Arsene Wenger claimed that his current range of options up front are better than that of his Invincibles squad which dominated the Premier League back in 2004, but are they?
The Frenchman claimed that the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Robin Van Persie, Sylvain Wiltord and Roberto Pires could not live up to the battle with the current crop.
‘I think certainly numbers wise and quality wise, this is the best attacking unit,’ he said ahead of Wednesday’s Premier League clash with Watford.
‘We never had so many players who could perform and score goals – certainly never.
‘[Dennis] Bergkamp, [Thierry] Henry… and [Robin] Van Persie [came] behind them. [Sylvain] Wiltord, [Robert] Pires, it was not bad.’
The squad of 2004 obviously hold their place in history, and I cant foresee any English side ever repeating what we did in my lifetime.
The game has evolved somewhat over the past decade, and the standard of the division has strongly enhanced from the bottom side up to the top, but that has not stopped our current crop from scoring heavily.
This season we have already scored 50 Premier League goals, after only 22 matches, whereas our previous side only mustered 73 goals in the entire season, equalling less than 2 goals per match on average.
On the flip side, Theirry Henry scored 30 goals in that season, one less than the record of 31 which is held by Luis Suarez, Alan Shearer and Cristiano Ronaldo, while our top goalscorer Alexis Sanchez sits on 15 goals after over half of the campaign thus far.
The Chilean is of course sharing his role with Olivier Giroud, and will now face further competition for the centre-forward role following the return of Danny Welbeck, who marked his full return with a brace at the weekend.
Giroud has also been in top form this season, scoring in five consecutive matches in recent weeks, while Theo Walcott has also been a huge threat going forward, also chipping in with an impressive eight league goals thus far.
Are the current options worthy of being compared to the Invincibles?
Pat J