Pundit Jermaine Jenas believes Arsenal earned a ninth successive victory across all competitions and their sixth straight win in the Premier League with a 5-1 defeat of Fulham at Craven Cottage.
Alexandre Lacazette twice put the north London side ahead either side of Andre Schurrle’s equaliser before substitutes Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Aaron Ramsey helped put the game well beyond the hosts in the final half-an-hour.
Arsenal are now just two points off of the joint-top trio of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool having scored the second-highest number of goals in the league with 19 in eight games.
And following their explosive display on the banks of the Thames, Jenas thinks that Arsenal look in better condition than they did under Emery’s predecessor Arsene Wenger in recent years and expects defences to be wary of their attacking threat.
“Going forward, they seem so dynamic, the speed that they’re attacking with is actually really enjoyable to watch,” the former Tottenham midfielder hailed.
“[They have] Willing runners, runners from deep. In turn, when you’re a midfield player, playing with players like that, it makes life so much easier because you’ve got so many options to find these types of players.
“[Henrikh] Mkhitaryan kind of set the tone early on. I think it’s a part of Arsenal’s game that Unai Emery got nailed straight away actually – I think they got off to a great start going forward.
“They were clinical and they punished Fulham, they really did.
“Sometimes when a new manager comes in with new training methods, Unai Emery might be focusing on fitness and on strength and I feel like you can see that.
“That’s not to say that Arsene Wenger didn’t but that fresh injection of something new, they look like they’ve got a real spark going forward that is going to strike fear into a lot of defences in the league.”
Arsenal were cast aside as possible title contenders earlier this season when they started off with sloppy defeats to City and Chelsea, but are being mentioned as possible dark horses as a result of their winning streak.
Yet Jenas thinks that Arsenal might still struggle to even gain Champions League qualification – which they have missed out on in both of the last two seasons – and highlighted their back-line as a concern.
He added: “Nine wins out of nine? I don’t think anyone’s overlooking that they’re getting better.
“I think defensively there are still issues for me that would just keep them outside of that top four but they seem to be in a better place to have a good run at it this year I’d say.”
Emery meanwhile is focused on his Arsenal side simply showing consistent improvement rather than getting into title talk.
“We lost the first two matches against Manchester City and Chelsea,” he said to the media in his post-match press conference.
“When we are winning now, continuing in matches, we need to be in the same way. I think our mentality: calm, work, enjoy and enjoy working, together as one thing with our supporters like today.
“But improving individually, improving collectively and also finding our best performance in each match and the combinations with the players and the system also, because we need to continue improving and we can.”