It is not hard to see why Arsenal are now many people's favourites to win the Premier League this season. Take their results against Newcastle, West Ham, Fulham and Crystal Palace compared to those matches in the previous campaign. The Gunners have beaten all of them this time around, but dropped 10 points across those games as they fell away in the title race last season. A draw at Fulham, another at home to Palace, while they lost at Newcastle and were beaten at home by West Ham. It meant the Gunners finished second for a second successive season, this time with a 10-point deficit to champions Liverpool, showing just how crucial such results are to the final outcome.

What is even more impressive about Arsenal's start to the campaign is they have also played Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle United away from home and Manchester City at home - and are still four points clear at the top from Bournemouth. While they keep winning, their traditional rivals aren't faring so well. In fact, is is the first time at this stage of this season since 1992 that none of Manchester City and United, Liverpool or Chelsea are in the Premier League top four.

"It is interesting because there are some misconceptions we have and that is true with Arsenal. People call them set-piece FC and all that," former City defender Nedum Onouha told BBC Radio 5 Live. "But they are up there with teams with the most shots in the Premier League and had the fewest goals conceded, conceded the fewest chances and the fewest shots. "They are brilliant. They sit top of the league and they deserve to be there."

The pressure was on boss Mikel Arteta at the start, having spent around £250m on eight summer signings in search of that elusive first title since 2004. But the business has so far paid off in style, with his side second top scorers in the league and having the tightest defence, despite a number of injuries.

"Arsenal can do a bit of everything now. The whole team has a fear factor." former Gunners striker Theo Walcott added on BBC Sport. "People are just afraid of them and it is great to see. "It's starting to now be normal that they don't concede goals. They will have a bad patch and last year it was too many draws, but I don't think that's going to happen this year. There is belief in the whole club now."

Ex-Arsenal and England striker Ellen White described Arteta's men as a "juggernaut, looking difficult to stop". Arsenal's defensive solidity is a key reason why they are looking well positioned to finally fulfil their title target. Arteta himself said he valued the win over Palace more "than any other victory this season", and with Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City losing, Arsenal had "a big opportunity as well with the things that happened during this weekend".

"We are where we are [in the league] and it is a credit to us because we've been very, very consistent, but it really doesn't mean anything other than let's keep doing a lot of things that we're doing really well," he added. "There are things to improve as well to give us better margins."

Defensively, his side rank top in the league for clean sheets (6), goals conceded (3), shots faced (72), shots on target faced (19) and expected goals against (xGA 5.3). They restricted Palace to just one shot on target and even that opportunity was when the ball flicked off of Eddie Nketiah's head and into keeper David Raya's hands. The central defensive pairing of Gabriel and William Saliba is arguably the best in the league and Arsenal have kept a clean sheet in six of their first nine games, more than any other team this season. There is a slight worry over Saliba's fitness as he was withdrawn at half-time, but when summer arrival Cristhian Mosquera has stepped into the team, the 21-year-old has looked an elite centre-back.

Arsenal have kept a clean sheet in each of their last three games in the Premier League, a run of 385 minutes without conceding, and have only let in three goals in 12 games in all competitions this season.

"The pattern for Arsenal is that they can play anyone and get results. The champions of old don't concede many goals and Arsenal have belief they'll make a chance and they'll take it." said Walcott. "It's been a weekend of poor results for teams you'd expect to win. "Arsenal's bad spell this year have been not playing well but still getting results. I think that's down to Mikel [Arteta] - he's really trying to get the level 100% focused throughout the game."

Their threat from set-pieces is well known, but opposition teams still don't know how to contain the Gunners from the opportunities they get. They have scored crucial goals in matches against Manchester United, Newcastle, Fulham and Atletico Madrid from set-pieces and those goals have seen them pick up vital wins, or Gabriel opened the scoring against Atletico when it looked like there was no way through. Opposing managers have highlighted Arsenal's quality from corners and free-kicks and, in Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice, they have two of the best takers in the league. They have scored 11 times from set-pieces in the league, two more than any other side (Chelsea, 9) and 69% (11/16) of their goals in 2025-26 have come from them too. Arsenal will hope to score more from open play, but having the highest ratio of goals from set-pieces at this stage, while being top, is no bad thing.