Arsenal is top of the league. Two clean sheets. 9 goals scored. Most shots in the league. Most touches in the opposition box. Those are the hard facts, how about the soft ones?

The football is sensational. Scintillating. Fast. Intense. Precise. An absolute fucking JOY to watch.

This time last year people were mocking ‘trust the process’ and poking fun at the term ‘special sauce.’ I’m not seeing much now because we are all believers. This hope train we’re on isn’t theory, nor a lecture on JDP or a ‘how you build a club back to greatness with strategy and vision’ blog post… it’s the real deal.

Fans believe it as well. This time last year, after three losses and an accusation that the away fans were cheering Manchester City goals, everyone decided, fuck it, let’s support this project as hard as we can until it is no more. To put a little more detail on why that was so important, this time last year I was told Arteta was extremely worried about the home fans because a chunk of the squad didn’t like playing in front of them. We were toxic, we knew it as well, it was grim online, grim in the stadium, but we rallied. The basic thinking Arteta had was that if the home fans supported young players when they were in bad moments, the development of these players would truncate. It’s easy to support a kid when they are crushing it, it takes a special group of people to be there in moments of weakness… but, we were there for it all last season.

Yesterday felt like the crowning glory of that idea coming to life. Last week, Bill Saliba scored an own goal. The fans rallied instead of groaning. Arteta stated that was why he recovered so fast. Yesterday, the away fans invented a new song for him, and the player popped up for an absolutely spectacular Dennis Bergkamp like goal with his weaker foot. The song was so good the players were singing it in the dressing room after.

pic.twitter.com/g933I3oFHE

— Tim Stillman (@Stillberto) August 20, 2022

You think a player getting that sort of love at 21 years old is signing a new deal anywhere other than Arsenal? Of course not. Stay at the club you supported as a kid where the fans love you. Matt stated on the podcast that he’s not seen an impact like that since Sol Campbell joined from Spurs. Sol was an experienced captain and an seasoned international at that point. Saliba is still 21 years old!

Talking of young players, how is Saka still only 20 years old? He was the second youngest Arsenal player to get to 100 Premier League appearances behind Cesc. He had a quiet game, he’s a slow starter generally, but my word what an achievement. Hopefully, he’ll sign a new deal and start banging in the goals VERY soon.

You know what else helped Arsenal? Elevating the squad with absolutely top, top players. Zinchenko and Gabi J were outrageous again yesterday. Someone made a really interesting point to me a few months ago… it’s a bit of a problem if your best player is your defensive midfielder. That was basically Thomas Partey last season in terms of terminal importance to our success. Rodri getting injured doesn’t finish City. It finished us last season. I’m not sure that’ll happen this season. Back to the point, who can really say who is our best player right now? The choices are deep. The question is far more subjective. That is in part to some players stepping up (Martinelli / Benny Blanco / Bill Saliba), some new players showing their talent right away (Zinchenko / Gabi J), with some classics having a bit of competition (Odegaard / Saka / Partey). I don’t care if you hate the list, that’s the point, there’s no definitive answer.

An example of new skills elevating our game: Our first goal came after Ben White looped a high ball into Gabi J, the Brazilian brought the ball down and turned at Bournemouth, he ran at them, showed of his tight control and power, slipped Martinelli in, he forced a save, Odegaard was sharp with the finish. You think Lacazette is delivering any of those elements last season? You think peak Auba could do that? No chance. That is what top-level talent offers you.

The next goal on 11 minutes came after Ben White drove forward, picked up and overlap with Saka, found Jesus in the box who controlled the ball but didn’t account for Odegaard eating his lunch with a quick curling shot across goal. Ben White involved in two goals? If he loves it at right back, are you changing him?

There was a delicious Odegaard / Jesus disallowed goal that was adjudged offside by a whisker. If you need to go 10x magnification on a goal, just let the attacking team have it, it’s so annoying Jesus didn’t exit the day with a goal, but there you go at least he finished it.

The beautiful thing about the game is I still felt there were improvements that could be made. We’re still not totally secure when we go a couple of goals up. Aaron flapped at a few crosses and made a bit of a fuss when someone spooked him when he was looking for a quick drop kick. There were moments when we let average players get 6-7 yards out in our box. I’d love us to have a bit more calmness when we’re in good positions, but again, you have to accept that we’ll have the youngest starting 11 in the Premier League this weekend, and the calmness comes from experiencing tough moments.

… and that is a key point to remember. It is not going to be like this every game. Bumps will come, brace for them, it’s part of growing a team to greatness, unfortunately.

