Champions or nearly men? Show us what you’ve got Arsenal, writes GRAEME SOUNESS

It’s barely three years since Arsenal fans were turning up in their thousands at the Emirates to protest against owner Stan Kroenke, after he’d thrown in his hat with the European Super League, but the picture at the club looks very different now.

There’s been proper investment, proper recruitment and Mikel Arteta goes into Sunday’s game at Tottenham with a new three-year contract. He’s the man Arsenal think will take them to the holy grail of a Premier League title.

Something’s clearly got Kroenke excited about Arsenal and made him re-examine his involvement at the club. In the past, the club have always seemed like a small North London ‘franchise’ for him. A club on the fringes of his wider basketball, American football and hockey portfolio. But he seems to have seen other American buyers finding commercial value in Premier League clubs and changed his own approach. 

Arsenal now seem front and centre for him. A club who Kroenke has put his hand in his pocket for. And those pockets are deep. Take out the Gulf state clubs and Kroenke is one of the Premier League’s richest owners.

The re-emergence of the club as a force has also coincided with Kroenke’s son, Josh, living and working in London, since 2018, which I think has made a difference. From the outside looking in, I see a club with good football knowledge, making good footballing decisions, gradually accumulating an expensive and competitive squad.

Gunners owner Stan Kroenke has started to put his hand in his deep pockets for his club

They will have to step up now with key players – like captain Martin Odegaard – missing

The first serious test of the depth of that squad comes sooner than Arteta would have wanted, this weekend. There are the injuries to the captain, Martin Odegaard and to new signings Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori, along with the suspension of Declan Rice. It’s a challenging eight days for the club, too, with the visit to Manchester City following next Sunday.

Well, this is precisely what you accumulate that squad for. The teams that win the league are the ones that have dug in when the going’s got tough – like Arsenal will have to do now – at a time when they’re losing players to injury and when they have some of the biggest games coming up.

It’s the privilege of my lifetime to be able to talk about what it’s like to have won titles. I can say, without the faintest hesitation, that it’s about never once looking a few weeks ahead and thinking ‘this is a difficult time.’ In my Liverpool team, injuries were just never mentioned, either in team meetings – not that we had many – or in the dressing room. Joe Fagan and Ronnie Moran would never have tolerated it.

OK, the captain drops out. OK, an influential player like Rice drops out. But this is the time to see how strong your dressing room is. To see who your big personalities and your real characters are. Everyone says: ‘We’re all in it together’ when you’re winning and it’s all going your way. So come on then: now show it. Let’s be seeing what you’ve got. And don’t you dare start feeling sorry for yourselves.

People in football will be taking a close look at Arsenal this weekend and I see that as a great opportunity for them. The rest of the league beware, if they come through the next week with flying colours.

I have to say that I still think they need a striker. Though Gabriel Jesus has some fabulous traits, Manchester City thought he was short of the level where they wanted to be – and Arsenal want to be precisely where Manchester City are.

But signing Raheem Sterling for the season is an unbelievable piece of business for Mikel, as much as it’s a terrible piece of business for Chelsea. I would imagine Arsenal are getting a Sterling who will be angry and looking to prove people wrong. You’re not buying a 29-year-old who’s in his armchair. You’re buying a 29-year-old who will have a boiling head on him.

Arteta stuck to his guns during a difficult first couple of years and cleared out the dead wood

Signing Raheem Sterling for the season is an unbelieveable piece of business from the club

Despite what I’ve said about Jesus, I’m not very interested in the talk about how ‘the one thing missing’ for Arsenal being a proven striker. The only thing that’s missing is getting over the line, and winning one of the big two trophies.

I’m pleased to see Mikel get that contract because I think he’s earned it, taking over a club who were drifting, sticking to his guns in a tricky first couple of years and being bold enough to clear out the overpaid dead wood: players like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil and David Luiz. It looks like they’re all in it together at that club, which is what you need to be successful. The next eight days will tell us a lot more.

Nothing learned of Lee

There’s been a lot of ink spilt about England and the so-called new era of Lee Carsley but while I hate to burst a bubble, I don’t think we’ve learned anything new about them in the past two weeks.

The quality of England’s opposition was bang average. I said last week that they should beat these two opponents by three or four goals, but they didn’t manage that. I struggle to see Carsley as a hugely inspiring character for players and I saw nothing different about England, beyond some new faces. Is there really any significance in beating an Ireland side who are as poor as any I can ever remember and a Finland side who were smacked 4-1 by Wales in the Euros qualifiers and nicked a 2-1 win in San Marino a year ago.

England should be beating up teams like this. Greece, who’re up next, are no great shakes either. I’m reserving judgement until well beyond this meaningless Nations League group.

But anthem saga doesn’t matter!

When I played for Scotland, our anthem was God Save the Queen, not Flower of Scotland, as it is now, and I certainly sang it, because I’m a proud royalist. But it’s not a problem to me that Lee Carsley hasn’t done the same as interim England manager.

He didn’t sing the Irish anthem as a player, either, or England’s anthem as a coach of England Under-21s. I think the difficulty would have been if he’d been caught singing the Irish anthem while playing for them and then singing a different anthem for England. That’s what resides behind all this. He’s a consistent non-singer and I don’t see that being an issue.

England haven’t learned anything about what life could be like under Lee Carsley just yet

There is no issue with him being a non-singer when it comes to the national anthem, however

The powers that be will be looking closely at Scotland after their poor run of form continued

Same errors remain for Scots

The last few weeks have been so typical of Scotland. Two decent performances but nothing to take from them. The way they managed to lose at home to Poland was so disappointing but, as with any football team, you are only as good as your weakest point.

Defensively, the team have been consistently punished for errors which have cost them dear. That’s one win in 14 games now – and that was against Gibraltar – which is just not good enough for my country.

It was, yet again, so-called ‘glory in defeat’ against Portugal but this has to change. I’m sure the powers that be will be looking at this situation very closely because as great as the Scotland support is, they will not tolerate a run like this going on much longer.