After years of unpredictable ups and downs, due to injury, players leaving and bad luck, our squad seems to have finally found the perfect balance of experience, strength, skill and composure.

After our 1-0 win against Burnley, Arsene Wenger spoke about how our recent run of form could be largely down to finally finding a balance within the team. How has this been achieved? Why now and what happens if one of the pieces of our puzzle is missing?

Start from the back

David Ospina, originally thrown into the team after Wojciech Szczesny’s awful performance against Southampton (and subsequent smoking in the showers), currently has the highest win percentage in the whole history of the league.

Granted he hasn’t had anything huge to do – no penalty shootouts as of yet – since the rest of the team have been working like a well-oiled machine, but a 92% win percentage is not a statistic to be sniffed at.

Our defensive line consists of two Spaniards, a Frenchman and a giant German. As much as this may sound like the start of a joke, our defence has been far from the punch line it has been in the past. In fact, we’ve let in the fourth least amount of goals this season (32).

A lot of this has to be with discipline and beginning to gel. A huge part of having a strong defence is about working together, rather than individual moments of brilliance. Of course, it’s fantastic to see Per Mertesacker sticking out one of his 10-foot long legs and intercepting a ball in front of the box, or watching Laurent Koscielny head the ball off the line, those moments are vital, but working together, communicating and being aware of each other are even more important.

Our centrebacks complement each other perfectly. When the BFG may appear to be wading through treacle, Koscielny is there, steaming past to put in a (usually) well-timed challenge. When Koscielny makes one of his – admittedly rare – marauding runs through the middle of the pitch and gets a bit carried away up-field, Mertsesacker’s there to intercept. What’s more is our new signing Gabriel is able to slot into the back line seamlessly when needed, making him a useful asset should he be called into action.

One of the biggest revelations this season has been young Hector Bellerin. His promotion from our second-string team came about due to the injury of first choice rightback Mathieu Debuchy and subsequent illness of next in line Calum Chambers. Since then, Bellerin has solidified his place in the first team and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be benched anytime soon.

Similarly, Nacho Monreal has improved unrecognisably since breaking into the starting 11 after Kieran Gibb’s injury. As with Bellerin, it’s unlikely that the leftback will be dropped anytime soon.

The two Spaniards have their timing going forward and eagerness to get back almost perfect and, although Bellerin is still learning not to get pulled centrally too often, their understanding with the centrebacks seems solid.

Man in the middle

In my opinion – and I may be biased here – our midfield is pretty much perfect.

Francis Coquelin has been the defensive-mid we knew we needed but never knew we had. Despite a few worrying about his mis-timed challenges early on, I don’t know many people, Arsenal fans or otherwise, who don’t think he’s one of our stand-out players this season.

He provides a strong, assured sense of security in front of our defensive line; someone we desperately needed for so long but could never find. His interception rate is unreal; his tackles are professional and his dominance in the air is superb. He is also defensive-minded – a quality I was beginning to think was a myth when we’d play midfielder-after-midfielder in that holding role, only to see them prancing forward at the wrong time and leaving huge gaps in front of – what was at the time – a shaky back four.

While Coquelin is our security, Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez give us our flair. Our sparkle. They’re the type of footballers kids watch when they’re just starting out; they’re the type of players they want to emulate. Step overs, flicks, back heels, chips. They have it all in their locker. However, it’s one thing to have the moves on the ball, it’s another to have them off it.

Sometimes it’s just as exciting to watch the midfield when they don’t have the ball. They’re always hungry to get it back and never hide. Ozil’s movement in particular blows my mind, because he can find gaps and passes no one else can see. At first this was frustrating for him; you’d see him try a wonder-pass, the other player would mis-judge it or wouldn’t move the way Ozil anticipated, and you’d see his shoulders slump. Now, they can not only read him (as well as mere mortals can ever read Mesut Ozil), they actually indulge him; allowing him to flick the ball over their heads, letting him roam around into spaces and making the runs they know he wants them to make.

