After he was named Premier League Player of the Year at the London Football Awards for the third time on Thursday night, Declan Rice spoke about what has indeed been Arsenal’s impressive ability to block out the “outside noise” and keep chugging along in the title race.

A couple of weeks on from a 2-2 draw with Wolves which as good as guaranteed they would bottle the Premier League title againthey sit seven points clear of Manchester City at the top of the tableafter victories over Chelsea and Brighton.

“There’s a real good perspective of what we’re doing this season,” Rice said. “And we’re not trying to get carried away with outside noise, we’re just doing what we can do, and internally, inside our building, we know what we want to achieve, so we’re going to keep going and keep giving it everything we’ve got.”

He says there’s “a real calmness around the place”, just as Mikel Arteta showed in his measured response to Fabian Hurzeler’s anti-football claims, which turned to us all – for a short while at least – into Arsenal fans.

Lesser teams with inferior mentality would have crumbled under the pressure. Many of the players now showing the mental fortitude required to win a Premier League title have wilted for Arsenal in the past. Mikel Arteta and his staff deserve great credit for that shift.

We would question the insistence from Arsenal fans, including Laura Woods following her calling out Alan Pardew for “the most disrespectful thing ever”after the former Newcastle manager claimed an asterisk may be required for a title win, that they “don’t care” how?they win it. Surely there’s a preference for being a team people enjoy watching.

But at least there’s a recognition from outside that the Gunners are grinding out results and that the gamesmanship, time-wasting and focus on set pieces is a means to a title-winning end.

Rice on the other hand, perhaps on too much of a high after collecting his gong, spouted three worryingly delusional words to suggest that just a touch of that “outside noise” might actually do them good.

“We’re playing well.”

There’s simply no way you can spin the Arsenal performances of late to in any way suggest that’s the case, unless he’s referring specifically to the North London derby and Rice surely doesn’t need the pundit or fan reaction he’s apparently being denied in the hermetically sealed Arsenal bunker?to work out that a victory over Tottenham counts for nothing other than three points these days.

But that’s all that matters anyway, right? ‘At this stage of the season’, and all that.

Yes and no. We would argue it’s all that matters if when after Arsenal play badly and win three points they still recognise the need for improvement. Winning a game and genuinely thinking that’s all that matters when there are nine more Premier League games to play and what Rice will hope are plenty more besides in the Champions League and FA Cup is a problem.

Because they will surely come unstuck if they’re as poor in open play and as reliant on their defenders, goalkeeper and good fortune as they have been in recent weeks.

Perhaps Arteta should creak the dressing room door open ever so slightly and allow just a bit of what could actually be quite useful “outside noise” to reach the ears of Rice and what we have to assume are other Arsenal players deluded into confusing victory with “playing well”.

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