Since defeat to West Ham during the opening weekend of the Premier League season, Arsenal are unbeaten at home in the league.
Seven wins and two draws from nine games mean the Gunners have picked up 23 points from 10 home matches overall, beating Manchester City, Manchester United and Everton in the process.
Only Manchester City have won more points (and more points per game) than Arsenal in home fixtures this season, but have played two more home games than the Gunners. Should Arsène Wenger’s men beat Chelsea on Sunday they will stay top of the league and will have played all of last season’s top six at home already.
“If you want to win the Premier League, you need to win all you home games,” Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny told Arsenal Player as he looked ahead to Sunday’s clash. “Our seven away games will be very difficult because we play against Man City, Man United, Tottenham, West Ham, Everton, so we need to do the job well at home so we have the points.”
The Gunners have a fantastic home record but building on it would give them a platform to win the league from. After Chelsea have visited the Emirates Stadium there will still be games against Leicester City, Southampton and Watford to come but each of those fixtures will see Arsenal considered heavy favourites.
Live up to the billing and we will minimise the work we have to do in those difficult away fixtures to come.
“This weekend is an important game and next weekend too, because it is the FA Cup and we won it twice and we want to continue like this. In February/March, we will have Champions League so we need to take it game by game and that’s it.”
Game by game is the message being preached from the Arsenal camp, but you can’t help but feel everyone is excited by the possibility of winning the title this year. The task is simple: keep winning at home.