ARSENAL should probably have beaten Manchester United at Old Trafford in September. Had they done so (and changing that result in the space-time continuum somehow altered this and this alone) then Mikel Arteta’s team would be sitting on a perfect season thus far, with 10 wins from 10. Some might remember that the last team to start with 10 consecutive wins were Manchester United back in 1985-86, only to fade dramatically and torpedo Big Ron Atkinson’s hopes of winning a league title, but it feels like 2022-23 Arsenal are a much more robust prospect.

Even so, that Arsenal can focus on a title bid still seems slightly ephemeral given how long it’s been since the club were actually in one. Reigning champions Manchester City go to a misfiring Liverpool on Sunday with Pep Guardiola still insisting it is the red half of Liverpool that are their main challengers, rather than the red half of north London. And maybe that game will kick off with Arsenal reeling from a defeat at Elland Road, confidence draining from them in real time. But maybe not, and if Mikel Arteta’s side just keep winning games then sooner or later we’re all going to have to accept that yes, Arsenal Football Club, champions of England on 13 previous occasions, are in this for the long haul.

But with eight wins under their belt, just how many more victories will the Gunners clock up, and what will that mean for their league performance this season? And for ease of calculation, let’s assume that the club continue their ongoing trend of not drawing matches anymore (the last time Arsenal drew a Premier League game was back in January, 0-0 against Burnley). In fact, Arsenal’s new secret weapon may be the complete elimination of ties from their results sheet. They are engaged in the sort of run of form that the thinkers who introduced the three points for a win rule back in the early 1980s surely dreamt of. This then, is how much wiggle room Arsenal have for the rest of 2022-23.

0 defeats/29 wins: Arsenal finish with 111 points, a new top-flight record. Mikel Arteta is crowned manager of the year ahead of Steve Bruce. Scenario likelihood rating: Not high

1-3 defeats/26-28 wins: Arsenal finish with 102-108 points, also a new top-flight record. From this position, the league title is all but guaranteed.

4-7 defeats/22-25 wins: Arsenal finish with 90-99 points. Only one of the last six Premier League seasons has seen a title winner with less than 90 points (Manchester City with 86 in 2020-21, and that was the most Covid-affected of the Covid-19 seasons)

8-10 defeats/19-21 wins: Arsenal finish with 81-87 points. Ok, Leicester won the Premier League title in 2015-16 with 81 points but the average points tally of champions this century is 89. It’s not impossible to win the title from here but given the strength of Manchester City it seems highly unlikely.

11-13 defeats/16-18 wins: Arsenal 72-78 points. What is this, the 1990s? Between 1997 and 1999 we had a run of three Premier League winners (Manchester United twice, Arsenal once) with less than 80 points but this was the era of slow starts and strong finishes, tough but flawed teams who went on mazy runs more than winning ones. If 2022-23 Arsenal end up in this band then they might still make the top four, but they are not going to win the Premier League title.

So, after feeding all that information into the narrative machine it feels like (assuming that Arsenal do indeed never draw another league game) that Mikel Arteta can afford to see his side lose between four and six of their remaining games. Six defeats will see them end on 93 points, which – based on the three points for a win rule – is a water mark they’ve only ever exceeded twice, and both times in a 42-game season (the 1930-31 and 1970-71 title-winning seasons). 96 points is slightly above the title-winning average from the last five seasons (95.2) while 99 points would be a new record for a team not winning the title, beating Liverpool from 2018-19 who finished on 97, one behind Manchester City.

In conclusion, then, Arsenal’s front foot full octane attitude to games in 2022 is a big positive when it comes to their title ambitions. Mikel Arteta has seemingly calculated that his tactical approach will win them many more games than it will lose and that has opened up space for a genuine title bid. The last four teams to win nine of their opening 10 Premier League games have gone on to win the title. If Arsenal do win at Leeds on Sunday then they can probably afford to lose 15-20% of their remaining matches and still be crowned champions, as long as they win the other games. It will be ironic if a club who famously won the league title without losing a single match (drawing 12 times in 2003-04, much to Alex Ferguson’s chagrin, even though his Manchester Unietd side won the title in 1998-99 and had 13 draws) can end their almost 20 year run without one by carefully husbanding out defeats to reach a realistic points target for a league championship in the 2020s. It’s all a numbers game deep down.

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