Alan Brazil: Arsenal can challenge for the Premier League now soft centre is gone

ARSENAL have endured a few years in the wilderness in terms of being title challengers.

But I reckon they are well and truly back.

The Gunners have won nine on the bounce since losing their first two games of the season to Manchester City and Chelsea.

Talk about a recovery!

Before the international break they absolutely hammered Fulham 5-1 away from home in a game that saw the Arsenal fans sing: “We’ve got our Arsenal back!”

Tomorrow night they face Leicester City – and I can’t see anything other than a win for the Gunners.

They are absolutely flying.

And the credit has to go to the man who replaced Arsene Wenger in the summer – Unai Emery.

He deserves a massive pat on the back.

I tipped the Gunners as my “dark horses” for the title in this very column before the season kicked off.

The way they are playing just now shows exactly why.

In the final days of Wenger’s reign at the Emirates, Arsenal became soft and predictable.

They were still a talented team – but there was no real spirit about them.

That has all changed.

Emery’s Arsenal are quick, stylish and deadly.

But they are also gutsy – and that has really impressed me.

It’s simply not something fans have been used to seeing from Arsenal sides of late.

That never sat well with me – because the best Gunners teams over the years have always had an edge to them, as well as being deadly in attack.

Arsene Wenger seemed to forget that as he hung on to the manager’s job, year after year.

By the time he finally left the club at the end of last season, it had been 14 years since their last Premier League title.

Fair enough – there were four FA Cups to give the fans something to cheer about.

But these days, that’s simply not enough.

Arsenal fans were sold their club’s move from Highbury to the Emirates on a claim that the new stadium would equip them to win more titles – and maybe even the Champions League.

Wenger and his increasingly soft-centred teams couldn’t follow through on it.

They didn’t even come close.

That’s why fans started to lose the faith. It’s why some of them turned on the club’s owners, then the manager.

It’s why they then started to stay away from the Emirates.

The last few months mean tickets for Arsenal games are like gold dust once again.

But I do have one concern over their ability to mount a title push this season.

I’m not quite convinced, yet, by the case for their defence.

They will get away with that against most teams in the Premier League.

But against the top dogs, I reckon it could prove to be their Achilles heel.

They have only played two real top teams so far – Manchester City and Chelsea.

They lost both.

It’s possible that the run they have gone on since then has given them the kind of confidence boost that could carry over into their next big games.

But for me, the defence is still a weak point.

The manager will know that – and sorting it will be his big-time priority in January.

If he can spend a bit of cash and shore things up, after years of underperforming, they could at last be real contenders.