It seems that one thumping of a mediocre Premier League team has given Manchester United the bragging rights for the title race, such as it is at this stage of the season, with both Evra and Tevez claiming that they are a better side than Arsenal. We shall see whether such confidence is well founded or misplaced in about seven months time. The Arsenal players meanwhile are playing down such talk with Kolo Toure stating,

For the minute we don’t talk about it. We just focus on what we are doing well, enjoy it and make our fans happy. At thed end we will see how far we go. The season is really long

In an age when the lurid activities or bragging is the standard by which newspapers judge the quality of a player, the humility displayed by Toure during interviews is a refreshing change. For a big club, Arsenal have very few adverse headlines which is a testament to the ethos of those involved and the awareness of the players of their responsibilities.

The subject of what has changed in the squad is touched on and Toure believes that they are more patient when trailing or level. Which is more or less the same as Adebayor said at the weekend in that the spirit within the squad is much improved on last time around. Indeed, the Togolese forward believes the confidence stems from pre-season when,

we felt at our training camp that we had a good side

There is no doubt that winning breeds confidence but perhaps more than anything a poor result shows the character of a squad. This season, the draw at Blackburn has been the only one so far and it has brought forth a run of ten wins. It is amazing how one team can be the spark for such runs, reminiscent of the 3 – 1 home defeat in 98 and the 3 – 3 draw at Highbury a couple of seasons later which were the catalysts for moving up a gear on the pitch. Time will tell if history is repeating itself.

The international break is not quite so arduous this time around for some of the players. Only Gilberto and Adebayor are out of Europe during the fortnight, the former potentially playing two games for Brazil, the latter just the one for Togo. With it being a home game, you would have to say that the likelihood is that he will be off to the ACN in the winter which is good for the player not so helpful for the Club. In the lead up to that, I would not be surprised if Bendtner and Eduardo are given significantly more playing time than they might otherwise expect to get them up to speed with the rest of the team. The plus point is that Adebayor ought to be back at the Club on Monday or Tuesday with the Togo v Mali fixture taking place this coming Saturday so for Bolton, he ought to be raring to go. Despite a languid style, I believe he has more stamina than a number of the other players, it is just he looks tired from minute one.

Indeed looking at the fixtures, the calls for rotation of the squad were a little unnecessary with Toure, Eboue, Rosicky, Gallas, Clichy, Sagna, Flamini and Diaby all playing one game in the next fortnight. The pity of it is that they take place next Wednesday. It is good for those recovering for injuries as the longer they wait to recover, the more certain you can be that they are not being rushed back by their national coaches. For some it will be a fortnight’s break without a game and that can only be good. A rare occasion indeed when Arsene will not be worried about overuse of those players. For the rest, it is simply a case of wait and see on the injury front and hoping that any injuries incurred are minor, or more preferrably, that none at all are sustained.

On the subject of Internationals, the age old weary complaint that Wenger does not breed English players rears its ugly head with Martin Samuel the guilty party this time, proving that you can take the man out of the tabloids but you can never take the tabloids out of the man. It is a pointless piece; Wenger will, according to Samuel, be judged to have failed in this area because there are not enough Arsenal players in the England squad. The problem is that Samuel is not berating him for not signing any old tat, it is that they don’t come through the Academy ranks fast enough. The article is not an ‘Arsenal hating’ one, nor even one that hates Arsene; indeed, Samuel admires his footballing philosophy and the ‘goods on the pitch’, lamenting that the current England squad contains

at least a single representative from each of the top 11 clubs in England, bar one. The best one

I won’t disagree on that statement but the problem I have with this argument is that aside from it being tiresome, Samuel answers his own problem,

His job is to produce the best team for Arsenal and it should not be bolstered by artificial charity cases

So why bother having a pop at Le Boss? Why not turn his ire on the people who deserve it, namely the administrators that say we can only basically look inside the M25 and Home Counties to train English players but can quite happily import Europeans, Africans and Americans? The nonsensical rulings are the reason, Mr Samuel. Don’t blame the worker trying to do the best for his employers, blame the red tape.

In a backhanded way though it is a compliment to Wenger and a slap in the face for every other Premier League club. Samuel obviously wants the players to come through the Arsenal ranks to learn the game properly as opposed to being sunk in the mire of long ball merchants that currently proliferate English football.

’til Tomorrow.