The gap at the top is five points. Arsenal have now played two of their three toughest away games of the season. They’ve come through a potentially extremely tricky week with reputation enhanced, despite being without one of their starting centre-backs for all three games and both for one of them. If there is any sense of disappointment, it is only that they failed to beat Chelsea, whom they have become accustomed to getting the better of, despite having a man advantage from the 38th minute on Sunday.
But really there shouldn’t be any disappointment. Coming out of the international break, having conceded a late equaliser to Sunderland in their previous game, Arsenal looked potentially vulnerable. Despite having been by far the most impressive side this season, their lead over Manchester City was only four points. They were without Gabriel, who probably ranks alongside Declan Rice as their most important player. They faced Tottenham, Bayern and Chelsea over the course of eight days, and Manchester City appeared to be beginning to gather momentum.
Since then they have outplayed Tottenham and Bayern, winning both games comfortably, and drawn away against Chelsea who had risen to second and may turn out to be their most serious title challenger. And that’s despite losing William Saliba for the game at Stamford Bridge. At the same time, City have suddenly lost momentum, losing at Newcastle last week and being beaten at home in the Champions League by Bayer Leverkusen, before Saturday’s unconvincing performance against Leeds, when they let a two-goal lead slip before burgling a late winner. Although Liverpool won at West Ham on Sunday, having finally dropped Mohamed Salah, defeats to Nottingham Forest and PSV Eindhoven in the previous week give no indication of a side gearing up to mount a charge.
It’s not just that Arsenal are playing well; it’s that their rivals really are not.
Chelsea, like Sunderland, showed that Arsenal can perhaps be unsettled by physical opponents, but it’s not a glaring weakness. It’s true that three of the past four goals Arsenal have conceded in the Premier League have been the result of balls played into the box and won by an enormous centre-back, but this is nothing like Arsène Wenger’s side of old going to Stoke: this version of Arsenal are more than happy to mix it up when necessary.
In that sense, Sunday’s game felt like a throwback: partly to the days when Didier Drogba would bully whichever centre-back he was up against (not that Arsenal’s duo of Cristhian Mosquera or Piero Hincapié wilted in the way some of their predecessors had), and in part to something far more distant, to the early years of the Premier League when every big clash was a brutal battle of muscle.
The one remaining question about Arsenal is how they respond to adversity. Perhaps their most consistent fault under Mikel Arteta has been their tendency to be knocked off course by a freak occurrence, an injury, a red card or a surprise equaliser. That’s perhaps why there is such a focus at this early stage of the season on their lead, as though they need clear water ahead. But this last week has suggested they do now have the resilience of champions.
Bayern’s equaliser on Wednesday came from nowhere, a perfectly executed break that required two exceptional passes and a fine finish. The Arsenal of the past three seasons might have been deflated by that – as, indeed, had happened against Bayern Munich in the quarter-final in 2023-24. This week, with admittedly lower stakes, Arsenal reset and quickly reasserted their supremacy to win 3-1.
Conceding early in the second half against Chelsea, similarly, might easily have derailed them. As it was, though, Arsenal didn’t panic. They kept going. Bukayo Saka finally got the better of Marc Cucurella – who, having marked Lamine Yamal out of the game on Chelsea’s win over Barcelona on Tuesday, did a fine job on the England wide man as well – and crossed for Mikel Merino to level.
Arsenal will have to get used to opponents trying to test them from set-plays – the corner from which Trevoh Chalobah scored came from David Raya saving a João Pedro header from a free-kick. But Mosquera and Hincapié have proved able deputies of Gabriel and Saliba and there is still Christian Norgaard in reserve. The squad is deep and coherent. Other rivals will also try to impose themselves physically on Arsenal, but they have shown themselves just about able to stand up to that.
The only slight concern is that the gap remains only five points despite Arsenal’s seeming superiority, but that is still a healthy lead and, after Aston Villa next weekend, the fixtures between now and Christmas would suggest that could soon increase.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
