If you had to hazard a guess as to which of the current Arsenal playing staff was sitting on top of the chart for the best performing player, I reckon that most Arsenal fans or football fans in general would go for one of the attacking stars, such as Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez or Olivier Giroud.
The Gunner in question, however, is the France international defender Laurent Koscielny and not only is he top this week, but he actually held on to the top spot that he occupied last week. This is the Sky Sports Power Rankings which give every player in the EPL a score based on their performances in 32 different categories of the game over the previous five weeks, with each week dropping in importance as time moves on.
Koscielny was part of an Arsenal back four that was under pressure against Tottenham and could not stop Harry Kane from scoring but he did make four interceptions and eight clearances to help him remain the league´s most in form player.
The website also shows the complete score over the whole season so far and it is no surprise that the red hot Leicester striker Jamie Vardy is on top of that, but somewhat surprisingly, our French centre back is third and he is not the only Arsenal player to be well placed.
In this week´s charts we have Ozil at six and Monreal at seven, while Alexis, Giroud and Cech make it into the top 25. In the chart for the season we are doing even better; with the boss, Monreal, Alexis and Ozil at 3,4,5 and 6 and then Bellerin at 12, Cazorla at 18, Giroud at 19 and Cech at 35.
So even though football is a team sport, it is certainly helpful to have some players in top form individually. At this early stage, who do you think will be Arsenal´s most important player this season?