Arsenal has never started a top-flight season as well as this one. Nine wins from league ten matches – not even the Invincibles of 2003-04 could match their 27 points at this stage. The only time they began as well was back in 1903-04 – and that was competing as Woolwich Arsenal in the second tier.
A four-point lead at the top, despite Manchester City adding the is-he-even-human Erling Haaland to their star-studded squad.
It is an ex-City player who has stolen the headlines most frequently thus far in the Gunners’ campaign: Gabriel Jesus, with his five goals in ten league matches. That’s already more than Alexandre Lacazette managed in the entire 2021-22 campaign. The Frenchman’s replacement in Jesus offers more mobility, a deadly threat in the penalty box, and an equally-important intensity on the defensive end with his pressing from the front.
Jesus also, crucially, brings a winning mentality from his years at City. He is used to holding up trophies – the Premier League four times to go with four other pieces of domestic silverware. Oleksandr Zinchenko, another arrival from City, boasts a similar record.
For an Arsenal side that hasn’t been a genuine title challenger for most of a decade, the arrival of two hardened warriors from the dominant side in the league is as much about mentality and leadership as their impacts on the pitch.
“We now have a new confidence, a spark, and that winning mentality that he has,” Arteta said of Jesus.
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With Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta having himself spent three and a half years as City’s assistant manager, the fingerprints of City coach Pep Guardiola are all over the Gunners. As the joke flying around social media goes, Pep surely became tired of winning the Premier League four times in five years, so created himself a rival by sending the Gunners a coach and two star players.
He might just come to regret sending two gun players to one top-six rival, not to mention offloading Raheem Sterling to Chelsea.
“Arsenal is back,” Guardiola said last month. “I think Arsenal are already there, after many years [where they] were not there. With the patience with Mikel [who] changed not just the team but the club. This is already a factor and they are already contenders.”
Jesus is just one of many players who have taken major steps forward to lead this Arsenal side to the top of the ladder – and a title challenge that seemed unlikely, if not out of reach, at season’s start. The Gunners made it clear that a top-four finish and automatic qualification to the Champions League for the first time since 2016 was the goal this season.
Now, fans are dreaming of far more.
October always loomed as the month to prove whether Arsenal’s title dream was real or not. The fixture list threw up a brutal make-or-break schedule: ten matches in all competitions. The postponed clash with Manchester City, which will now likely be played early next year, makes it nine matches this month.
Arsenal is five games – and five wins – through that nine-game slog, having seen off North London rivals Tottenham as well as Liverpool, their two toughest opponents of the campaign so far.
In the league, a clash with Southampton on Sunday night is followed by Nottingham Forest a week later. That’s followed (early next month) by the hugely mouth-watering match with Chelsea before struggling Wolves, their last two matches before the World Cup.
By that point, they will have played 14 matches – more than a third of the season, and certainly more than enough to know if they are the real deal. That’s still weeks away. And as Arsenal fans are well aware, a four-point margin can easily be erased in one bad week.
So far, there has hardly been a bad week in their season – even their sole defeat of the season felt like an aberration, a momentary glitch. That 3-1 defeat to Manchester United was 1-1 after the hour mark and could easily have ended in the Gunners favour given their dominance. Arsenal had a goal overturned by VAR, struck the post and spurned a bevy of other chances, before a triple-substitution backfired.
Arguably their worst performance of the season came against Leeds last weekend, but Arsenal still managed to win ugly – a hugely positive sign.
As Arteta said: “I just love the relentless passion the team played with and how we found a way to win.
“This is something special. This is not a coincidence. It shows the willingness that I see in the eyes of the players to win, to compete.”
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Guardiola is certainly not afraid of labelling Arsenal title contenders, but Arteta has so far shied away from doing so – rebuffing all attempts from journalists to get the Spaniard to declare that, yes, the team really does believe in the unlikely dream.
He is acutely aware of the kind of problems he is facing. But at the same time, Arteta is reaping the rewards of years of bold action on the club’s biggest issues.
Besides the lack of a winning mentality and confidence, Arteta inherited in December 2019 a divided dressing room and a culture in disarray. Players were frequently late to training, and the mood around the Emirates was glum.
In his first interview with the club, one line stood out above the rest. “We have to create the right culture around the club,” he demanded – and he never backed down.
CREATING THE CULTURE – AND OVERHAULING THE SQUAD
Despite it being his first senior managerial appointment, Arteta wasn’t afraid of changing things up. From setting the standards with his workrate – Arteta regularly arrives at the training base an hour before anyone else – to building a sense of cohesiveness in the side, Arteta has showed he is far more than a tough taskmaster and disciplinarian.
The Evening Standard recently revealed some of the small actions Arteta has taken to help the squad gel. The squad shares in themed lunches celebrating the country of origin of their players, with staff dressing up and decorating the room. Motivational slogans replaced white walls. He moved his office to be closer to his coaches and players.
In his management of the staff and squad, Arteta was even bolder. In 2020, he signed two young and innovative coaches: Carlos Cuesta and Miguel Molina. Both under the age of 30, it was viewed as a risk, especially given Arteta’s own youth and lack of experience. But their youthful passion and drive to improve has perfectly matched that of his squad – a squad that has itself been wholly overhauled.
Only two players from the starting XI of his maiden game in charge back in 2019 remain in the current squad. There were player revolts, the ostracising of Mesut Ozil, and a complete clean-out of veteran players who weren’t seem fully committed to the cause. Ozil was the first player to be bought out of his contract, but plenty of others were shipped out for free: So was Sead Kolasinac, Shkodran Mustafi, and Sokratis. Arteta took immense risks with his team, determined to back up his words that culture comes first.
