Arsenal Can Start Dreaming About Winning the Premier League Title This Season
As the Arsenal squad lifted the Community Shield at Wembley on Sunday afternoon, ticker tape rained down on them and their fans roared their approval, but the players' celebrations were largely muted and their grins a little too forced.
The Community Shield is a trophy clubs want to win; you can put it in your team photograph and add it to your list of honours, but it simply signifies you have enjoyed success in the previous season rather than the one about to start.
Since the launch of the Premier League 23 years ago, only seven sides who have won the Community Shield have gone on to become champions that same season.
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Two years ago, David Moyes won it with Manchester United before enduring a miserable nine months. It has never been a precursor to success.
The casual nature of Arsenal's celebrations at Wembley suggests they already know this, and any sense of achievement will have quickly faded by Monday morning.
Over the summer, Arsenal have quietly transformed from a team content to finish fourth and celebrate with a dressing-room selfie to a different animal that looks serious about finally winning the Premier League title again.
The Emirates Stadium was built to allow Arsenal to host title-winning parties, but after nine years it has so far not witnessed one yet.
That could all be about to change this season.
It was the arrival of a 33-year-old goalkeeper rather than a new, exciting attacking talent that has done most to bring about this change.
Petr Cech's signing from Chelsea was a clinical and surgical purchase and delivered Arsenal exactly what they needed for this season.
The signing went against Arsene Wenger's career-defining desire to bring in younger players he could develop and mould.
Instead, Cech arrived as the finished article with four Premier League winner's medals, as well as a Champions League winner's medal in his hand luggage.
As immediately proved with his clean sheet at Wembley, Cech brings a commanding presence and natural authority to this Arsenal defence.
Wenger has even allowed himself to get a bit giddy and floated the idea Cech could have the same impact on Arsenal that Edwin van der Sar had on Manchester United when he arrived at Old Trafford aged 34 and went on to win four Premier League titles and the Champions League.
Now with Cech, Arsenal suddenly don't look so vulnerable and so easy to beat at the back as they were when keepers of the dubious calibre of Lukasz Fabianski, Wojciech Szczesny and David Ospina stood in between the posts for them.
There is a reason the Arsenal fans chanted "Cech's a Gooner" with such glee at Wembley, for they know he really could make all the difference.
Last season Arsenal conceded 36 goals to finish third, 12 points behind the champions Chelsea.
With Cech, Arsenal should be more than capable of lowering their goals-against total this season to around 32, the amount Chelsea leaked last season, which in turn could be enough to displace them at the summit of the Premier League.
Even during their nine-year barren spell without a trophy, Arsenal never suffered from a lack of guile and creativity in the centre of the pitch, but the class of 2015 could be their finest collection of midfielders yet.
The immense and collective talent of Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Alexis Sanchez, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Tomas Rosicky and Mikel Arteta simply demands that Arsenal win their first title in 12 years.
Read that list of names again. It would be bordering on negligence if this midfield did not at the very least challenge for the title this season.
The one outstanding area of concern is determining who will play up front and convert the steady supply of chances this midfield will inevitably create.
It is the reason speculation that Karim Benzema was on a private plane destined for London caused so much excitement amongst Arsenal fans last week. His arrival would have immediately turned Arsenal from title hopefuls to title favourites.
Benzema's plane never landed, of course, leaving Theo Walcott, Olivier Giroud and Danny Welbeck to compete for the role as Arsenal's main striker.
If one of this trio, and it is unlikely to be Welbeck, steps up and seizes their opportunity, Arsenal will be a very different team.
Olivier Giroud can be unfairly derided but still boasts a record of nearly a goal every other game for Arsenal, while Walcott finished last season with a hat-trick in the Premier League and a starting spot and a goal in the FA Cup final.
The season hasn't started yet, but Arsenal have that most precious quality in football: momentum. In their final 18 games of last season, they lost only twice in the Premier League, and they also won the FA Cup.
Even at Wembley on Sunday, Wenger revealed a more pragmatic approach by being content to win ugly. Arsenal were not at their fluent best, but it should not matter, for they contained Chelsea and came away with that win.
A more flexible Wenger, a new goalkeeper with greater authority, a midfield of unrivalled class in the Premier League, a stable of strikers with something to prove and still four weeks to sign another one.
Over the next nine months, this could very well add up to Arsenal being able to parade the Premier League trophy at the Emirates for the first time next May.
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