I took some flack from the Ramsdalians after critiquing the keeper post-Leicester. Like I thought, the player echoed my take, and said he has some form issues to address. The problem with Ramsdale is he set such a ridiculous standard last season, it’s hard for us to see his form now and not expect better. He’s a top competitor, he’s been through bad moments before, no doubt he’ll get on top of it

Let’s also give flowers to Granit Xhaka. Zinchenko’s ability to play like a top-level midfielder has freed the Swiss to occupy spaces further up the pitch, and he’s absolutely thriving. He assisted Bill Saliba for his wonder goal. Overall though, he was just top level, he has been all season. All the bores saying our season would fail on him are eating humble pie with big L sprinkles.

Let’s also give credit to our Ukrainian hero, Zinchenko. He’s come in, made zero fuss, and adapted like a world-class fullback. He offers so much, power, pace, precision, character, and top-level midfielder-ing. I also LOVED this reaction to Bill Saliba’s goal.

When someone of his technical level is absolutely gushing about a centre-back, you know we have something special on our hands. Bill was immense. 100% pass completion. Outrageous.

The player looks mature beyond his 21 years, he’s extremely alert, he’s not a show-off, and he looks level-headed in the extreme. What a talent we have, the hype was for real, and his adaptation to the league has been superhuman.

I don’t want to talk about other teams but I will. Did you watch what is going on at Spurs and regret not having Antonio Conte as our manager? I didn’t. We are a far more exciting offering. That lot down the road are uninteresting, they are one-dimensional, and they are totally fucked if Harry Kane gets an injury.

The good thing is the media has a very big hard-on for both Tuchel and Conte. They think the big show is those two this season. That’s how we want it. The biggest worry is that at some point, people will wake up to Arsenal and then the pressure will fall on us.

Do I have concerns?

What Arsenal lack right now is proper fear factor. Liverpool and City go away from home and most teams are already beaten. They are so good players fake injury to avoid the afternoon. Arsenal don’t elicit that sort of fear factor quite yet, teams still fancy they can get their talons into us, even when we’re a goal up. The more games we play like yesterday, the faster we’ll start getting the better of teams before a ball has been kicked. My prediction at the start of the season is we’d be really fucking horrible to play against, that has happened, we don’t have many weaknesses. If Arsenal are rolling up, you are going to chase a lot of shadows, you are going to be demoralised, you are going to be mentally on the backfoot because our system is unpredictable and strong enough to punish any type of in-game strategy… but what I wasn’t expecting so soon is that there was going to be instant retribution for mistakes. We have killers in the squad. We haven’t had that in a while.

Mikel Arteta is still chasing more though. He wants to replace Nice-bound Nico Pepe with a player that can offer Arsenal more unpredictability. Remember, that is his key thing this season, Spurs don’t have that, they just have Harry Kane and Son, we want to have multiple avenues to devastation. This winger will have goals, power, pace, control, great passing, and they will give us some killer special sauce.

Youri Tielemans was left out of the Leicester squad yesterday. They are getting desperate now. They need cash. I suspect that deal will be done if we can shift Bellerin and Ainsley before the close of the window. He really would be a top, top-quality addition. Our squad would basically be complete if we can do that. We’d be ready to compete for top 3 this season.

So to exit the conversation, this is what strategy, vision, and execution looks like when it’s melded with a bit of patience. We had the best January window in the end because we didn’t panic buy and the summer has offered us better riches at prices that represent pure value. The longterm view of Arsenal is probably better looking with us out of the Champions League this season. Don’t underestimate the impact 3 BIG games a week is going to have on Spurs this season. Arsenal can play hungry kids and good squad players on Thursdays. Spurs cannot do that. I’m not sure they have the squad depth to deal with the issues. Christian Romero is already out for 6 weeks, who’d have thunk it after Conte worked his players to the point of vomiting in preseason?! Less about Spurs, this window could be the most consequential of the last 30 years. If we head into the international break in the top 3, confidence will be flying, belief will feel very, very real… who knows where we go from there.

Also… I saw someone tweet ‘why have Arsenal got such an easy fixture list?’

🚨The new @premierleague fixtures are going to be announced on June 16th.

How they roll out can greatly impact a season in a league in which fine margins can be so, so important to success.

This thread will talk about a statistical anomaly that damaged Arsenal last season.

🧵

— Le Grove (@LeGrove) June 6, 2022

I think the kids say, ‘the streets won’t forget,’ nor will I if you sign up to our Patreon below.

You get ad free podcasts, exclusive Before The Whistle podcasts, and you will feel VERY warm inside.

ALSO, some exciting news, Johnny is interviewing a living LEGEND of commentary – Jonathan Pearce – on Monday. That’ll be going out for free. You know what else is free? Subscribing to the podcast and the Youtube channel where our On The Whistles go every week.

SIGN UP TO PATREON