LONDON — Ninety-five days on from Arsenal’s last competitive outing at the Emirates Stadium, there were a lot of surface-level similarities on the Premier League champions’ return against Coventry City on Friday night.
That victory over Burnley back in May on a deceptively chilly summer weeknight opened with a Kai Havertz goal, ended with an Arsenal clean sheet and three Premier League points.
Yet, the moments of consequence in the meat of the contest highlighted the changes that these players, fans and club have collectively undergone since winning the Premier League title.
The Weight Has Lifted
There was a wild-eyed mania to Arsenal’s final home game of last season. Locked in a fraught title race with Manchester City, each contest felt like a lesson in psychological torture.
Until the deadlock could be broken, invariably by a set piece, the ground was a boiling pot of fury, every sideways pass admonished, each wayward shot treated like an act of light treason. Mikel Arteta was particularly amped up that night, twice catching the ball in the opening 25 minutes before it had even bounced out to hurriedly restart play.
Once that first goal went in—against Burnley it was a Havertz header from a corner, predictably enough—the anger was replaced with angst, one second ticked off at a time, with Arsenal giving up on attacking and hoping that the opponents did the same.
It was striking how much the weight of being crowned champions had transformed the atmosphere in north London. Rather than an impassioned mob to greet the team bus, a natural crowd of supporters formed around a brass band outside the club shop. Everything was just lighter. A French horn tooting out North London Forever will have that effect. “It was a joy,” Arteta grinned.
Arteta has gone to great lengths to improve the atmosphere of a ground which has struggled to shed its tag of “The Library.” The tunnel roof has been removed to give fans a sight of the players heading onto the pitch, screens inside the concourses no longer show live match coverage to encourage swifter beer runs, Arteta himself has even taken to making direct appeals to supporters to arrive early. It turns out, all he had to do was win the league.
New Sense of Balance Found
Christos Tzolis’s first Premier League start came at the Emirates. But it wasn’t on Friday. Five years earlier in Norwich City’s colors, the Greece international began an underwhelming career for the Canaries which precede a winding road through the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium before landing back in England this summer.
In a window which has been defined by Premier League clubs trading with each other rather than trusting any other nation’s players to adapt to the unique demands of the fiercest competition in soccer, the $45.7 million (£34 million at the time of agreement) recruit from Club Brugge represents a buck of that trend. Thus far, he has justified the faith.
After an impressive semi-competitive debut in the Community Shield which earned him two assists, Tzolis once again had a hand in creating a pair of Arsenal goals. It was his battling with Coventry’s Milan van Ewijk which won the ball back for Riccardo Calafiori to sweep a cross along the box for Havertz’s opener. Tzolis himself was the one to deliver the devilish low ball which Carl Rushworth parried into the path of Bukayo Saka for Arsenal’s second.
On another night, Tzolis would have nabbed a goal of his own, rattling off four shots which produced the best moments from an otherwise erratic Rushworth. That the 24-year-old was so involved—on top of a match-high number of efforts, he also had more touches in Coventry’s box than anyone else—represents a success in itself for Arsenal’s recruitment team.
The Gunners have long since been tilted towards their right flank. Saka boasts a gravitational force over every forward foray—no team still in the Premier League funnelled more of their attacks down the right wing than Arsenal last season (42% per WhoScored). While giving the ball to your most potent forward is no bad thing, having a genuine threat on the opposite wing at least creates a sense of doubt in the defending team, even if he is often a decoy.
Improving From Within
For Arteta the “main focus” for Arsenal is now improving what already exists within the roster. Whether that’s a not-so-subtle hint that the club’s transfer business has concluded with the acquisition of Ezri Konsa remains to be seen, but it points towards the faith Arteta has in his wonderfully-talented roster.
That quality is enhanced by the connections between the individuals. The most-potent trident throughout Arsenal’s squad comes in the form of Martin Ødegaard, Saka and White down the right. All too often over the past two years, at least one—if not two or three—of that trio have been sidelined by injury. Cristhian Mosquera was forced into an unorthodox right back role for the visit of Burnley last season, for example, offering none of the overlapping runs which White constantly makes to unlock Saka and Ødegaard.
Arsenal’s third and final goal provided a perfect example of this group’s collective threat. Ødegaard shovelled a pass to Saka, who held up Jay Dasilva long enough for White to burst around his right shoulder. The fullback rolled the ball back for Ødegaard to clumsily swipe a deflected effort through Rushworth’s weak wrist.
Super Strength Forcibly Tweaked
Arsenal’s solitary goal against Burnley back in May was refreshingly straightforward. Havertz simply climbed higher than everyone else in the penalty box to head in Saka’s in-swinging corner. It was a reliably repeatable method, with Arteta’s side infamously toppling all manner of set-piece records en route to the title.
One of the threads to pull for the 2026–27 Premier League season was how the new rules would impact Arsenal’s super strength. The division’s referees chief Howard Webb promised “fewer warnings, more actions penalized” for “holding actions that have clear material impact” at corners and free kicks.
Nicolas Jover, Arsenal’s lauded set-piece coach, had the challenge set out in front of him and unveiled his solution: play it short.
The Gunners have invariably knocked the ball directly into the box throughout Jover’s tenure at the club. Yet, in the face of stricter protocols surrounding the blocking and jostling methods which created space for first contact from those crosses, Arsenal opted for the low route, time and again deploying short corners with pre-worked passing schemes around the blue and white striped shirts. While it didn’t result in a goal on Friday, Tzolis, Saka and Ben White had inviting shots created from these innovative schemes.
“I think the rules will be different as well,” Arteta warned ahead of the new season, “and when the rules change, everything changes.” For Arsenal, most changes have largely been welcomed.
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