Arsenal find themselves on track with a proper unbeaten run

Arsenal have not lost in seven matches in all competitions, with five wins and two draws making up that spell. It is impressive, but even more so when one considers the questions that were being asked just weeks before this streak got going. Would Mikel Arteta be the boss going forward? Why was Arsenal underachieving? What exactly was the plan in north London?

His team have answered these questions for both Arteta and technical director Edu to an extent as well. But from what reports suggest, it was the boss who wanted the new goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, and that Edu would’ve preferred other options. This team from top to bottom looks and feels much more like an Arteta team now as opposed to an Unai Emery or an Arsene Wenger team.

For sure, there are players who date from those times as well as the newer faces like Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Benjamin White and Partey, but no matter who is on the team, from Martin Odegaard to Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, these players are playing as Arteta has been imagining they should be playing for years.

This is an Arteta side, and while they’re literally the youngest side in the Premier League, what the coach has brought to this team, that which many have doubted in the past, is a modern spirit, compassion and belief.

Arsenal: Positive spirits and eyes on the top portion of the Premier League table as the unbeaten run points to improvements under Arteta

It does not matter how young we are, because of how talented we are. Arsenal has more experienced heads to call upon too, of course, but the great mass of the team is young, and full of explosive talent and skill. The boss has seen this and has built the team this way, as while we have had young players coming from the academy, he has also continued to purchase young players to play significant roles in this side.

He is not signing young talent to hide away and loan out, but to use and nurture. The club is constructing a team that has the potential to play together for many, many years, with players who will be growing and developing at similar rates. While the prize is the type of consistency that Wenger had, with even better domestic and European results, Arteta knows that that can be attained in many different ways.

And his way is beginning to shine through most of the time. While it will not always shine through against some of the tougher clubs, it must be recognized when it is. The boss is in good spirits and the supporters should see this and reciprocate that emotion.

While the Gunners had a dismal beginning to the season, they now sit tenth in the Premier League table having clawed their way up to the top half thanks to this unbeaten run. Better still, while they continue to have a negative goal difference – the only team in the top 11 for that to be the case – they sit only three points off fourth-place West Ham.

There are a good number of teams ahead of them, including Everton, Brighton, Leicester, Tottenham Hotspur and the aforementioned West Ham, before Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea begin to distance themselves from the rest of the pack. But the Gunners shouldn’t be taken as a joke in the weeks ahead either. They can make some serious noise and they can defeat some of the better teams in England if they continue to play as they have just demonstrated they are capable of. It’s all about consistency, which is the big worry.

Another win in the Carabao Cup, plus at least four top-flight points from Leicester and Watford would go a long way in furthering this team’s lofty ambitions – and six points would really show that this team means business and has made some significant progress from last season.

Going forward, there is hope that the Gunners will be able to work their way into Europe one way or another, whether by the Premier League table or the winning of a domestic trophy. They know it is possible because they’ve done it before with the team, and they know that this team is better than those teams that beat Manchester City, Chelsea, and Liverpool in a span of about a month or so from a time that seems so long ago.

Yet it was not in to too distant past. It was a bit over two years ago, and that the boss has stayed the course and is finally now starting to yield results is really pleasurable to watch. It will only get better, and while there are bumps in each and every road, the important things for the players and supporters alike will be to look at the broader picture of things: to see how far they’ve come and how far they can still go together.