By Tony Attwood
That was, I think, how I prefer opening games to go. A clear and obvious win, with seemingly plenty left in each player’s locker to use if the going gets rough, as presumably it will at some stage. A 6-0 win would have given the scribblers chance to categorise every match thereafter as Arsenal going down hill and not keeping up momentum But “Arsenal sweep Coventry aside” seemed about right. And can I be one of the first to write “We are top of the league”?
The only media response that Coventry seemed to have after the game was to suggest that they had not finished their work in the transfer window yet – .but then one wonders, why not? The gap between the Championship and Premier League is enormous, and Arsenal were hardly exerted last night, simply because after last season’s injury horrors, no one wanted to get injured. And who can blame them?
So now we have had two 3-0 victories in a row, and Martin Ødegaard looks like the guy we knew in earlier times – and I am sure a goal will have heled secure his return to how it used to be. “Very comfortable” was how I would describe it.
Of course we generally do beat newly promoted teams, mostly because no matter how much they have studied the videos they’ve never quite grasped the intensity of it all. The relentlessness of getting the ball back. The quick movement…
So, as the Mail said, “There will be significantly tougher games ahead for Arsenal,” but on the other hand you can only beat the team you are playing, and no one wanted to risk an injury, so 3-0 was fine.
And I thought what was also amusing yesterday was to note that Tottenham are still apparently also chasing new players as Roberto De Zerbi said the Totts are ‘not finished yet’ in transfer market He suggests they might end up spending £400m – and I suspect that they still might struggle to make it back into Europe.
The big difference between Arsenal and Tottenham is that we know and Arsenal know where we are going. The team is there, and any more new comers will just make an excellent team even better and make injuries have less impact. And I rather suspect, as Arteta hinted last night, Sakah as hardly warmed up yet.
So there was no post-match chitchat about how good Arsenal were but instead a focus on improvement: “improve the connection between them” the boss said because “they are already so good.”
And of course it is true we did have a lot of players out for a lot of time last season. But this is a figure we must be careful with, since Premier Injuries website reports an overall decline in days lost through injury last year for the Premier League. In short, everyone had fewer injuries…
| METRIC | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time-loss injuries | 593 | 553 | -6.7% |
| Days lost | 21,451 | 18,261 | -14.9% |
| Matches missed | 2,597 | 2,194 | -15.5% |
| Incidence per 1,000 competitive minutes | 6.81 | 6.21 | -8.9% |
| Average days lost per injury | 36.2 | 33.0 | -8.7% |
| Average matches missed per injury | 4.38 | 3.97 | -9.4% |
In terms of further purchases Arteta said, “I’m really happy with the squad that we have and the main focus is to improve the players that we already have because we already have a lot of good things.” Although it was noticeable that Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus were both excluded from the squad yesterday so might be on their way out.
Bruno Guimarães was out with an injury but was said to be close to fitness and would soon be able to come into the squad. And having played what is essentially a Championship side Arsenal won’t be getting carried away. It was after all one of the most comfortable games at the stadium in the league in the last couple of years.
But I think the key to everything was Ødegaard who got his hour and a quarter on the pitch and was back to those short precise passes that made things happen. He looked like a man controlling the game – sometimes almost by remote control – and perhaps most importantly always driving forward. There is talk that his goal was not hit properly – maybe so – but I suspect he enjoyed scoring as much as I enjoyed watching him score. And that was a lot.
And that really seems to me to be the main point. It was fun to watch, and it looked like the guys on the pitch were having fun too. As if they know there will be some teams out there who try to clobber them at every turn, and for whom breaking an Arsenal leg means they are one step closer to beating us, but Coventry were not dong that. They are playing for a mid-table final position, and yes maybe with this team and playing this way they can get it.
As for Arsenal, I’m already simply looking forward to the next match.
