Kai Havertz spared Aaron Ramsdale's blushes as Arsenal sealed a vital victory over Brentford which put the Gunners top of the Premier League.

Here's Alan Alger and his latest must-read column Three Things We Learned

Welcome reality check with no damage done…

When you’re blowing teams away as easily as we have done in the Premier League recently, it’s almost standard that when you get comfortable you receive a little nudge out of the blue. Brentford certainly gave us this on Saturday and had some good chances outside of the goal we gifted them. The Bees maintained their usual stance of killing the game and keeping the ball in-play for as little of the allotted time as possible.

We’re used to this happening to us, especially in home games, but Thomas Frank’s side once again took it to the extreme. To have the ball in play for barely 50 minutes out of over 100 of time allowed and standard time is an abomination of what, after all, is a form of entertainment. The fact they’ve now been hit late on by Arsenal goals twice this season will hopefully make them approach things differently in the next campaign.

We also need to take that as a big compliment. This is a team that were happy to go to the Etihad last season and go toe-to-toe with Manchester City with less fear than they approached Saturday’s game. They had an astonishing 3.29 expected goals in that away game against the treble-winners last year. We are being afforded a much higher level of respect.

I guess it was also great preparation for the visit of Porto on Tuesday where we will need a strong referee and calm heads. Expect to see Porto adopt the same tactics along with every dark-arts trick in the book to maintain their 1-0 lead.

Marginal gains having maximum impact…

One of the most impressive aspects of Mikel Arteta’s management of the club is his insistence that everything can be done better. His overhaul of the club extended far beyond the playing staff. Coaches and backroom personnel come and go, but I’m really impressed with some of the new ideas fostered by the current group of analysts and advisers that the boss has at his disposal.

We had a throw in midway through the first half of the game on Saturday and I’ve never seen a team create so much space from some minor movements. There seems to be a huge degree of thought about all aspects of our 90-minute endeavours. I’d already highlighted earlier this season that set-pieces and goals from all possible routes aren’t off the table. I’ve seen articles elsewhere this weekend that praise Arteta for not turning his nose up at scoring from set-plays or crosses into the box – both goals this weekend scored that way. 

Goal involvements from every outfield member of every Premier League starting XI since the turn of the year is an incredible stat that we’ve maintained into March. We’ve had 11 different goalscorers in the league since January 1, we’ve also had 11 different players that have produced assists in that period. This is a well-oiled Arsenal machine that leaves nothing on the table. Even if we had to grind this one out.

Officials suffering from VAR mk III…

I believe we are now in our third iteration of VAR interpretations for Premier League fans, managers and players to get their heads around. It doesn’t help referees with the already incredibly tough job they have if the goalposts keep moving. Three penalty incidents on Saturday have received lots of attention in the post-match round ups and I’ve got my own take on them.

At the beginning VAR checked everything and the referees were told to officiate as normal as if it wasn’t even there. They were told that any interventions that needed to be made would be notified and they would stop the game. At this point every check seemed to take an eternity and the fan experience (especially in the stadium) was slightly soured. 

The PGMOL then decided that the process needed to be sped up to the kind of efficient levels we saw at the World Cup in Qatar. This led to plenty of mistakes as we saw both the referee and VAR rush through decisions (quite often incorrect) to ensure the game flowed. This reached its nadir with the disallowed Liverpool goal at Tottenham in which even the verbal process for the checks was rushed to cause huge complications.

Howard Webb now has plenty to answer for because the team he’s responsible for now have produced a version of VAR which has a kind of ‘not me guv!’ kind of attitude to making judgements.

When denied two reasonably clearcut penalties at the weekend the referee seemed to rely on VAR as back-up. VAR (as instructed) then say well it’s not much of an error so we’ll stick with your first judgement. In this scenario the threshold for getting a penalty will creep higher. No bad thing if applied consistently. But we are seeing fewer penalties this season than previous seasons.

We should also admit that Kai Havertz was actually saved by the referee deferring to VAR on what should have been called a dive (and a second yellow) in real time. Once the ref checked with Stockley Park the possibility of a booking disappeared.

The refs have a tough job, but Webb has an easy one. He just has to ensure his team perform to the highest standards with consistency and fairness – using all the tools available to them. Mistakes will happen, but if he gets the first part right they will be minimal.