Arsenal have added steel to style for three-way title race

Askey players return from injury and goals keep flying in, the Gunners suddenly look wellset to last the pace

- Nick Ames

Scroll back a year and some S of the parallels are hard to ignore. At this point in 2023, Arsenal were four games into a winning run that eventually extended to seven and they had discovered how to cut loose. Across that spell they scored 23 times and it briefly felt, as spring bloomed, that a newly clinical side was showing its true colours.

The nosedive that followed has been well documented. So what, if anything, has changed? "I think the maturity," said Jorginho, who has emerged from the shadows to stand tall in Arsenal's latest imperious run, after the rout of Sheffield United. "We are way more mature [in] how we compete and how we manage the games. I think that's it." But there is something else.

Arsenal's current run, again across seven games, has brought 31 goals with the concession of just three. They are not just beating opponents comfortably. They are swatting them out of sight. While detractors will make a case that they have plucked a basketful of low-hanging fruit since midJanuary, the fact remains that nobody else is winning games by similar margins and with this consistency. They are the first side in England to have won three consecutive away matches by five goals or more.