Arsenal pass another test in striking style

If you’re a fan of both Arsenal and symbolism, then your Sunday lunchtime was a particularly funtime.

Arsenal are back top of the league after swatting Brentford aside at their own ground with something approaching dismissive, arrogant ease.

Being top of the league. That’s quite a good symbol, isn’t it? Especially a league that has this absolute nonsense of a Manchester City side in it, and, to a far lesser extent, a Tottenham team whose current position and points total appear wildly at odds with its performances.

But let’s get back to the side of North London where things look far more convincing and sustainable. There was no more fitting ground for Arsenal to show just how good they are and how far they’ve come in a relatively short space of time.

It was, of course, at Brentford on the opening night of last season where Mikel Arteta’s side had their pants so mercilessly pulled down by the Premier League new boys.

And for a final, decisive dose of symbolism about not just Arsenal’s direction of travel but the long-term nature of what they are attempting to achieve – or really bring back – for the club, Arteta ended a quite brilliant afternoon by bringing on a 15-year-old substitute. A player who wasn’t born when Dennis Bergkamp retired. A player who has only ever known Arsenal to have one stadium, for fu…

What becomes of Ethan Nwaneri is impossible to know. But Arsenal fans are increasingly sure about what’s happening to their club. The by now entirely giddy visiting fans certainly enjoyed his cameo, gleefully if inaccurately singing about how he had “school in the morning” to round out an afternoon where the Arsenal support was able to cycle through its current favourite hits.

The opening goal was headed in brilliantly by William Saliba, his second goal of the season already prompting the latest full-throated rendition of the wonderfully camp and impossibly catchy reimagining of Tequila that has become an Arsenal trademark.

Saliba is a fascinating case. For all your Gabriel Jesuses and your Aleksandar Zinchenkos, Saliba has surely been the most transformative player in this Arsenal team. The tantalising ‘what if?’ is what would have happened had he been part of Arsenal’s rather than Marseille’s squad last season? Would the ending of the 2021/22 season have been different? Or would he not quite be the player he has become? Right now, Arsenal fans don’t really give a shit. And you know what? Fair enough. DO DOO…