This Arsenal team make mistakes and wobble, but quickly make up for them

Terrace Talk: Mikel Arteta has assembled a squad that has got each others backs and the supporters have bought into the vibe and culture too

IN SYNC: Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka celebrates scoring their side's third goal of the game with team-mates during the Premier League match at the Emirates Stadium, London. Pic: Zac Goodwin/PA Wire.

'I KNOW we smashed them here last season, but this feels different. There is something different about us this season. They're better now, but we are MUCH better.'

A brief exchange overheard in the remarkably well-maintained gents midway through the second half at Arsenal's Emirates stadium (while Tottenham were attempting a drawn out quadruple substitution) gave an insight into the thoughts running through the minds of the home support in the 192nd North London derby. 

The outcome of bigger tests than their local rivals will show if Arsenal are more than just top four contenders, but for now everyone seemed happy enough.

I had forsaken the relative safety of the Arsenal media suite and press box to get a fans-eye view of this rare top-of-the-table clash between the bitter old rivals. No laid on pre-match food and drink and back to the under-staffed and over-priced lottery of concourse catering where a burger and chips sets you back €14.67 and you have enough time to queue. With tickets exchanging hands for up to €400 outside it was perhaps a small price to pay. I passed all the same.

Most of us were not there to eat, but savour the soccer.

Manager Mikel Arteta has fashioned a winning team in his own image and now has the supporters fully behind him three years into his reign. It is a brand of play pleasing to the eye and easy to get behind. The quick-passing attack-minded approach now comes with added 2022/23 zeal and steel when the flow of a match is going against them.

They make mistakes and wobble, but quickly make up for them. They look after each other and do not look to cast blame or throw a tantrum after errors. Arteta has assembled a squad that has got each others backs and the supporters have bought into the vibe and culture too. So far, albeit after only eight matches, only Manchester United have proved capable of coping with this season's incarnation of Arsenal.

In fairness, the fans were singing about 'Super Mik Arteta' last season too, but arguably not in such large numbers as now the backing for the boss and his players is seemingly unequivocal.

The Spaniard has been a leader in getting the club to establish closer links to the fans inside the ground, encouraging, towards the end of last season, the playing of a new club anthem Louis Dunford's 'The Angel (North London Forever)' with the aim of emulating Liverpool's 'You'll Never Walk Alone' as a pre-match scene-setter.

Sounds corny, maybe, but it was a smart move and has worked. The song was immediately adopted by the young and vocal fans who call themselves the Ashburton Army based next to the away fans at the stadium's 'Clock End' and was noticeably belted out by all sections of the ground on Saturday.

There were impressive Tifos on display at both ends of the ground before kick off to help ensure the match started with a roar and the noise levels rarely dipped. There is evidently a harmony among those who are able to get to games not experienced since the peak of Arsene Wenger's trophy-laden days. The toxicity and factions that developed in his later years and were in no way dissipated by the incommunicative Unai Emery now feel like a distant memory.

The so-called Highbury Library is silent no more because the club has finally got in step with their fanbase again. And a lot of that is down to Arteta's initiative. Most of the players are popular enough to have their own songs again with most of the love in this match aimed at William Saliba (to the tune of the hit 1950's number 'Tequila'). 

To then hear former club villain turned Saturday's man of the match Granit Xhaka's being sung the loudest at the final whistle – three years after he was being booed off here – defined just how far things have moved on in Arteta's time at the club.

It helps, of course, that they are playing a winning brand of football. Fears that Antonio Conte's usually effective, negative tactics might pay off were banished as soon as the irrepressible Gabriel Jesus restored Arsenal's lead at the start of the second half. 

Tottenham looked well beaten long before the largely ineffective Emerson Royal was sent off in the 67th minute but it was still surprising, and of much amusement to Arsenal fans in the stands, when the Italian coach waved the white flag by making five substitutions of his 'best' players (apart from Harry Kane) with a good 20 minutes to go.

Tottenham, as their handful of remaining supporters were keen to remind their hosts, had already turned their attention to Tuesday's much more winnable Champions League group game away to Eintracht Frankfurt. That Arsenal are not playing there is, in part, down to their humbling defeat at Tottenham at the end of last season.

Arteta's Arsenal aspire to be back at the top table of European football with or without the local enemy next season. They responded to their trailing off at the end of last season by greatly improving the strength of their squad and starting line-up in the summer and it paid off again in this one-sided encounter. 

This Thursday, however, they will have to make do with a Europa League home tie against Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt that few had even heard of before being drawn against them.

It will not have the same intense atmosphere as Saturday's derby, but will be close to another sell-out 60,000 to see some of the exciting fringe members of Arsenal's new look squad such as Portugal midfielder Fabio Vieira and Brazilian winger Marquinhos.

For now, at least until Tottenham are the hosts of the next derby in January, north London is RED.