Which is missing my point. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Playing the Arsenal match would have affected every game following it. Three of the games you quoted followed the Arsenal match. Of course we can't say what would have happened for sure, nor can we be sure that beating Arsenal would have led to better overall results by now than not playing them. All I'm saying is that something out of our control has affected all subsequent results. My feeling is that it would have benefited subsequent matches.
Because I think averaging out the XIs, Arsenal probably have a more cohesive nature about them this season. Whilst I don’t think they have tons of top quality, I think they have a lot of players capable of putting in 6-6.5/10 performances most weeks and this was something I underestimated about them at the start of the season. I find this similar to West Ham too, I think West Ham are a very well drilled team that doesn’t have an abundance of amazing players but a bunch of good and consistent players that don’t drop below a 6 most weeks.
Whereas us, we have one guy generally capable of an 8.5 most weeks, one guy capable of an 8.5 for half a season but then a 4-5 for another half and then a lot of players who are at a 5 most weeks, some dropping as far down to 2s and 3s (Winks, Doherty, Sess). I’ll exclude new lads as it’s too early to get an average but Kulusevski for instance is looking capable of 7-7.5s with the scope for higher based on initial impressions.
So if then our 8.5 players don’t put in an 8.5, we’re more or less ****ed, as the majority operating at below a 6 are likely not good enough to get us where we need to be and unfortunately sometimes even when our 8.5s do put in an 8.5 or higher, we’re still capable of losing due to the lack of quality elsewhere.
Edit: So this is why the idea of saying Kane is a problem/ part of a problem or isn’t world class is false in my opinion, he just can’t solve all the problems and no one player essentially can, not even Messi or Ronaldo in their prime could when playing alongside some of these players. What we need to do is look at adding - at the very least - more 6s but ideally 7s, anything higher is a fantastic bonus.
We have just as many top-quality players as you do, if not more. Ramsdale, Tierney, Odegaard, Partey and Saka are top quality. You have Son and Kane. Lots of the rest of both squads fall into:
(1) level below top quality and/or not yet truly known or too early in prem career (Romero, White, Skipp, Bentancur, Tomiyasu, Kulusevski, Martinelli, Smith Rowe etc.)
(2) middling category where they can overperform and underperform but will never be world beaters, or they can simply do well as part of a system (Gabriel, Xhaka, Hojberg, Reguilon, Pepe)
(3) squad players not really consistently good enough to be anywhere near first XI (Moura, Holding, Emerson, Sanchez, Elneny, Nketiah)
I'd agree you've got more in category (3) than us (which you're classing as your 2-5s). But I think we have a greater number of better players than you do too, hence why we're above you.
We've been in your position for a while with quite a lot of sub-par players but we're now shifting them on (Bellerin, Luiz, Mari, Guendouzi etc) and have completely changed our transfer strategy at quite a great transfer budget cost. And it's starting to look like it's working to an extent. But I don't think any arsenal would be that surprised if we went on a run losing to Liverpool and villa and dragging us right back down to united and spurs in the table shortly. Pissed off and angry, yes, but not perhaps all that surprised.
