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‘Statement wins’ and players of the season so far for Arsenal

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo What should we talk about today folks? More of the North London Derby, you say? Oh well, go on then, seeing as you asked so nicely…

I want to start with a convo we had on the Same Old Arsenal pod last night as we were re-living the loveliness of Sunday’s Hammering of Them. Well, actually, there are two bits I want to start on, but the first is the question as to whether the weekend’s win was a ‘Statement’ win. Amanda argued that it wasn’t a statement win, which I feel completely the opposite. Her argument centred around the fact that it was one of the worst Tottenham teams to visit our home ground since she can remember. No arguments from me on that one; it was negative, it was ill-thought-out from a tactical perspective and Arteta gave Frank a schooling with some of his approaches (dropping Merino deeper so that he wasn’t playing as a battling nine up against their centre halves was good – it led to our first goal with our runners from wide positions in, as an example).

But for me it was absolutely that. A quick Google search of ‘statement win’ as a definition gives me this:

A ‘statement win’ is a victory in sports where a team defeats a strong opponent in a convincing or dominant manner, effectively “laying down a marker” to signal their quality, strength, or serious intent to competitors

Now, you can certainly argue the toss over whether Tottenham are a ‘strong opponent’ and absolutely they weren’t on Sunday, but we didn’t go in to the game thinking that. We went in to it looking at their away form (undefeated), the fact they’d beaten Man City on their own turf, the fact they had the best away defensive record and the fact that it felt like this could be the type of game Frank and his team might thrive in.

Before a ball was kicked, The Scum were ‘a tough opponent’.

But this is where I believe Sunday’s win wasa statement win, because we madethem look ordinary. We made an organised and difficult-to-break-down Tottenham team look anything but a ‘strong opponent’. We made it a convincing and dominant manner and we certainly did ‘lay down a marker’ for the rest of the league with that game. Do you think that any of our rivals went in to the game thinking “oh that’s an easy three points to Arsenal there”. Absolutely not. Just look at all of the pre match predictions. It was all about how it would be tight, a test, tough, yet that Arsenal team turned it in to something in which Amanda argued it wasn’t a ‘statement win’.

It absolutely was.

I do wonder if she missed my point I was trying to make yesterday, because she grouped in my comment with talking about winning the league which, to be fair, I did say it in the same discussion point and sentence (“this could be a ‘statement win’ that we look on come the end of the season if we win it” was what I said – or words to that effect), but I think she focused too much on the context of the season bit and not enough of the game in isolation and of its own merits. This was a big victory, it was a massive victory, it will have given those Arsenal players such a big lift more than any other game this season when they got in to the dressing room. They will have been buzzing yesterday and they’ll take that in to the Bayern game tomorrow, in which we’ll get some thoughts of Mikel Arteta today no doubt.

But this also leads me on to the second thing I wanted to talk about today, which was the motivation, belief and form of these players. Last night I posed the question to Amanda and Carl: “Who is our player of the season so far? There are so many candidates” and I think that speaks to what we’ve seen up until this point. I know, I know, caveats aside – haven’t won anything in November, etc, etc – but up until this point what we have seen is a number of players hitting such a high bar for performance, that it has manifested itself in the six point lead we have at the top of the division right now. of course it could all be quickly whittled away, of course it could still result in us winning nothing, but based on what we have seen up until this point, with the games that have already been played and so we can speak about what has happened rather than what is to come, it would be so hard to pick a ‘player of the season’ based on a quarter of it gone.

Jurrien Timber – absolutely immense at right back. He is consistency personified, but not only that, he’s also adding end-product to his game and has a couple of goals, as well as a few assists too, with another one for Eze’s second on Sunday.

Big Gabi – another one who, whilst injured at the moment, has come up with clutch moments and been an absolute rock at the back.

Riccardo Calafiori – his fitness and form have been superb. Chipped in with our first goal in the season and the way he plays left back has enabled us to find space for him in the final third and when that happens, he’s pretty unmarkabkle to be fair,

Declan Rice – an absolute machine. He is a unicorn player now, able to contribute with goals, has an engine that is phenomenal and with him operating as both an attacking eight and defensive pivot with Zubimendi this season, we are so difficult to break down when we don’t have possession.

Martin Zubimendi – transformative midfielder. He has goals, he is a metronome with the way he keeps us ticking over, he’s rarely troubled to the point at which I think most of us were stunned he got robbed by Paulinha at the weekend.

Eberechi Eze – people has said he’s had a slow start, but he’s bagged assists and already has five goals in all competitions to his name. Hat-trick hero on Derby Day puts you in the running for sure.

Leandro Trossard – perhaps the most unsung hero of the lot. He’s leading the way for us for combined goals and assists and once again came up trumps in a big game by getting the opening goal. Thinking we could possibly offload him in the summer is looking very silly now – I hold my hands up to that as well as many of you guys do too, I suspect.

I’ve just reeled off seven contenders, but there could also be shouts for Merino for sure, whilst Saka is our star player, Raya has made some good saves, Saliba is always up there, Odegaard hasn’t got started and Big Vik looks like he might be starting to click. That’s the reason we’re doing so well at the moment and that’s the reason we have put ourselves in such a great position.

There’s still much of the season to play, there are still so many tough games coming up, but with the form of these players at the moment, we’re all in dreamland as fans when we see them deliver what they did at the weekend.

Long may it continue.

Catch you all tomorrow for a pre match preview ahead of Bayern.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.