Arsenal Review: Never Mind The Goals, Enjoy These Glorious Gunners

Four more goals, another round of applause from opponents and rivals and a place within reach of Chelsea at the top - yes, it was another decent day at the office for Arsenal on Saturday.

Having scored 36 goals in 11 league games, plus 15 in six Champions League fixtures and four in two Carling Cup ties, there is grand talk of breaking the 100-goals and even 150-goals barriers. Please, please, ignore it...

Just as Arsene Wenger has been right to persist with his collection of youngsters, he is also right to keep fevered speculation in check.

"You are always cautious in football," he said, "because it is a fragile sport." In other words, he may be just one injury away from the temporary destruction of his dazzling team's current sustained zenith of delightful football. One injury, or two mistakes; perhaps, also, an unexpected disciplinary mishap - who knows?

But on this form - and there is no arguing with statistics - this team has the potential (one of Wenger's favorite words) to achieve greatness. And, significantly for this correspondent, it has come following the departures of two players of physical strength, great presence and experience, at center-forward and center-back, a move that many pundits foresaw as a weakening and not a strengthening of the squad.

For what these free-scoring cavaliers do have, and in abundance, as they displayed at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, is a cohesion and togetherness, as people, that is reflected in the selfless fluency and movement of their football.

Robin van Persie may have scored eight goals this season in his 14 appearances (a very good return for a striker by any standards), but it is his link-up play, his provision of assists for others and his selfless off-the-ball intelligence and industry that sets him apart from other strikers.

He is not a center-forward of the Emmanuel Adebayor or Didier Drogba mold; that is to say a focal point of the attack through whom, and off whom, movements are nearly always built. No, he is something else. He performs that role, but has added to it an elusive sense of movement and a willingness to interchange positions in order to make space for others, qualities that have turned him from a very fine forward into a near-great one in a matter of months. In Van Persie, there is more of Marco Van Basten than anyone since the Dutch master's career was ended prematurely by injury in 1995.

All for one | Arsenal's teamwork is exceptional

Arsenal's third goal at Molineux showed all of their qualities: industry in the middle third by Cesc Fabregas at the start of the move; athletic and offensive ambition by Bacary Sagna to overlap and link up the play; intelligent anticipation and soft-slippered technique by Van Persie as he moved, received and cushioned the ball; and speed of thought and movement, coupled with a coolness in the finish from Fabregas who ran 50 yards. It was a perfect team goal.

And it demonstrated that this team, Wenger's finest creation and, arguably, the best purely creative and attacking side seen in English football for a generation, has the potential to develop into the best in Europe. Andrey Arshavin last week said he believed Arsenal could win everything this season and gained support from his team-mates. He also said he still felt that Barcelona played the more beautiful football.

That remains a moot point. At their best, Barcelona's football is breathtakingly accomplished and inspiring. But Arsenal are improving so rapidly and demolishing opponents so comprehensively that they have every right to believe they can match them if not this season then certainly the next. As entertainers, they make a football-lover smile. And that is what these flamboyant goal-fests are really all about - confirmation that this football team has reached a level of consistent play that is unmatched by others.

The results will come if the goals flow and the performances continue to improve with the maturing of the players. Clean sheets? Yes, please; but not at the cost of this swaggering entertaining football. Trophies? Goals? Records? Do not worry about them...  Let the ball talk, enjoy the football; and feast the eyes on that rarity in England - a team that has joi de vivre stamped all over it.

And remember, the time to talk of records is after they are achieved.