By Efosa Taiwo

With eight points clear on top of the table, and Manchester City still busied with the chasing, the Mikel Arteta ‘Gunners’ only need to hang in there for the next seven games to have history repeat itself after a 19-year hiatus.

It would have been in no dispute that they should be able, on the strength of their incredible performance this season, to get through the next seven games, but when it is considered that away trips to Liverpool, Manchester City and Newcastle headline their remaining fixtures to the climax of the season, caution becomes a watchword as the world watches on to see how Arsenal navigate these games in their shout for the ‘evasive’ crown.

With that still largely dependent on time, let’s resume on what factors Arteta has been able to whip up in the surprising surge his Arsenal side has been riding on in dismantling teams this season:

Better Attacking Bites

The slogan of the game is goal, and for years, Arsenal had been hounded for misplaced priorities as successive teams will rather merry-go-round with the ball and entertain the crowd for longer periods in the game only to end up conceding more than their opponents.

This antecedence serves to attest to how much of a difference this Arsenal side whips up as almost everyone on the pitch of play is a potential goalscorer. There is now a ‘real’ threat when Arsenal breathes down opposition defence with diagonal runs on and off the ball, syndicated attacking moves and the best part, an attack unafraid to shoot at goal.

The attacking trio of Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka, supported by the ever-invasive Granit Xhaka and Martin Odegaard send tremors to defences in the EPL, and this is interestingly not based on their enterprising individual abilities alone, but their chemistry, a much deadlier force.

Martin Odegaard
It’s so hard to single a man from this formidable Arsenal side, as what makes them a rocketing team is more of the compact side that they are than some sheer individual brilliance. But then, the technical contributions of Martin Odegaard are so matchless not to be noticed. At the heart of the midfield for the Gunners, Odegaard reminds you of the traditional number 8, and how critical it is to have a grounded one.

The Norwegian is central to Arsenal’s attacking forays with his creative abilities, ball-holding techniques and sleek movements on and off the ball. He has formed not only an understandable partnership with Partey and Xhaka, but you see him swapping positions with Saka, bursting into the box to join Jesus or Nkietah, and sometimes see him pop up on the left flank, piloting in crosses or snaking his way into the box.

Oppositions have struggled to curtail him all season long, as when he is not assisting, he is scoring, and when he is not doing any of that, he is ensuring you are picking cards off him: he is just simply unplayable.

It is impossible to take anything away from the incredibility of Arsenal’s performance this season. And if they eventually go on to become champions of the Premier League, it would have been nothing short of an honour well-deserved.