We’ve had a great start to the season, admittedly we’ve had a fairly favourable run (at least compared to recent seasons) but it has been majestic nonetheless. We are playing with a level of control back to front I have never seen before in an Arsenal team. We look maturer and more confident than last season. We are playing JDP football with flair, urgency and control. We are pressing high with a much higher line than I have seen us ever deploy before. We are scoring more and earlier, responding to going down quickly. Our front five is interchangeable to the point it looks like a majestic dance routine. Players like Xhaka, White and Tierney are adapting to new roles quickly. We have racked up our 2nd highest score in the 30 years of PL history, ahead of the invincible seasons and 1 point behind our highest (19 points in 04/05 and 07/08). Our rolling xG is up on last season and we have the second highest in the league. We have the second least xG conceded. The second highest line in the league alongside the fourth highest press (in PPDA). We have created the second most chances in the league.
It is hard to look past the new additions when attempting to explain why we are finally seeing Arteta’s vision for Arsenal. With the signings of Zinchenko, Jesus and Vieira alongside the introduction of Saliba, we haven’t been crippled in the same way we were last season (there’s still plenty of time, mind). Partey, Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, ESR and Odegaard have all had injuries this season (some at the same time) and it hasn’t affected how we’ve wanted to play one bit.
Up top, Jesus has been an unbelievable coup and sets the tempo for everything that happens behind him. His movement off the ball, his dribbling, ball retention and pressing is everything you want from your striker and more. He is a chaos agent of the most refined kind. In his short Arsenal career, he has already produced one of the finest pieces of play I’ve seen in years. Pressed up against a Bournemouth centre back (is this a fanfic?), Gabriel controls a hugely wayward ball out of the sky, before turning, running past 2/3 men and then playing a lovely disguised ball straight into Martinelli, who should have buried the chance. I think this piece of play was a great microcosm for everything he does so well, and everything we have been lacking in recent years. Arguably he should have more G/A to his name, but still – only Haaland has more goal contributions than him.
Also just an observation someone made on Twitter that has set me off like a complete maniac. How has Jesus already had 4 yellow cards for Arsenal – more than he got for City in the last THREE years. In the games we have played so far we have played pretty similarly to how City have previously. We have made some of the fewest fouls in the league. He has gone from one card every 20+ fouls to one every 3.5 fouls. This disparity is so huge that I find it interesting and would love for someone to explain it to me.
Zinchenko, who we have seen less of due to injury, is a ball retention machine and is operating essentially as an inverted midfielder in the build-up, which is allowing us to sustain pressure higher up the field. He has split his minutes with Tierney – who has kindly gifted Zinchenko his injury curse by way of helping him settle in at the club. The fantastic thing about Zinchenko coming in is that it raises the level of the team, as Tierney is adapting his game to mimic some of Zinchenko’s strengths and vice versa. This gives us multiple options in various circumstances and pushes both players to maximise their ability to keep on the team sheet (although I still suspect Zinchenko is earmarked for that left #8 spot at some point). Even Fabio Vieira, who raised Zinchenko and got injured in pre-season, had his first start against Brentford following Odegaard’s injury and there wasn’t a drop-off.
Saliba has been excellent since he burst through the doors and announced himself to the Premier League with that MOTM performance against Palace. Ever since he dropped that beautiful Benzema-esque video, Arsenal fans have been casting their eyes across the Eurostar as his cache slowly built first at St-Etienne, then OGC Nice and finally at Marseille where he broke into the France set-up and won YPOTY. It has worked out perfectly for Arsenal, and genuinely feels like one of them “like a new signing” players Wenger would always pull out after another mediocre transfer window.
Saliba looks beyond his years and is unbelievably graceful in everything he does. He is assured, unfazed, confided and oozes class. He is one of the quickest CBs I have ever seen play for Arsenal yet barely breaks into a sweat. He is so press resistant that it looks as if he is holding onto the ball each time he gets it just to wind the opposing forwards up. Vieira’s goal against Brentford all started from Saliba weaving his way past Toney in a way that would put most CBs in hospital. He has the 4th highest passing accuracy in the league (93.9%) which is nuts considering some of the passes he is attempting and that he is playing in one of the league’s highest lines. He also scored an absolute peach against Bournemouth and opened the scoring against Brentford, which is great to see consider previously he couldn’t head to save his life and only had one senior goal to his name.
However, it is not just those new faces that have raised their games in the opening few games. Martinelli looks increasingly lively, more involved in the build-up and a menace on that left-hand side. Our defence is looking strong (more on that later), Odegaard is adding more numbers to his game and Saka despite having a shaky (relative to the guy’s incredibly high standards) start, is cementing himself as one of the best wingers in the country. However, one man stands out above the rest.
Granit Xhaka’s incredible redemption arc has continued and he is adding even more intricacies to his game. Comforted by the system and Thomas Partey in midfield, he is dominating the areas he should be in and avoiding those he shouldn’t be. He is popping up more frequently in the box and has slowly morphed into one of the league’s top creators. Cutbacks for Martinelli, whipped balls in for Jesus or late runs into the box, he is finally fulfilling Wenger’s initial characterisation of him as a box-to-box midfielder, which everyone laughed at. It takes immense strength of character to go from where he was at that Palace game to where he is now. Chapeau.
However.
This optimism isn’t quite shared by pundits and the general public. Many have tried to discredit our favourable run and shit all over our fun (people forget how deep in the trenches this club was in for so long). We have had an easy run, that cannot be denied. But firstly I will dispel this one as quickly as possible: Who gives a fuck?
If we win all these ‘easy’ games (not my words) and lose every single game against the top 6, then we will walk to our best league finish in years. Furthermore, another reason why these games are important and winning them shows improvement on last season is the fact that they are games that we lost last season (and were sticks many used to beat us with). Palace (a) was the beginning of the end of our season, Brentford (a) I’m convinced wasn’t real and the last time we played Bournemouth (a) we scraped a draw. Individually, and objectively, if you isolated all the games we played and said who you think should win, you would have probably had us in all of them bar United. However, if that was how football operated then the top 4 would finish on 90 points every season and City would win every game. Except it doesn’t work like that. Furthermore, this run which sees us top, hasn’t even been the easiest in the league. City’s highest placed team was 10th, and the average league position of the teams we have faced has been 11.8 (small sample size I know) which is significantly higher than Spurs (14.4) and City’s (15.2). We beat Villa who somehow took points off City, points off Brentford who slapped up United, Fulham who took points off Liverpool and points off Leicester who, you know, might win a game at some point. We also don’t have Haaland.
I think it is also arguably important purely because it is not something we have done in a while. Arteta is slowly improving us in big games and was let down last season for inconsistent results against these smaller teams. These results are great for motivation and will be a good springboard for whatever the World Cup throws at us. Those that think we are gassing ourselves up as title challengers by being pleased with our performances are being purposely obtuse.
What bums are we playing next then?

Over optimistic 24-year-old Gooner eager to see those Hale End lads get us back into the Champions League.
Write about Arsenal as an aspiring writer but more importantly as an attempt to put my drunk ramblings in the pub into something a little bit more coherent…
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