Arsenal: How many world-class players have they actually got?

Arsenal have always had one of the best squads in the country. And they do again this season. But there is still a question that is nagging me: How many world-class players do they actually have?

During the great years of the early 00s in which Arsenal had one of the best teams in the world, not only were they tactically more advanced that their opposition, not only were they a more cohesive and connected unit under the tutelage and modernisation of Arsene Wenger, but they just had the better players.

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Of that great era, the Gunners boasted maybe five or six truly world-class players: Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry. And then these stars were supplemented by very good players: Lauren, Gilberto Silva, Sylvain Wiltord, Freddie Ljungberg, Kanu.

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That was how the squad was built. And since, Wenger has always reiterated that the game is about the players on the pitch, often shunning the very advancements in analytics and tactics that he brought to these shores. For Wenger, the manager’s job is to put the players in the right position, but, at the end of the day, it is the players that win and lose the matches. They are, after all, the ones that are on the pitch.

Is he right? I’m not sure. There is a growing tactical revolution in the sport that is changing how the game is thought about. Players are still integral to a team’s success, but a manager now has a greater understanding and ability to be able to hide their shortcoming and accentuate their strengths. Nevertheless, whatever end of that debate you stand, what cannot be denied is that titles and trophies cannot be won without world-class players, or at least players playing at a world-class level for that particular league season or competition. That begs the question, then, how many world-class players do Arsenal have now?

It is not a simple answer. Everyone has their own definition of what a ‘world-class’ player is and then everyone also has their own opinion of the level of the player that is being debated. But, for me, I would argue that Arsenal have no more than two ‘world-class’ players, and one of them is borderline.

I would define ‘world-class’ as being one of the best in the world at what you do. That eradicates the argument of defender against attacker and allows each player to be compared with players across the world that do the same or similar things to them in the team. By that definition, I would say that Arsenal only have one certain world-class player, that being Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who is one of the best goalscorers of the past three or four years.

The second player who I would call world-class is Mesut Ozil. There are questions surrounding his consistency, his commitment, his production in big games, but his creation statistics over an extended period of time are absolutely staggering and put him head and shoulders above almost all other creators in the world. There are other very good players. Aaron Ramsey, Alexandre Lacazette, Henrikh Mkhitaryan. But none of them is among the very best at what they do in the world.

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And that, having only one or two world-class players in a team is concerning. Arsenal will not be winning a league title any time soon with that dearth of quality in the squad.