maldini Kacurri will all hope to add many more. 

Saka is also the leading scorer among current players for goals scored, with 34 home goals in all competitions. He is 30 away from the scoring record at the stadium, held by Robin van Persie, who netted 64 for us. Mesut Ozil leads the way for assists with 45, Saka is fifth in the list with 29. 

 

 

 

Of all the players to play at least 20 times at the stadium, Takehiro Tomiyasu has the best win percentage, tasting victory on 34 of his 41 appearances so far (83%), while three more current players (David Raya, Jakub Kiwior and Kai Havertz) are in the top five. 

Of the current squad, Thomas Partey has the longest ongoing unbeaten run, avoiding defeat in his last 18 home appearances stretching back to May 2023. Three players have won at least 100 times at the stadium: Walcott (137), Aaron Ramsey (122) and Laurent Koscielny (120). 

 

THE MANAGERS

Arteta has both played and managed at Emirates Stadium a combined 195 times, winning 130 of those games. He made his Gunners debut at the stadium – a 1-0 Premier League win over Swansea City on September 10, 2011 – and his last ever match as a professional was the 4-0 home win over Aston Villa on May 15, 2016. In all he played 75 times, winning 51, drawing 16 and losing just eight. Eleven of his 16 Gunners goals were scored at home. 

He has taken charge of 120 matches as manager at Emirates Stadium, winning 79, drawing 19 and losing 22.

Freddie Ljungberg is the only other person to have played and managed for us at Emirates Stadium, he’s one of four managers to sit in the home dugout for us. Wenger oversaw 336 matches, while Unai Emery managed 41 games at Emirates Stadium as our boss, with a 68.3% win rate. 

 

THE SUPPORTERS

Of the 499 games, 28 were played behind closed doors due to COVID-19 restrictions, while three more were played with vastly reduced capacities. Not including those 31 matches, the total attendance at Emirates Stadium is 27,888,364 – an average of 59,591 per game. 

The record attendance for a match at Emirates Stadium is 60,383 which was set against Wolves on November 2, 2019 – it was actually tied earlier this season during the draw against Liverpool on October 27, 2024. The attendance has been 60,000 or more on 249 occasions – the current capacity is 60,405 (though that differs depending on the size of the away allocation). 

As well as the 499 competitive men’s team matches, Emirates Stadium has hosted a range of other fixtures. The very first game was a testimonial game for Dennis Bergkamp, and there have also been Emirates Cup matches, other club friendlies, FA Youth Cup games, international fixtures and Arsenal Women’s matches played at the stadium over the years.

 

With thanks to Opta