It almost backfired in his first full season in charge. By Christmas, Arsenal had slumped to 15th on the ladder, five points clear of the relegation zone. Arteta was on the brink of being sacked, only to beat Chelsea 3-1 on Boxing Day – the win that saved Arteta’s career.
That victory also changed everything. Arteta, and owner Stan Kroenke, were suddenly all-in on turning Arsenal into a youth-based team. It was a high-risk strategy – with youth comes inexperience, something which can prove deadly in the world’s toughest league. Then again, Arsenal hadn’t won the league since 2004 and had fallen far off the pace by the time Arteta arrived. Why not take a punt on the kids with an eye to the future?
They finished that season just eighth, but Emile Smith Rowe had taken huge steps forward, just one of many young guns who have burst through the ranks at the Gunners under Arteta.
Arteta went on a signing spree – but with youth firmly in mind. In came the likes of Japan’s Takehiro Tomiyasu, Albert Sami Lokonga, Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, and Martin Odegaard.
What of the elder statesmen, the reliable and battle-hardened veterans? Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the captain, was punted. Arteta’s revolution continued, his core vision taking shape further with each transfer: a youthful manager with an equally youthful team, developing together and taking a long-term (if rocky) road to the top.
The average age of the Arsenal starting XI in the 2021-22 season was just 24.2 years old, comfortably the youngest in the league. The youth brigade started the season well, only to collapse at the death and fall out of the top four places. Inexperience, mistakes, and a lack of killer instinct all took a toll.
This year, the squad remains remarkably youthful, but with the crucial bonus of boasting far more experience – and with the added firepower of Jesus up front.
The average age of Arsenal’s starting XIs in the league has hovered around 24.1 years old, second-youngest only to Southampton. Liverpool and Manchester City both have average ages over 27 years.
Bukayo Saka, William Saliba, and Gabriel Martinelli – all 21 – have been consistently among the best players in the league. Arteta even threw 15-year-old wonderkid Ethan Nwaneri a Premier League debut.
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HOW ARTETA REVITALISED EXILED STAR
Saka is one of the two players from Arteta’s XI in his maiden match in charge in 2019 to still remain in the squad, and his rise perfectly reflects Arteta’s overhaul of the Gunners. The other member of that XI still at the Emirates is the very opposite of Saka: Granit Xhaka, one of only two thirty-year-olds to play this season.
Xhaka epitomised the fiery, chaotic start to Arteta’s reign. He had been stripped of his captaincy by Unai Emery two months before Arteta’s arrival, feuded with fans, and was on the brink of leaving the club – even admitting his bags were packed.
Arteta convinced him to stay, offered him a chance of redemption. Now the elder statesman of the squad, he has undergone a career rebirth, becoming a better leader and mentor than he was while wearing the armband. Gone are the defensive lapses, the calamitous errors. Moved forwards into a more advanced midfield role this season, the 30-year-old has gone to another level, picking up two Premier League goals in 10 games, dominating defensively with a host of interceptions, and bossing the centre of the park.
He scored the only goal in Arsenal’s 1-0 win over PSV Eindhoven on Friday morning, a crucial win that secures progression to the knockout rounds – and gives Arteta the chance to rest players and prioritise the league.
The Arsenal fans who despised the player who famously told them to ‘F*** off’, now chant his name again.
After offloading so many senior players – including their biggest names like Aubameyang or Lacazette – Arsenal and Arteta’s decision to keep Xhaka has proven a masterstroke.
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WILL ARSENAL ‘COOKIE CRUMBLE’ AGAIN?
Despite their hot start to the season, blowing all expectations out of the water, there are still concerns over whether Arsenal can sustain their title bid – or fall apart like last season.
Former Arsenal player Jermaine Pennant told talkSPORT: “I think that Arsenal, after Christmas, will cookie crumble like they did the year before to drop out of the Champions League spots. We are giving Arsenal a lot of praise about where they are going and how they have conducted themselves in the first ten games. But it is all about will they maintain that, will they continue that after Christmas?”
“We have seen a lot of teams come flying out the blocks and then as soon as the Christmas period comes and the games come thick and fast, they slip over easily,” he added.
And despite the arrival of stars like Jesus and Zinchenko, and the development of young players – particularly through the Academy – Arteta is still worried that the squad lacks depth.
Last week, Arteta whined that he had just 16 senior outfield players available for their clash with Bodø/Glimt – even though the club wasn’t facing many injuries.
Jesus was left at home, but the manager would probably have liked to have rested a number of his senior players. Given the thin squad, that wasn’t an option.
The packed schedule provides no respite, just a draining, gruelling slog that leads to the kind of tired mistakes like William Saliba’s handball against Leeds.
Should Arsenal make it to the World Cup break in genuine title contention, owner Kroenke might be convinced to roll the dice and splash the cash on reinforcements in the January transfer window.
Otherwise, Arsenal’s hopes could rely on their players staying fit despite a brutal schedule.
Arteta has the kind of young, immensely gifted talents he loves to coach and develop. He has added the grit and winning mentality of former Man City players, and turned Granit Xhaka’s career around. The Spaniard worked tirelessly to unite the squad and change the culture of the club. No wonder the fans are dreaming much bigger than the stated goal of finishing top four. Anything can happen.
