The Premier League leaders, Arsenal, visit TW8 on Sunday for a high-noon showdown.

Mikel Arteta’s side head to the Gtech Community Stadium with five wins from six under their belt so far this campaign, while our last action saw us put five past Leeds on home soil a fortnight ago.

Catch all the build-up to tomorrow’s game below.

The opposition

Brentford’s historic opening-night win set the tone for the opening weeks for Arsenal last season. The Gunners were, inexplicably, bottom after three games - having scored no goals and conceded nine - and Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary cameras were there to capture every second.

The silver lining was that, without the distraction of European football for the first time since 1994/95, Mikel Arteta’s men did recover sufficiently to challenge for a top-four spot, though five defeats from the final ten games eventually killed off those dreams for another year.

Preparations went swimmingly over the summer, as the North London club bid to finish in the Champions League places for the first time in seven years in 2022/23. In the transfer market, money was no object. The signings of Fabio Vieira, Marquinhos, Matt Turner, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko represented an outlay of more than £100m.

An overwhelmingly positive pre-season included 4-0 and 2-0 wins over domestic colleagues Chelsea and Everton, as well as a 6-0 thrashing of Sevilla.

Those two factors set them up for what turned out to be a scintillating start, seldom seen in N5 in recent years. Wins against Crystal Palace, Leicester, Bournemouth, Fulham and Aston Villa put Arsenal at the summit of the embryonic league table after five games.

Manchester United put paid to that streak with a 3-1 win at Old Trafford, but they bounced back with a 2-1 victory at Zurich in the Europa League. The scheduled visit of Everton last weekend was then postponed after the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

There has not only been success on the pitch. The squad Arteta and technical director Edu have assembled has an extremely likeable quality that has been somewhat absent for a significant period of time.

With Manchester City and Tottenham hot on their heels, the bookmakers have not yet shortened their title odds, which currently stand at 14/1. While a title tilt might be too much to ask for, there is no doubt that Arsenal are heading in the right direction.

The gameplan

Kaya Kaynak of football.london on Arsenal’s likely formation: “Injuries withstanding, it will probably be a 4-3-3. The full-backs tend to come in a bit, so very Pep Guardiola-esque in that sense, and then there is a No.6 who sits relatively deep and two No.8s who get forward to support the attack.

The attack is pretty fluid; Jesus can drift out to the left and right, while Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka will come infield, which is very difficult for opposition defences to deal with. Look out for Granit Xhaka as well, as he is going to be supporting the attack from deep a lot, which is something he did not necessarily do last season. Martin Odegaard is the creative hub of the team”

Team news

Sunday’s game comes too soon for Christian Nørgaard (Achilles) and Ethan Pinnock (knee), but Kristoffer Ajer and Sergi Canós (both hamstring) are back in Thomas Frank’s plans.

Thomas Partey’s likely return will be a big boost for Mikel Arteta with a suggestion from the Ukrainian FA that Oleksandr Zinchenko will miss out due to a calf injury. Cedric could also return after a knock but Emile Smith-Rowe (groin), Mohamed Elneny (hamstring), and Reiss Nelson (thigh) are absentees.

The manager

As a player, Mikel Arteta began his youth career at Barcelona before spells at Paris Saint-Germain, Rangers and Real Sociedad.

His introduction to English football came during a loan spell at Everton in January 2005, making the move to Goodison Park permanent six months later.

He joined Arsenal in August 2011, where he was named club captain ahead of the 2014/15 season. The Spaniard won two FA Cups during his time with the Gunners, before retiring in 2016.

Arteta was appointed assistant coach at Manchester City in July of that year, working under manager Pep Guardiola, and was part of the coaching team that won the Premier League in 2017/18 with a record 100 points.

The following year, City became the first club in a decade to retain the Premier League, while they also won two EFL Cups and one FA Cup during Arteta's time at the Etihad Stadium.

Arteta took over at Arsenal in December 2019, taking the Gunners to eighth and winning the FA Cup at the end of the campaign. His first full season also resulted in an eighth-place finish.

The Spaniard will be hoping to take Arsenal forward again this season, having finished fifth in 2021/22, narrowly missing out on a place in the UEFA Champions League.

Opposition view

Mikel Arteta told Arsenal.com: “I think [Brentford} are a really good side. What Thomas and the staff have done there, not only this year but over the years, is remarkable.

"The way they have performed and the results they’ve got against the top clubs, at home in particular, just sets the tone for what is going to happen on Sunday. We are going to have to be at our best to beat them.”

Last time out

Match officials

Referee: David Coote 

Assistant Referees: Nick Hopton and Timothy Wood 

Fourth Official: John Brooks 

Video Assistant Referee: Peter Bankes 

Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Neil Davies

Nottinghamshire FA referee David Coote will be the man in charge on Sunday.

Coote, the son of former Nottinghamshire CCC batsman David Edward Coote, started refereeing as a 16-year-old, working his way up from the Notts Alliance League to the Conference North, before his promotion to the Football League list in 2010.

In May 2014, he was the referee for the League One play-off Final at Wembley between Leyton Orient and Rotherham United and took charge of his first Premier League game in April 2018.

We have lost only four of the 18 games which he has officiated, with seven wins and seven draws. The most memorable of those was our 2-1 win over Fulham in November 2014, the 1-1 draw at Millwall in September 2020 which saw Ivan Toney score his first goal, and last season’s 2-2 draw at Leeds United.

Arsenal 22/23

61 fouls – 10th in Premier League

11 yellow cards – 13th in Premier League

0 red cards – joint-fewest in Premier League