Arsenal Maintains Perfect Start with 1-0 Win Over Napoli

Arsenal kept their perfect start to the 2026-27 season alive with a bruising, narrow, and utterly deserved 1-0 win over Napoli in the Champions League — a night when dominance on the ball met stubborn resistance and, for a long time, maddening profligacy.

In the end, it took their captain to cut through the tension.

Martin Odegaard struck in the 75th minute, finally snapping a deadlock that had hung over the contest from the opening whistle. Arsenal had controlled the game in Italy, dictated tempo, and repeatedly carved Napoli open, but the goal refused to come. When it did, it felt less like a breakthrough and more like an overdue correction.

The pattern was clear early on. The Gunners moved the ball with authority, pressed high, and pinned Napoli back for long stretches. Chances arrived, good ones too, but each time the finish went missing. The visitors’ superiority was obvious; the scoreline stubbornly refused to show it.

That is what pleased and irritated Mikel Arteta in equal measure.

"We fully deserved the three points," he told TNT Sports after the final whistle. "The performance probably doesn’t reflect the result, the team was superb. We showed quality in a lot of moments to break them down and it was a shame because we missed so many great chances."

He was right on both counts. Arsenal looked like a side with serious European ambitions. They also looked like a side that left the door open far too long.

The victory means Arsenal have now won all five of their opening matches this season, a flawless run that strengthens the sense that this group is ready to challenge deep into the Champions League. They controlled a traditionally hostile away fixture, imposed their football, and walked away with the points. On paper, it is the mark of a mature side.

Arteta, though, was in no mood to gloss over the flaws.

"On any other day the result would be different," he admitted. "We should have done it in a different way because of the amount of chances we created but we got the win in the end."

The irritation wasn’t only about missed chances. It was about standards.

As the game moved into its closing stages and Napoli chased an equaliser, one moment in particular lit a fuse on the Arsenal bench. A dangerous Napoli counter-attack unfolded, and Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke, and Christos Tzolis were slow to recover. The lapse did not go unnoticed.

Arteta exploded on the touchline.

According to TNT Sports co-commentator Lucy Ward, the Arsenal manager was "absolutely raging" as the attacking trio ambled back instead of sprinting into defensive shape. "Mikel Arteta was absolutely raging on the sidelines that Havertz, Madueke and Tzolis weren’t recovering after that attack," she said.

It was a flash of anger that cut through the satisfaction of a big away win. A reminder that for all the control, all the flair, Arsenal’s margin for error at this level remains thin.

They left Italy with three points, a clean sheet, and a perfect record intact. The message from their manager, though, was unmistakable: this is not a team content with simply winning — it is one being pushed, hard, to win the right way.