Arsenal enter new year in good shape

(CNN) -- Having spent most of the season so far winning plaudits for their eye-catching passing game, in recent weeks English Premier League leaders Arsenal have displayed that they possess the attitude to match their artistry.

Just as some were starting to question whether the early-season pacesetters had the resilience and fighting spirit to hold off a resurgent Manchester United, Arsene Wenger's side has collected three wins and a draw from the busy holiday period to enter the New Year with a two-point gap over the defending champions.

Since suffering their first league defeat of the season at Middlesbrough early last month and drawing 1-1 at Newcastle the following week, Arsenal have won home games against London rivals Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham and emerged from a punishing away trip to Everton as 4-1 victors.

"I prefer to lead from the front -- definitely," Wenger said this week. "Because you just rely on your results. If you are not at the front you have to hope the others don't perform. I feel going into January we will rely on our performances. Manchester United will be a tough opponent but we have belief, we have talent and we are ready to fight. This team is hungry so that's a good ingredient."

Wenger and his players have also proved themselves to be more tactically flexible than they had been given credit, lining up in recent weeks in a conventional 4-4-2 formation as opposed to the more fluid 4-5-1 which had been so effective earlier in the campaign.

Tuesday's 2-0 win over West Ham even featured an Arsenal rarity with Emmanuel Adebayor catching the Hammers' defense offguard to score from Gael Clichy's hopeful punt from deep inside his own half -- a distance Arsenal might more usually have taken some 20 passes to cover.

Wenger will be further delighted at the recent form of Eduardo da Silva. Utilised sparingly since his $15 million move from Dinamo Zagreb in the summer, Wenger's decision to give the prolific Brazilian-born Croatian striker time and League Cup matches to adapt to the pace of English football has been rewarded with three goals in the last two league games and five goals in his last three starts.

With Robin van Persie due back from a lengthy injury absence, Adebayor sticking around for January and February following Togo's failure to qualify for the African Nations Cup and even the fast-improving Nicklas Bendter looking hungry for goals, Wenger has the sort of selection headache that managers profess to love.

Behind them, Cesc Fabregas remains the Premier League's outstanding performer after Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo, while Alexander Hleb, Tomas Rosicky and Mathieu Flamini are showing their best form since moving to England.

Wenger's francophone squad is not entirely undamaged by the African Nations Cup. Kolo Toure's absence from the center of defense will likely mean more playing opportunities for the accident-prone Philippe Senderos while Emmanuel Eboue's combative athelticism will also be missed.

Yet, on the whole, Wenger will likely go into the New Year satisfied with his squad's readiness for the second half of a title-chasing season that also includes an enticing Champions League last 16 clash with defending champions AC Milan, a club who reputedly once rejected the Frenchman, considering him too schoolmaster-ish.

While he may well be too erudite to pay too much attention to omens, the numbers are also on Wenger's side. Twenty years ago in 1988, he won his first league title as a manager, steering Monaco to the French championship.

Ten years later in 1998, Wenger's first great Arsenal side of Tony Adams, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira won the first of his three Premier League crowns on their way to completing the Double.

Another title in 2008 might appeal to amateur statisticians but Wenger has more concrete reasons for dreaming of more success with a club to which he has dedicated more than a decade of his coaching career.

"I will give every bit of energy to make this club successful. It's a pleasure to work with the team," he says. "They give absolutely everything so I want to give everything to make this team successful." E-mail to a friend