The narrative is simple.

This is where we find out what Arsenal are made of. The Premier League leaders have played 10 games this season, winning eight and drawing one after losing their opener against Aston Villa.

You don't have to go back that far to find a better start. In 2007/08 after this many games, they had 28 points, three more than now, and had also won all three group games in the Champions League. That was the season in which Emmanuel Adebayor scored 24 league goals, when Cesc Fabregas was bossing the midfield, when Kolo Toure and William Gallas formed one of the best defensive partnerships in England's top flight.

In the end, they finished third, thanks in no small part to a horrid late-season run in which they won just once in eight league games.

Are they heading for a similar collapse? Today's trip to Old Trafford is, on paper, their first real test. Thus far, they have faced top-10 opposition just twice in 10 games and both times at home (Tottenham and Liverpool). This is Manchester United away. A sputtering United perhaps and, of course, one without Sir Alex and with Marouane Fellaini, but still Wenger's bogeymen.

Arsenal have lost on their last six visits to Old Trafford. They have one point from their last nine at the Theatre of Dreams. This is where Arsenal ambitions have gone to die.

So, what's different about this season? Those Arsenal fans who are back on the bandwagon - after the boos and catcalls on the opening day - point to the fact the side is far more unpredictable. Goals are spread throughout the team - 10 different Arsenal players have found the back of the net - and there's a creativity we haven't seen in years.

Mesut Ozil is a bona fide superstar and Aaron Ramsey is playing like one. The much-maligned defence has looked solid and Olivier Giroud has scored as many league goals this season as the man he replaced, Robin Van Persie. And, down the road, there's the prospect of Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lukas Podolski and Jack Wilshere - all of whom have played bit parts thus far - once again becoming legitimate contributors.

They're up against a United side who have got very few breaks this season. Adnan Januzaj apart, the wide men have been the epitome of inconsistency. The defence have blown hot and cold and the midfield, particularly Fellaini, manager David Moyes' pet project, has looked sluggish and unimaginative.

United haven't lost since September, but look past the results to the performances and there is little reason to harbour hope. They were poor away to Real Sociedad and fortunate at home when they won 1-0. They blitzed Fulham at Craven Cottage but then were on the back foot for much of the second half. Against Stoke - at Old Trafford no less - they had to come from behind with 12 minutes to go.

Southampton visited them and outplayed, outshot and outpossessed them. At Sunderland, facing a team that were bottom of the league and had just sacked their manager, it took an outrageous save from David De Gea to rescue the three points. Indeed, United's most convincing victory of the season remains their 4-1 at Swansea on the first day of the season.

You feel that right now Moyes is simply trying to grind out results while he goes to work to fix this team's ills. He's a new manager, he's entitled to time. But the fact United look vulnerable pretty much every time they step on to the pitch suggests he's a long way from where he wants to be.

A victory for either team and we could remember today as a turning point. It could be the win that gives Arsenal the belief and oomph that propels them to the title. Or it could be the result that turns Moyes' season around.

The problem with Sepp Blatter isn't so much that he has bad ideas, it's that when he comes up with something good, he does so at the wrong time. The Fifa president made headlines last week when he talked about the possibility of turning the 2022 Qatar World Cup into the 2022 Gulf World Cup, by including other co-hosts such as Iran and the United Arab Emirates (surely just a coincidence that he was speaking in Abu Dhabi at the time).

It's not an insane, left-field idea. In fact, before the absurdity of Qatar, you had the sense that to host a World Cup, you needed to be a certain size, which basically limited the biggest event in all of sport to a pool of 20, maybe 25, nations.

This way, more can be involved, which spreads the wealth and excitement to more Fifa members. Heck, had they done it in South Africa, rather than building white elephants in tiny places such as Polokwane and Nelspruit, they could have had games in the likes of Maputo, Windhoek and Harare, making it meaningful to their neighbours as well.

The problem is Qatar went through a whole bidding process. They've spent time and money to build the necessary stadiums and infrastructure. To be told now that they might need to share it with other countries is unfair and possibly illegal too.

Of course, given Fifa's record of making things up as they go along, we shouldn't be surprised. And perhaps if this is a "wrong" that partially fixes another "wrong" -assigning the World Cup to Qatar in the first place - then we should welcome it.

China's Guangzhou Evergrande were crowned winners of the Asian Champions League yesterday, overcoming Korea's FC Seoul over two legs. Their success means Marcello Lippi becomes the first manager to add this title to the Uefa Champions League, won with Juventus in 1996, and the World Cup, masterminding Italy's 2006 triumph.

Some will say Lippi went to China for the money. Fair enough, although at 65 years of age and with his CV you'd figure his bank balance was already pretty healthy. There are also other ways to make money without leaving home but whatever the case, succeeding in two continents at his age is something special.