Now, something’s clicked and the way he’s linking up with his fellow teammates is superb. A recent example is when he passed to Aaron Ramsey against Burnley last weekend. Ramsey was in the box, to the right hand side, and Ozil, slightly to the left of it, managed to pick him out with a perfectly weighted pass, which looped sideways over the top of the area.

With our midfield, and Ozil especially, it’s the freedom which Arsene Wenger permits them, which allows them to thrive. In complete contrast to the defence, being too disciplined and rigid hinders the creativity of the midfield. If the defence were students, there’d be the scientists or mathematicians; whereas the midfielders would definitely be the artists.

This isn’t to say that our midfield isn’t structured – if it wasn’t we wouldn’t work so well. Our midfielders are just incredibly aware of each other’s positions and know to rotate and fill in when needed. It makes them difficult to pick up and man-mark – a tough job for any opposition on a good day – and allows them to frolic about the pitch to their hearts’ content, exploiting the opposition in the most majestic way possible.

Although Aaron Ramsey is a midfielder, I feel the need to mention him separately because he also brings his own sense of balance to the game. Stepping back from his role as Creator to make room for Ozil, Ramsey optimises our new, balanced team. He’s security when we need it, creativity and panache, when we need that. He’s everything we need, exactly when we need it. He keeps the midfield anchored and keeps a level-headedness – a structure that we wouldn’t have without him there.

Add into this the fact that he’s still assisting, scoring and doing so with the upmost class and integrity – what a player.

Forward

Olivier Giroud is what I would call a typical Wenger signing, nor what other people know as one  either – a small, pacey midfielder with bags of potential and creativity – although the potential part is right.

A Wenger signing in the sense that he saw the potential, put his entire faith in the player and watched him flourish.

When Wenger first signed Giroud in 2012, most of us were more excited about the fact we’d signed Lukas Podolski earlier that transfer window. Not many of us really knew who Giroud was and, if we did, we weren’t entirely positive he was all that great. However, we did all agree that we needed a forward with Robin Van Persie making his intentions very clear, and that he had a decent enough record at old club Montpellier after scoring 21 Ligue-1 goals.

I don’t think any of us could’ve predicted the striker and all around talented player Giroud would develop into under Wenger.

Given confidence from the manger and with quality playermakers around him, the Frenchman has become the most lethal striker in the league, with his minutes-per-goal ratio topping the likes of Sergio Aguero, Wayne Rooney and – you may not believe this – the World’s Best Player: Harry Kane.

This season, Giroud has been not been only scoring great goals, but he’s been scoring consistently, often and in big games. He has the makings of a truly great striker and this isn’t even taking into consideration his assists and general hold-up play, which have made him an essential player for us this season.

To the bench

A huge difference this season is our depth.

Ironically, it was lack of depth and a large amount of injuries that led us to find the balance we’ve now achieved. However, now we’ve achieved it, having a bench full of quality and impact subs, such as Danny Welbeck, Tomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott, is a great option to have and an area we’ve no doubt been lacking in, in previous seasons.

We now have the security and stability at the back; the organisation and level-headedness leading through the ranks into midfield, where our creativity, skill and flair has the freedom to come alive and reap havoc. Our forwards are sharp, clinical and composed in front of goal and our bench has the options to hurt the opposition if we need a plan B.

In terms of personality, we have a team of confident, yet calm players. We don’t have any overwhelming egos or clashes. They seem to genuinely quite like each other and, although I’m not a footballer myself, I imagine that makes a bit of a difference when it comes to working together both in training and on the field.

If a player in our starting 11 gets injured, we have replacements.

Would it upset the balance long term?

Possibly.

However, this is a bridge I’m sure Wenger is more than capable of crossing when he comes to it.

At the moment, the balance in the team is clear to see and, with our winning streak running and running, it’s difficult to see where we can go wrong.