EMIRATES STADIUM — Mikel Arteta says that complacency is a non-entity at Arsenal because the message that this is just the start came from the players not him. You’d have to be foolish or biased to disbelieve him. There are ways to set the tone on opening night and Arsenal were flawless. Welcome back to the Premier League, Coventry. It won’t always be this punishing.
Arsenal killed the contest within 25 minutes and spent the rest conserving energy and playing attacking triangles to the cheers of those who came to watch the champions. Before the match, the tannoy and branding around the Emirates reinforced the message. They do not intend to take it down in May 2027.
Coventry were suffocated to the point of inertia. The intent was counter-attacking but Frank Lampard’s team had four touches in Arsenal’s penalty area. Ellis Simms and then Taiwo Awoniyi were asked to hold the ball up for minutes, not seconds. A combative midfield in the Championship looked easy to play too. These are new levels and the air is thin.
Or maybe Arsenal were just brilliantly Arsenal. Because English football is medically addicted to transfer window culture and has indoctrinated supporters to judge progress by the pursuit of new players, Arsenal have been considered a new work in progress. The failed or aborted moves for Morgan Rogers and Vinicius Jr were held up in some quarters as a step backwards.
On opening night, Arsenal showed off one new boy before the game – Ezri Konsa – and then allowed Christos Tzolis to offer some evidence that he can be the best thing in a problem position. Tzolis’s driving dribbles were both effective and a change from the Trossard-Martinelli habit of turning back to midfield. He was given a standing ovation on league debut.
But, as ever, the typical failure is to ignore the value of what is familiar, not what is new. In Arsenal’s case, that applies more than anywhere else.
In December 2024, Arsenal won 5-1 at Crystal Palace with Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz in their starting XI – so far, so normal. Between then and Friday night, that trio had started only one more Premier League match together in 20 months thanks to a multitude of frustrating injury setbacks.
Because that hampered the strength of Arsenal’s depth (although you’d hardly know it from their results over the same period), their return to full fitness vastly improves it. Noni Madueke, Viktor Gyokeres and Bruno Guimaraes (or Mikel Merino, Eberechi Eze or Max Dowman) are the likely replacements. The group is supercharged yet only Bruno is new.
If that’s a lovely statistical nugget, it also proved itself to be emphatically pertinent. Who scored Arsenal’s first league goal of the season? Havertz, holding his run in a perfect position 15 yards from goal. Who scored the second? Saka, feeding off scraps from a cross at the back post. The third? Odegaard, although we’ll do him the honour of not describing the finish.
It will not always work this way, of course. Coventry were a malleable first opponent because most of the team is learning on the job in the top flight. Titles are hardly won against the promoted sides at home. Nor is continued fitness guaranteed, particularly in the case of Havertz and Odegaard.
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Friday was proof of what plenty have been saying all summer and what Arsenal supporters understandably won’t dare say yet: this squad might not need to improve to defend their title.
But more than that, this squad can be stronger than last season even if it had no new players added to it. The frightening element of Arsenal’s title win for their peers was not the style or the margin of victory, but that they did it without Havertz, Odegaard or Saka ever peaking. Do so this season and Arsenal won’t be stopped.