talkingOfArsenal.com

This season, unlike last season, instead of coming back from 1-0 to draw 1-1 against your Aston Villas and your Man Cities and your Newcastles and your Portsmouths, Arsenal are winning those sorts of games and instead coming back to draw against your Liverpool's and your Man Utd's.

Arsenal have without doubt raised their game, and it shows. The next set of games which are mostly away from home will test the squad in a totally different way to the two games of the past week or so.  The teams Arsenal play next are a mixture of teams with relegation potential, teams with European potential, and teams with top-four upset potential.

The squad will have to keep their levels of concentration high, and not under-estimate any team we play. This is the reason why Wenger's has used the word "humility" a number of times during his various press conferences. He is talking to his players through the media, and what he is effectively saying when he uses that word is this - underestimate any team you play in the premiership at your peril. Be humble when considering other teams, because if you drop your level of play against any team, you will pay for it. Don't think that you can just turn up, and come away with the points. He is reminding the team of the reason why Arsenal were out of the title race so early last year - it was the points we dropped against so-called lower table sides.

Arséne will be hoping to bag all three points away to Reading, however I believe this game will be harder it looks like on paper (I sincerely hope I'm proven wrong) - Reading are unlikely to be beaten easily at home. In the mean time, our closest rivals play Blackburn Rovers - with the way both those teams are playing, and with the loss of Rooney to injury from training today and the resultant loss of the Tevez/Rooney partnership, this game could genuinely go 2-0 either way - remember how badly Man Utd played when Rooney was injured at the beginning of this season.

Anyways, back to Arsenal.

Last season, after a bad start, we all spent the time waiting for Arsenal's season to come good with non-Arsenal supporters (including the press) being extremely skeptical that this was ever going to happen. This season, something different is happening. After a good start to the season, we're spending our time hoping and believing that this run of success will last, and the non-Arsenal supporters (along with the press) have been waiting on the wings for the wheels to come off. We'll just have to wait and see how things pan out.

It is important that the team goes into the international break still at the top of the table. In the past these international breaks have been an unwanted distraction, due to their tendency to break our flow when we've been trying to put together a run of wins to make up for lost time/points. This year though, I've seen these international weeks more as a break from the hectic, a chance to give our players some respite from the hustle-and-bustle of the premier league - that is if you can call playing for their various national teams any kind of respite. Of main concern will of course be our players returning injury-free, as was witnessed with the injury Van Persie suffered just as he'd gotten into the swing of scoring in the premiership.

This season so far, Arsenal have dropped points mainly against top-four contenders, with the draw against Blackburn being the one exception - and even that might not have been had our beloved keeper not had his second off-day at the office.

The reason for this is many-fold. Firstly, the team has a raw technical ability that you simply cannot purchase off-shelf - this in isolation as we've witnessed in previous seasons though, is not enough. Add to that, Wenger has worked on the individual and team work rates, increasing their stamina to a level that is likely not to be surpassed by any other team in the league - this explains the squads ability to run for the full 90 minutes in full confidence that come the dying minutes, opposition players will tire out and give us opportunities.  This is bourne out by Arsenal being the club with most goals scored in the dying minutes this season. As our oppositions have tired, so it has made it possible for us to score late.

With our run of games and our current position atop the league table, the results have increased our self-belief and I would say that this team now has a winning mentality against teams outside of the top-four.

When it comes to playing the top four however, humility is not enough. In fact, it could be argued that the exact opposite is required when playing your Liverpools, Man Utds or Chelseas. What is needed when playing these other clubs, is a huge dose of winning mentality, and a belief that these teams can and will be beaten.

The swings between the extremes of humility and a winning mentality, is a tight-rope that Arsene and the boys will have to navigate for the duration of the season - having humility when they play lower-table clubs to ensure they keep their game at a high level, and having self-belief and a winning mentality to overcome the other top-four teams when they meet.

Whether we like it or not, and I hate to admit this, now that the dust has settled on last weeks game against Man Utd, there is a feeling that there is still a little way to go to attain that all-important winning mentality against the other teams within the top-four. I'm not saying that Utd were better, especially with their 'hit-us-on-the-break' tactics, I know they weren't. I'm not comparing Arsenal to Utd in any way when saying this - but the way I see it, if we are to win the league, we're going to have to beat whoever we happen to be playing, top-four or not.

Perhaps I am being a little harsh considering Utd's first goal was an accidental one and the game might've turned out different if Utd hadn't take the lead first. Perhaps, the genuine entrepreneurial streak shown by the Gunners to score straight after the break, and as well in the dying minutes to pull level does show the mental strength of winners.

Regardless, the sooner we get to the point where we win no matter who we play, the better. And believe you me, Arséne and this young team have time over the next few seasons to tweak themselves into that state of mind.

And when they do, God help the rest of the Premier League.