Meet the new Arsenal: Not too emotional like their manager, powered by the pain of last season’s collapse – and proving Gary Neville’s prophecy right. IAN LADYMAN writes on a team who nobody is laughing at now

It was Gary Neville who recently said that Arsenal could win the Premier League if they found a way to produce last season in reverse. Nobody thought it possible. Surely Manchester City and Liverpool were too good. But an astonishing run of seven consecutive home wins backed by an extraordinary tally of 31 goals has changed all that.

Neville’s point, made on his Stick to Football podcast, was simply that Arsenal had shown during the first half of last season how devastating they can be when on a roll. In the 2022-23 campaign, Arsenal only lost one league game before the beginning of February. Nerves (and Pep Guardiola’s City) got the best of them in the end but, Neville asked, where could they go this time if a more modest set of autumn and winter results could be bolstered by something better once the clocks moved forward?

And now, suddenly, here we are. As City and Liverpool prepare to face each other and therefore take points off each other at Anfield on Sunday, Arsenal’s recent surge in form and confidence will take them to the top of the table if they beat Brentford at home a day earlier. They already have a superior goal difference.

Monday night’s 6-0 demolition of Sheffield United at Bramall Lane was beautiful in its sheer ruthlessness. We have asked before whether Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are too weak and too soft. We have asked them if, like his Spanish coach, they can become too emotional. Well, that’s not happening. Not now. Nowhere.

Arsenal were magnificent on Monday night. He scored three goals in 15 minutes, four in half an hour and five at half-time. By the time we got to full time, it was six o’clock and they had stopped trying.

The Gunners defeated Sheffield United by six goals at Bramall Lane in their third league win by five or more goals in February.

Just two points behind league leaders Liverpool, the north London side face a run that could define their season.

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This, however, is a new Arsenal. It is a prototype development. He had to change and grow if he wanted to win things. Last season taught us that and the progress in this regard is now written in his scorebook. 5-0, 2-1, 3-1, 6-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-0. It reads almost like the result of a one-sided tennis match and that’s what it feels like watching Arsenal right now. They certainly had too much pace, power, imagination and skill for Sheffield United on Monday night.

After restarting with a spell of absence over the winter break that earned them their FA Cup expulsion in January at the hands of Liverpool, Arsenal now face a period that could decide their season. They will face Brentford this weekend without preferred goalkeeper David Raya, who is not allowed to play against the club from which he moved on loan to Arsenal. They also have doubts about Gabriel Martinelli, who injured his foot on Monday night, and also about Bukayo Saka, who left the field at half-time feeling unwell.

Meanwhile, next Tuesday they have a single goal deficit in the Champions League to overcome at home to Porto, but beyond all that comes the promise of a nineteen-day break – due to their lack of participation in the FA Cup – before a huge game at City on March 31.

Arteta on Monday ruled out the possibility of taking his team abroad again, which is a shame given how well his stay in Dubai seemed to work out in January. They left after losing at home to Liverpool and came back ready to sweep away all comers.

Instead, Arsenal will push forward partly on their own momentum. It just doesn’t look like they can lose right now. But also because of the memories of the collapse at the end of last season.

“It was very painful,” said Martin Odegaard, one of Arsenal’s five different goalscorers on Monday night.

Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard is keen to erase bad memories of last season’s poor run.

“I think now is the time to show that we have learned.”

The words are easy to say. It looks like Arsenal must beat City later this month if they are to have a say in this title race. Aside from that, their other toughest match between now and the end of the season is a north London derby against Tottenham on April 27 and with that in mind, there appears to be a path available to navigate if Arteta and his players They feel ready to participate. to death this time.

Last season was too much for them and we know it. There is no shame in being run over by the city giant. This time opportunity knocks on the door again. His key players are fit and the presence of Jorginho and the fit Thomas Partey can free Declan Rice into the forward positions where he has shown he can be so effective and dangerous.

We laughed at Odegaard and his gang when they celebrated like champions after beating Liverpool on their own turf a month ago. None of this seems so frivolous now.