Sunday's 3-2 win over Watford was about as good a result as possible for Arsenal.
The victory featured three beautiful team goals finished off by Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, and was enough to move the Gunners up into fourth with three games in hand over fifth and sixth-placed Manchester United and West Ham.
Mikel Arteta even popped up with an assist of sorts retrieving the ball quickly so as to allow Saka to take a quick throw and initiate a swift attacking move involving Cedric, Odegaard and Alexandre Lacazette in the build up to Martinelli's ultimately decisive third strike.
However, come full time the Spaniard was still not a happy man.
"We were really good going forward and we had all the right intention and the energy to do it," he told press in his post match conference.
"We scored three magnificent goals but we didn’t have the same energy and commitment defensively. When that happens, to win a game away from home, you’re going to suffer.
"That’s why we suffered today - because defensively we didn’t have the right structure. We didn’t detect with enough urgency the moments where they could activate certain spaces that we knew. That’s why we suffered.
"We conceded two and we could have conceded another one or two."
Arteta's assessment of the game was not wrong. Watford actually finished the match with three more shots on target than the Gunners and had a far superior expected goals of 1.42 to 0.94 (as per The xG philosophy).
Perhaps given that Aaron Ramsdale is second only to Alisson and Ederson for clean sheets in the Premier League this season despite having missed the first three matches of the campaign, this level could be put down to just an off day. But a little look back over previous matches suggests that a trend is emerging.
It should be said that before we stray into the realms of total hyperbole, Arsenal's defence is far from being in a crisis. In their four games prior to this, the Gunners had conceded just twice - one courtesy of an individual error from Gabriel against Wolves and the other via a stoppage time set piece against Brentford.
But the way Arteta has his team defending has changed subtly.
football.london has previously highlighted the positive amendments that the Spaniard has implemented to his team's set up since December.
Prior to that despite brief flirtations with a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-2 of sorts, Arsenal have largely been set up in a 4-2-3-1, aimed at providing an increased defensive solidity to their play.
The reason for this compact approach was the chaotic defensive set up that Arteta had taken over.
It's somewhat fitting that the Gunners' most open defensive display for some time should come at Vicarage Road, the scene of a match that proved to be an irrevocable turning point for Unai Emery during his time in charge at the Emirates.
On that day Arsenal allowed the Hornets to have 31 shots, and on average they were conceding 12.5 shots per game under the current Villarreal boss. Arteta set about immediately changing this by fielding the Gunners in a tighter set up that saw their shots allowed drop down to 9.5 per game in his first year in charge.
This more defensive approach would see Arsenal switch to a 3-4-3 set up en route to claiming FA Cup and Community Shield glory, but it was never the long-term plan.
During an interview just over a year in to his time in charge at the Emirates, Arteta revealed his vision of how he wanted his side to set up.
“We want to move to a 4-3-3 but for that, you need a lot of specificity in every position but now in five or six positions, we don’t have it," the Spaniard said.
Having survived a run that almost saw him lose his job, Arteta then tasked Edu with bringing in the specific players that he wanted to fulfil his dream last summer.
Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, Nuno Tavares, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Martin Odegaard were all brought in with a clear intention in mind - to get Arsenal higher up the pitch.
This has been reflected in the stats. Last season the Gunners were ranked fourth for touches in their own defensive third in the Premier League, whereas this time around they sit 15th (as per fbRef ). Meanwhile their standing for touches in the attacking penalty area has risen from eighth in the division to fifth.
This frontfooted approach has paid dividends with Arsenal scoring 2.25 goals per game in their 12 matches since December, as opposed to the 1.15 they were averaging in their 13 games prior.
If there's one player who encapsulates this change in microcosm it's probably Granit Xhaka.
The Swiss international's role last season was essentially to drop deep as a third centre back to cover for the attacking runs of Kieran Tierney when the Gunners were in possession, which can be seen it his heatmap below.
This year though, he is being encouraged to get forward far more often and was regularly the highest man up the pitch at Vicarage Road, which again is illustrated by his vastly different heatmap for this campaign (the sample size for which is smaller due to his three month injury absence)
This approach though does not come without its risks.
Across the past few games there have been instances in which Arsenal have found themselves exposed defensively that simply would never have happened last season.
Take this instance from the dramatic 2-1 win over Wolves last month.
The Gunners find themselves with every player inside the opposition half less than ten minutes into the game when Xhaka goes in for a 50/50 duel with Max Kilman on the edge of the Wolves box - a position he never would have been in last year.
The Swiss international loses out and immediately Arsenal are countered with Daniel Podence running at the exposed back line in a four-vs-four situation for Wolves.
This approach is certainly a more dangerous one to adopt. If Podence's ball out to Rayan Ait-Nouri on the left is more accurate then Arsenal could find themselves in real trouble. Given the increased number of goals Arsenal have scored by virtue of spending more time closer to the opposition goal though, this is a risk the Spaniard is willing to take now that he feels he has the right players to do so.
Playing this way with defenders like Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi, David Luiz or Pablo Mari would undoubtedly have been suicidal, but in Ben White and Gabriel, Arteta has more mobile centre backs who are more comfortable in one-vs-one situations.
To add to that centre back pairing, when fit, Takehiro Tomiyasu is also a pacey player who is an excellent defender in transition. As a result he can provide more security when Arsenal attack with the increased numbers that they do at the moment.
There are levels to the degree of risk Arteta is willing to take, however.
After the win over Watford the Spaniard was visibly disappointed in his post-match press conference due to his side's lack of defensive intensity that he put down to overconfidence brought on by the Hornets' lowly status in the Premier League table.
"Thinking sometimes that ‘yeah, I have the space and this is really good and controlling the game’ but they were not," said the Spaniard when asked to explain the Gunners' openness at the back.
"I’m really happy that we won the game and there are a lot of positive things to take on, but that’s not going to be enough."
As he seeks to take this Arsenal team back up the table though, it is clear that the previously cautious Arteta now feels he has the confidence to release the shackles somewhat in search of a more offensive approach.
This is undoubtedly a risk for the Spaniard, but with Champions League football for the first time in half a decade at stake, it's one that he'll feel is justified by the reward.
