The Good and Bad Of Arsenal's Super-Start

(Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

It seems like a footballing miracle. A 6-1 demolition of Everton, a 2-0 win away at Celtic—a footballing ground where no English team has been victorious in decades. Then, a 4-1 "Invincibles" style cutting down of Portsmouth.

For the Arsenal die-hard fans, it's a spiteful battle cry in the face of harsh detractors and critics. This super-start has even been magical enough for bookmakers, a group of individuals who have an uncanny aptitude at Premiership prediction.

But for those who have the patience and ability to look through all the conflicting hype, there is a reality behind the numbers and sparkling performances, and the knowledge that awards aren't given for great starts.

So in an attempt to bring a more grounded perspective to the discussion, the bad, as well as the good, should be accurately assessed towards what clearly appears to be a superstar start for a group of young men tired of underachievement.

The bad

With results like 6-1 and 4-1, you'd expect the names on the scoresheet to be from the frontmen. That hasn't been the case with Arsenal. Of all the strikers, only Eduardo, with a typical fox-in-the-box type goal, has managed to bulge the back of the net. Robin van Persie, Andrey Arshavin, and Nicklas Bendtner, who are expected to be the consistent goal scorers to fill in for Emmanuel Adebayor, have not gotten on the scoresheet yet.

There are many reasons for this. One is simply that the frontmen, who are playing in a slightly different 4-3-3 formation, are still getting used to their new, wider positions.

Another, possibly more alarming explanation, is that the main three simply do not have the goal-scoring consistency to maintain a high premier league level. Arshavin and Van Persie are fantastic second-strikers who like to play in the whole, but they've never been consistent goal-scorers. Bendtner is a only a young man, and he is still a long way from from reaching the French phenom's level of skills (Thierry Henry, as non-worshippers like to call him).

Another problem we see, although slightly played down, is the fact that air-battles are still a bit of a height issue. No one can fault Gallas and Vermaelen for trying, but they simply do not have the height or heft of someone like Nemanja Vidic to push around opposition and beat them out in aerial battles.

The final problem, and in this writer's opinion the most serious, in the seemingly ever-present issue of injuries. Samir Nasri with a broken leg, Tomas Rosicky with another injury in a seemingly endless line of physical problems, Lukasz Fabianski out for a lengthy period, and Theo Walcott with resulting injury of attempting to carry on his back England-U21’s attack. The only way to counter-attack this issue, at least in the short term, is simply putting more quality players on the roster; but with that possibility quickly fading with a closing transfer window, the injury crisis is poised for a lengthy stay.

The good

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