our ranking of the biggest clubs\u2019 current second XIs<\/strong><\/a>, where Arsenal\u2019s bench quality is shown in its most dramatically impressive light.<\/p>\nArsenal, uniquely, are in a position to name two entirely separate XIs in which no obvious point of significant weakness is exposed, no square-peg player is forced into a round-peg hole. Where there is not one player who has to be picked about whom you\u2019d have serious reservations.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d go so far as to say Arsenal\u2019s second XI would finish pretty handily in the top six of the Premier League if they played 38 games together.<\/p>\n
And that represents a remarkable achievement. Now we\u2019re not about to paint the fabulously wealthy Gunners as plucky little Davids downing Goliaths here. They\u2019ve spent vast sums of money and there\u2019s no point pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n
But look around you. Never has it been more painfully obvious in more painfully obvious places that simply spending vast sums of money is all that needs to be done.<\/p>\n
The fact is Arsenal have outdone everyone on the squad-building front over the last 12 months \u2013 even Liverpool, who neglected their defence until the very last moment and thus haven\u2019t covered all bases as adroitly as the Gunners. And they\u2019ve done it in a way that anyone else in the Big Six could have done.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve spent lots, but not conspicuously more than so many clubs who have such vastly inferior overall squads to show for it.<\/p>\n
And yes, Arsenal were operating from a position of some strength given the largely blemish-free nature of their first XI. But that in itself is only more impressive; you can\u2019t downplay a club\u2019s squad-building success on the basis it follows other success. That is literally the whole point.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy and often great fun to mock Arsenal and their faith in Process and Phases, but we\u2019re seeing it play out now as they approach their final form. Piece by piece, brick by brick, they\u2019ve built the Premier League\u2019s best squad.<\/p>\n
And for all that they have had a very decent first XI for a good few years now, the pace of the transformation of the squad in general should not be overlooked.<\/p>\n
A year ago, Arsenal were making characteristically hard work of a home game against Leicester. It was all a bit Liverpool 25\/26 in many ways: a 2-0 lead blown before snatching back the victory deep into added time.<\/p>\n
But what\u2019s really striking about Arsenal a year ago and Arsenal now is how the starting XI is so familiar, yet the subs\u2019 bench looks like one from a different universe altogether. Ten of the starting XI that day are still key members of Arsenal\u2019s squad; Thomas Partey is the only exception.<\/p>\n
Yet their subs\u2019 bench is a world away from New Arsenal. Raheem Sterling is there. Neto is there. Jakub Kiwior. Jorginho. Maldini Kacurri and Joshua Nichols. Gabriel Jesus. And, fair enough, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly.<\/p>\n
The Arsenal bench at St James\u2019 Park had William Saliba. And Ben White, and Martin Odegaard, and Christian Norgaard and Gabriel Martinelli and Mikel Merino. And also still Myles Lewis-Skelly. They have fashioned a squad that can be without Noni Madueke, Piero Hincapie, Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz yet not miss a beat.<\/p>\n
Arsenal have quietly been building a squad that nobody else can match, and having negotiated the toughest start to the season of anyone, are now in a position to really make some noise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal are now favourites and best placed to win the Premier League. There, we said it. They have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2725,9,10,18,1323,13,14,793,6,794,19,17,11,12,1009,15,16,5003,5,5004,7,8,5279],"class_list":{"0":"post-93062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-f365-says","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-front-page","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-home-page","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-liverpool","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-mikel-arteta","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-popular","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories","30":"tag-uncategorized"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}