Arsenal make it 4 straight wins to stay top
A 1-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday 1 November took Arsenal to 24 points from 9 games, +9 on goal difference and 1st in the Premier League.
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Arsenal have won 4 in a row. The latest came at Liverpool on Sunday 1 November, a 1-0 result that kept them at the top of the Premier League on 24 points from 9 matches.
The form line reads LWWWW. Eight wins, no draws, one defeat. 14 goals scored, 5 conceded, a goal difference of +9. Only one side in the division has a better differential, and that side sits below them.
That is the oddity of the table. Man City are second on 21 points with a differential of +10, three better than Arsenal's. Brighton Hove are third on 19 with +17. Both have scored and conceded in stranger patterns than the leaders, who have simply refused to drop points since the opening defeat.
The split is worth a second look. At home Arsenal have 10 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. Away it is 9 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. The road record is the one carrying the run, which is not the usual shape of a title push.
Next comes Arsenal at home on Saturday 7 November, the 10th matchday. On paper it is the softer of the two fixtures around the international break. On current evidence, paper has not mattered much.
Can anyone slow them down? Chelsea are fourth on 16 and Liverpool fifth on 15, both already adrift of a side that has lost once all season. The gap to second is three points. That is not cushion. It is a margin that survives exactly as long as the wins keep coming.
Four straight victories is a run, not a season. But Arsenal have made the top of the Premier League look like theirs to lose, and nobody below them has yet found a way to make that sound premature.