The computer analysis shows that Mathieu Flamini runs an average of nine miles in every match, so it is no great surprise to learn that, early in his career at Marseille, he was known as "The Running Man". The nickname followed him to Arsenal, too, until Arsène Wenger's players decided this season that he merited something new. Flamini has been playing the best football of his life and it is a measure of his emerging reputation that his team-mates now call him "Gattuso".
Flamini thinks of it as a compliment (though it should also be pointed out that he looks slightly embarrassed when it is brought up) and it is a measure of what the former law student brings to Wenger's team that Gennaro Gattuso's own nickname in Italy is "Ringhio", which translates as "The Growl" or "Snarler".
The French midfielder does not have the same manic stare, or the pirate's beard of the Milan enforcer, but he is another combative midfielder who is quick to the ball and strong in the tackle. It is the role Patrick Vieira used to fill with such distinction and, even though it has taken Flamini longer than he would have liked to establish himself in the side, his individual story has been one of the more endearing aspects of Arsenal's unbeaten start to the season.
"This is probably the happiest I have been since I joined the club but I had a lot of thinking to do over the summer and I have to admit that it did reach the stage where I decided I would be better leaving," he says. "I wasn't playing enough and I was finding it hard getting my chance. I loved London but a footballer can only be truly happy when they are playing regularly so I went to the coach [Wenger] and told him that I wanted to go. He listened, took it in and then he said to me that he did not want me to go anywhere. He said he had confidence in me and that if I carried on working hard my chance would come. Looking back, he changed my mind because, until then, I was clear that I wanted to leave."
Flamini was so unsettled at the time that a family decision was taken for his uncle to ring L'Equipe to publicise his potential availability. "That is true, but everything has worked out and it is in the past now," he says. "I am just happy that I listened to the coach and I decided to fight for my place. I'm playing every week now and that is all I ever wanted. We are top of the league, winning matches and playing well, and I am performing an important role in the team.
"I have developed a good understanding with Cesc Fábregas and maybe there has been a change about the way opponents see Arsenal, too. When Patrick left, other teams have played Arsenal with the mentality that if they kick us and if they play a hard, physical game they will beat us. We have heard other managers talking about it and maybe it was true, too. Maybe it was a fair criticism. But I don't think anyone can say it this season.
"We are a technical team and we love to pass the ball but we can never forget that we are playing in England. We have to win the physical battle, too. That is where I come in. I play a physical game and that is why they call me 'Gattuso' because he plays exactly the same role. It's my job to be aggressive on the pitch, just like it's Gattuso's job to do that for Milan. We have to be able to pass the ball, too, but most of all we are there to add a physical presence and, for Arsenal, I think that was very necessary."
Flamini has followed Vieira into the France national squad and he has been playing with such authority for Arsenal that it is beginning to feel like a trick of the imagination that his only other extended spell in the team came during the knockout stages of the 2006 Champions League when Ashley Cole, Gaël Clichy and several others picked up injuries and he found himself playing at left-back, more by default than anything else.
His three and a half years at the club have otherwise been spent on the edges of the team, but he has started every game in the Premier League this season and if, as expected, he keeps out the increasingly unhappy Gilberto Silva against Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium today he will have begun as many games this season as he managed during the entire last campaign.
"It's going to be a special game," he says. "I learned very quickly what Arsenal versus Manchester United means. I had been at the club only a few months when everything happened at Old Trafford in that famous game [the notorious "Battle of the Buffet"]. I can also vividly remember being in the tunnel at Highbury before the game when there was the trouble between Patrick and Roy Keane. That was incredible - we hadn't even reached the pitch!
"For Marseille, we used to have a big rivalry with Paris St-Germain and, at Arsenal, there is always the history of Tottenham. But it became clear to me very early on that Arsenal and Manchester United have a special kind of rivalry.
"I used to watch Patrick from the side of the pitch and when he used to play against Keane it was like a match within a match. They were two warriors but, deep down, they had respect for each other because they knew they were the best in the business. They were real fighters. They wanted to win every one-on-one and that is the way I think, too. I have picked up things from Patrick and I try to play in the same way."
It has earned him the wholehearted respect of Arsenal's supporters and a fan club that includes their celebrity supporter David Gest, who has been seen at the Emirates Stadium recently with Flamini's name sewn into his shirt with sequins. "These are good times for me and the club," says the Frenchman. "It is the last year of my contract and I do not want to start talking about a new deal just yet because we have so many important games and it might take my mind away from the football. What I can say is that I definitely see my future here."
pls sign a new deal flamster 
