Here's the best kept secret in football - to win a league, you don't have to play the best football. Okay, you can't be the worst either, but being at about 70-75% in terms of quality, compared to the best going is fine. The trick is to be consistent.

There are teams that on their day look unstoppable. Many of these teams, unfortunately, look pedestrian on other days and it comes down to how many match days fall into each category.

Liverpool and Arsenal are two team that fall squarely into the description of great football on occasion, but pretty rubbish on others. Arsenal frequently play at a level that defies description, and retain their preeminent place at the table of beautiful football, but as everybody knows, they are also frequently to be found scrounging out of the garbage bins of pointless passing. Arsenal's troubles are well documented, and their inconsistency is what makes them incapable of mounting a serious title challenge.

Arsenal, like any other team have their sets of injuries, but losing Van Persie seems to be a challenge too far for them. Although the Arsenal machine looks great when Arshavin, Van Persie, Nasri et al are backed up by Walcott, Eduardo, Vela & co, it's a different picture when Walcott and Eduardo need to lead the line. Even Bendtner is being missed.

Walcott has fallen into the chasm between being a winger and being a striker and currently isn't too good at either. His shooting and scoring don't add up as a striker, and his wing play is not in the same class as say, Aaron Lenon.

As a consequence, Arsenal have some good and some fairly indifferent days - which is no different from say Vill or Spurs - the only thing that will count come May is the number of good days. You would expect Arsenal to have more of them than Spurs, only so far this season, it's neck and neck.

Man United, the undisputed kings of the English Premier League, under Sir Alex, do not play the game at the rarified levels that Arsenal do. They usually don't even play at the level that Liverpool can. What they do well, is keep a level of consistency that elludes all the others.

This consistency is not just born of the players doing what they do. It is also based on building a squad that can handle a typical season's worth of injuries, mid-week games, schedule pileup and end of season exhaustion.

Sir Alex is a past master at this game. He is an expert at pulling the strings in a manner where players are rotated through rest periods and almost every player is given breaks. Ferguson also ensures that he has versatile players - such as O'Shea and Fletcher who can play in multiple positions.

Thus it is, that when injuries and fixtures both come thick and fast, Wenger is found bemoaning the fixture creation, while Ferguson gets on with makeshift defences. Almost every manager will use the trick of deflecting criticism of the team by creating a smokescreen around some other issue. But in this case, Wenger seems to have gone too far in suggesting that it's the fixtures and not his team that is at fault for the draw against Burnley on Wednesday.

Wolves To The Slaughter?

Much has also been made about Mick McCarthy's team selection. But to be fair to the man, he is absolutely entitled to pick a team that works best for Wolves, and it's really not his job to worry about other teams. Moreover, his team gave a decent account of themselves, and were beaten by exactly the same scoreline as Everton and did better than West Ham or Wigan. So not sure what the basis of the "criticism" is, really.