Arsenal deserve more credit for keeping their cool in battling Burnley win

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On Sunday morning, Turf Moor had seen just six goals in seven matches so far this season, fewer than any other ground in the country. For the best part 91 minutes on Sunday afternoon, it looked as though that statistic would come to read six in eight.

Burnley's protection of their own goal borders on pathological. As long as a body part can be used to legally block the ball, it will be. If an attacker's sight of goal can be narrowed down a degree or two, it invariably is. Tackles that require defenders to take on a significant amount of personal risk are courageously executed all the same.

Sean Dyche expects and receives full and unwavering commitment from his players, which is partly why his side are doing as well as they are. It is also why Arsenal deserve a lot of credit for eventually scoring the seventh Turf Moor goal of the season and leaving east Lancashire with three points.

After all, even the Manchester City's irresistible force can run into problems against compact and well-organised opponents, as was seen on the other side of the Pennines a few hours later. Arsenal were the first member of the Premier League's ‘top six’ elite to go away to Burnley this season and could easily finish the campaign as the only ones to win there too.

Granted, the manner of the victory was contentious, with Dyche “raging” after seeing James Tarkowski concede a soft penalty in added-on time, and the Burnley manager was right to argue that his side warranted a point, but that should not deter from how well Arsenal did to manage the match and ultimately win it.

A quarter of an hour in, Burnley were dragging their visitors kicking and screaming into the type of contest that they have typically struggled with in the past. It was a physical affair, lacking in any coherent rhythm and played at a tempo that denied more cerebral players time on the ball.

Even so, and unlike on so many occasions in the past, Arsenal did not become frazzled. They composed themselves after the tetchy opening stages and though there was frustration every time Burnley thwarted their attempts to find a breakthrough, that frustration did not threaten to boil over.

Instead, there was patience and confidence that a clear chance would come. Rather than endlessly shooting from range or at tight angles, which Burnley are more than happy to let their opponents do, Arsenal repeatedly tried to find the through ball that would break the line of claret and blue and allow one of their number in behind.

It was far from a foolproof tactic and, of course, it would not have been enough to win had Tarkowski not pushed Ramsey, but it was evidence of Arsenal keeping their cool and not allowing the difficulty of the task at hand to overcome them. A week after their superb north London derby win, they faced another fixture that many expected them to struggle in. Again, they came out on top.

On balance, Wenger’s side are still the weakest member of the ‘top six’. There was scant improvement to the playing squad in the summer and if Sanchez and Mesut Ozil leave at the end of their current contracts, as expected, failing to adequately replace them could see Arsenal fall even further back.

Yet while Arsenal are in some way the ‘same old Arsenal’, three of their rivals appear to have significantly regressed.

Chelsea are yet to show the sort of form that won them the title last year and Antonio Conte’s side now need to make the most of their favourable schedule over the coming weeks and months. Liverpool’s long-standing weaknesses, meanwhile, seem more pronounced this year and Tottenham Hotspur appear to have a genuine problem with playing at Wembley.

The competition for a place in the top four duly appears more open than first thought. If Arsenal can continue to pick up points in the manner they did at Turf Moor on Sunday, that will represent a small but significant improvement which, this season, could be enough for them to return to European football’s top table at the first time of asking.