Read Gooner Fanzine print writer Alan Alger and his regular post-match series: Three Things We Learned.

Here's Alan on a trio of topics he noticed during Arsenal's momentous 3-2 victory over Liverpool on Sunday. 

1 - Maybe Bukayo Saka doesn’t need a rest…

I guess we are all running out of superlatives for Bukayo Saka. Involved in all three goals yesterday and continuing to play with the kind of mentality and composure that can usually only be found with players in their late twenties and early thirties.

Maybe it’s his famed intelligence off the pitch which is helping him on the pitch? Who knows. I was one of those advocating a fortnight break for the youngster at the start of this season when he looked as if he was going off the boil a little.

But in actual fact his numbers were good then and have continued to rise during an incredibly busy schedule that has included international and Europa League cameos. One other element from yesterday’s game that may have been overlooked was his dash to shepherd Granit Xhaka away from trouble in two flare-ups within the second-half of the match.

This could well be a pre-arranged tactic from management to prevent the Swiss from any rash moments, but in any case it shows the maturity with which Saka continues to astound.

The placement and re-spot after such a long wait for his penalty also belied his age. I’d still be a fan for us spotting a good window to allow him to charge his batteries and as much as I want England to do well in Qatar, an early exit could be just the trick to ensure he runs with this kind of form all the way into, and hopefully through, 2023.

2 - Belief is contagious…

Being pegged back or going behind to big teams in the last decade or so usually meant a collapse into bad habits and an inevitable defeat, sometimes by quite heavy margins.

Twice during this game Liverpool thought they had gained an upper-hand in possession and parity of scoreline only for our boys to find more! So much of that is down to the atmosphere and camaraderie within the squad, but that is also flowing from the stands too.

The standard response to an opposition goal at the Emirates is now a defiant cry of ‘Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal’ from pretty much every home section of the ground.

I’ve speculated elsewhere that there seems to have been a shift in the match-going Gooner now that fans are back in the stadium, and certainly for the better. This has been noticed by our savvy young boss and he has rightly praised the supporters during good times and bad. He also knows that the squad derive a lot of belief from how positive we are when attending matches and getting behind the team.

One thing other clubs had on us going back decades was our lack of vociferous home support, sometimes fairly, but in the case of Highbury sometimes harshly. But it’s now not true, and from experience of attending lots of other grounds in the league while undertaking my job, the Emirates is now right up there with the loudest.

3 – Mikel Arteta hasn’t just halted a decline, he’s hauled us back up the hill…

I always visualise the last decade of the club’s fortunes as if someone back in the early 2010s pushed us over a hill and we just kept rolling downwards. Arsene Wenger started that trajectory with his lack of attention to detail, misplaced loyalty, misplaced kindness and the lazy management of his squad (both in contracts and behaviour) - that anyone coming in to right those wrongs was going to need a long time.

I firmly believe a club on that slide for around a decade will need at least half of that time to bounce back, especially in the vastly more difficult Premier League landscape of this era. Some Gooners find it extremely hard to separate the incredible work and achievements that Le Boss pulled-off in his time at the club and the disappointing decline of his final few seasons at the helm. Therefore any criticism of those bad times is met with a huge amount of pushback from his biggest fans. I do understand this reluctance, but it’s been good to see that Mikel Arteta has not been afraid to question the path that Arsenal were taking before his appointment.

In ‘All Or Nothing’ we caught a rare glimpse of him explaining the state of the playing squad in terms of their attitude and not just their ability. In a recent interview with the excellent Michael Calvin he has also said similar. Unai Emery was the fall guy who came in and relied on what he was told about how brilliant Wenger had been and that anyone recruited by him must be good enough for the Premier League – I sometimes feel this might have been behind his decision to play Carl Jenkinson in the vital home game against Crystal Palace when the Champions League was at stake in that first season.

Maybe the Spaniard thought ‘Wenger gets described as a genius and this guy was handed a long contract by him, surely he can play right back against lower half opposition at home?’ Emery’s solution was to jump right in front of the club and try to stop it abruptly on the hill, which led to his downfall in his second season as it metaphorically ran him down.

When Arteta accepted the job I really hope he pointed out how long he’d need and what the plan was, something the Kroenke’s need rare credit for.

This was illustrated in the Aubameyang episode, but also in other ways he has quietly gone about stopping the slip to the extent it now feels as if he’s hauling us back up the slope as well. All credit to him and those that never doubted him for a second. I’m sure it won’t be all plain sailing from now on, with such a young squad.

But we can all believe that we have the semblance of the early Wenger and Graham years back – and the best of both of those worlds in terms of squad make-up, mentality and organisation.

With three very winnable league fixtures next up, let’s keep climbing.