Arsenal will continue to be a strange football team

Some things in life are difficult to explain. They just sort of happen. Arsenal will continue to journey away up to the likes of Goodison Park, lose, and then beat Southampton at home.

Fielding the exact same starting lineup for the second game running, which is always a rarity when the previous result was a defeat, the win against Southampton was the first time Arsenal have won a Premier League game having lost the previous match with exactly the same team since 1997.

The performances between both matches on this occasion were chalk and cheese. Up at Goodison Park it was an atrocious shower of bewilderment and meekness, while everything from the 20th minute onwards on Saturday was joyous to watch.

With the same set of players, Arsenal have contrived to be useless beyond the halfway line, dreadful in their own half and outstanding and free flowing on the attack across 180 minutes.

Arsenal look set to continue to be a strange football team who are wildly inconsistent and capable of brilliance and stupidity in the blink of an eye

This is a weird team.

Trying to find reason for that will almost always boil down to inexperience. With an average age knocking around the 23-year-old mark, the inevitable inconsistencies that come with that is something that supporters have to get accustomed to.

It wont’ be easy, but losing badly to teams they should beat away from home and blowing away sides in the lower reaches of the Premier League on home soil is set to be how this will continue to play out for the season.

Throw in a series a misfiring senior players who aren’t doing the job of shouldering the youth and the end result is…a weird team. The team captain has been publicly disciplined twice in a year. This doesn’t happen at other clubs.

One minute Arsenal will look like they should be scoring seven and the next they’ll be unable to break down a mid-block of players who’re Championship level at best. There will be soaring highs up to the tallest peaks and lows far down into the deepest caves.

Due to the wild inconsistency in this team, more weeks like the one just passed are sure to be dished up. But it is peculiar that this Arsenal can can yo-yo between emotions and quality as drastically as they can. Absolutely dreadful with worrying signs galore in the opening stages against the Saints, Arsenal then went and scored one of the best goals they’ll score this season.

This team just doesn’t make sense.

If they can just tighten the clamp and reduce the disparity between their good and their bad days then they’ll be in far greater stead. However, with youthfulness, confidence and personnel changes, all signs are they’ll continue to be the strange team Saturday laid witness to.