defending has definitely been on point this season and I think that Declan Rice plays a huge role in that. he’s so good at both defending and turning defense into attack that we’re the stingiest we’ve been since per/kos and santi/coquelin were our starting cb/mf pairings. saliba-rice-gabriel is elite at the back. raya doesn’t have to be the best shot stopper ever in goal because our entire team is defending at a high level, and he rarely finds himself in precarious situations. he can just focus on commanding the box and his distribution.
the vision of arteta and edu is clear, and they are batting about .800 when it comes to signing the right guys for their vision. i remember hearing early on in my arsenal fandom, “at Arsenal we don’t buy legends, we make them.” i think we just may be watching legends being born. arteta, saka, odegaard, saliba, gabriel, rice- if/when they lead us to major trophies, you will have to say that we did it the Arsenal way.