By beating Aston Villa (2-1) on Wednesday, Arsenal is guaranteed to retain the lead in the Premier League at the end of the 5th day, ahead of a Manchester City where Erling Haland, author of a second consecutive hat-trick, is already beating records on records.
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Seductive in the first period, more laborious in the second, Arsenal kept their perfect record and increased the pressure on the opposing coach, Steven Gerrard, threatened.
With 15 points in 5 games, the Gunners continue their amazing start to the season against affordable opponents, before a trip to Old Trafford next weekend.
For the Villans, beaten four times in 5 days, the situation is not improving, since they are in 19th place.
They still made the Londoners doubt after the break, when we wondered how Arsenal could only lead 1-0, on a goal from Gabriel Jesus at the half-hour mark, returning to the locker room.
By offering a bigger physical challenge - which left traces on the ankle of Martin Odegaard who wore a thick bandage after leaving the field 9 minutes from the end -, Aston Villa returned to a direct corner from Douglas Luiz who touched there his second ball (1-1, 74th).
But in the process, and no doubt annoyed by the fact that the VAR did not whistle a foul on goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale on goal, Arsenal immediately took advantage of a very passive opposing defense to regain the advantage by Gabriel Martinelli (2-1, 77th).
Haaland propels Manchester City
In the wake of Arsenal, Manchester City did not go into detail against promoted Nottingham Forest (5-0), with a second hat-trick in two games for their Norwegian prodigy.
The Citizens thus remain two points behind Arsenal, temporarily only second.
Far from the frantic chase against Crystal Palace on Saturday, won 4-2 after being down 2-0, City were already well ahead (3-0) at the break, thanks to Haaland.
Scorer in the 12th, 23rd and 38th minutes, he set two records which suggest some pretty maddening statistics for the season if he continues at this pace.
At 22, he became the fastest player to score 2 hat-tricks in the Premier League, arriving there in his 5th game in sky blue, while the previous best mark was 21 games by Demba Ba.
Above all, he has already brought his total to 9 achievements in his first 5 matches, one more than Sergio Agüero, already in the jersey of City and Mick Quinn with Newcastle.
The goal added by Joao Coancelo (4-0, 50th) and the double from another summer recruit, Julian Alvarez (5-0, 65th and 6-0 87th), are in comparison very anecdotal.
While the question of his adaptation to the Premier League and the very particular game of Pep Guardiola could arise when he arrived this summer for just over 60 million euros from Dortmund, doubts already seem swept away by the ogre of the north.
