Arsenal have everything they need to repeat as Premier League champions

Sunday’s win at Liverpool showed the Gunners are deeper, more experienced, and are playing against a weaker class of contenders than last season

Arsenal are three points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But given the team in second are Manchester City, who are likely to be facing at the very least a major points deduction, perhaps more significant is that they are five clear of Brighton in third. The season of domination that many anticipated from the champions appears to be coming to pass.

Liverpool challenged them on Sunday. There was a 20-minute spell before half-time when they swarmed all over Arsenal, and Anfield felt at least like it did in the golden years of Jürgen Klopp, when it buzzed with an energy that could overwhelm visitors. But Arsenal got through that, reset at half-time, and navigated the second half with relative comfort. For the second league game running, they denied Liverpool a shot on target.

If there is a lesson, it is that Liverpool, like Brighton, demonstrated that a very aggressive press can unsettle Arsenal. But then, a very aggressive press can unsettle anybody. In Arsenal’s loss at Brighton, Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas took difficult opportunities; at Anfield Liverpool were denied what should surely have been a penalty when Jurriën Timber tugged Alexander Isak’s shirt – another bad moment for VAR, in that the no-call essentially mandated players to go down and highlight contact. Later, Alexis Mac Allister put a free header over. That was the difference, and this Arsenal team will not give opponents many chances. They are good at closing games out. Ezri Konsa in particular was outstanding on Sunday.

They also have a strong bench. The policy has been to make the squad deeper rather than adding the very highest quality – which is why the links with Vinícius Júnior over the summer were so unexpected. That has frustrated some, but it has been successful. Arsenal on Sunday could bring on Myles Lewis-Skelly, Piero Hincapié, Viktor Gyökeres and Mikel Merino to protect their lead with very little diminution of quality. But it’s not just on a man-to-man level that Liverpool’s options suffer by comparison; their changes upset the balance. They never really had control of the game once Dominik Szoboszlai had come on for Trey Nyoni.

It’s been a recurring feature of this season that Arsenal turn half-time draws into full-time wins – it’s already happened seven times. Winning individual games, though, is only part of it; a deeper squad means there can be more rotation, which should help prevent fatigue as the season goes on, as well as providing additional cover when injuries do occur. That said, their depth was not sufficient to get them past Fleetwood in the Carabao Cup last week, although they will face few games in conditions as challenging as those on the Lancashire coast.

There are still three-quarters of the season to go, and Arsenal were in a similarly commanding position at this stage last season, four points clear of second-placed Bournemouth after nine games. The expectation then was for a procession that didn’t materialise and looked, amid a spring wobble, to have gone awry. Then as now the feeling was not merely that Arsenal were very good, but that none of their rivals looked especially threatening.

But this season they have the memory of winning the title; the insecurity of three successive second-place finishes should be lessened. There is a resilience to them that has already brought a first win at Anfield since 2012 and a victory at Nottingham Forest after successive goalless draws at the City Ground. They’re picking up points at grounds where they’ve stumbled.

Last season, City were more resilient than had been anticipated. It may be a different story this time, and not just because of the potential for a savage points deduction. After seven straight wins they have lost successive league games to Aston Villa and Brighton, but the vulnerabilities that have been exposed had been apparent earlier in the season: a high defensive line that can be exploited. Liverpool are starting to coalesce under Andoni Iraola but they haven’t clicked quite yet and are, anyway, nine points adrift. Chelsea are a point better off but still a work in progress. Brighton have probably been the best other side, but they don’t have the depth to be considered a title challenger.

Sunday made clear what was already widely suspected: Arsenal are the best team in the league by some margin. It’s not just their depth, their cohesion and the wide variety of situations from which they can score goals, it’s that they now have belief and are picking up points at places where they have often failed in the past. And if they do build up a substantial lead by Easter, that could be hugely beneficial to their European challenge, which remains the one unconquered frontier.