Christos Tzolis and Martin Odegaard have given Mikel Arteta two perfect weapons for Arsenal's hopes of Premier League dominance
Christos Tzolis and Martin Odegaard were clear standouts for Arsenal against Manchester City
Christos Tzolis and Martin Odegaard were clear standouts for Arsenal against Manchester City(Image: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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Okay, don’t get too excited, but that was mightily impressive. A three-goal win against Manchester City does not come along every day, and so despite the persistent debate of whether this game is just a glorified friendly or an actual trophy, for Arsenal, this most definitely is worth celebrating.
Especially when you consider quite how concerning some of Arsenal’s performances during pre-season were. I don’t mean to tempt, bringing the mood down, but I have had some fans fearful of a disaster title defence akin to that of Liverpool last season, off the back of the summer’s friendlies, which didn’t really include much of the key players, and of those it did, they lacked serious sharpness.
One player not lacking any form of edge, though, is Christos Tzolis. Having benefitted from his pre-season starting early, some have posited whether this is why he has been standing out above the rest…
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Turns out, he’s just very good. I put it to Arteta in the post-match press conference, the obsession we can sometimes have with huge, big-money signings, and instead, Tzolis has come in for a reasonable £34million fee and starred.
“I think he's coming into the team really organically,” Arteta said. “He's fit in, he's a really intelligent boy, and he has a massive quality, which is when he's in the last 20-30 metres, he's so composed to pick people in and around the box or to finish actions, and he's shown that again two or three times, and he was decisive.”
Two assists on the day, which makes it six goal contributions throughout pre-season. The standout star of the summer is easing any fears fans have about the options on the left wing.
“Well, that's a natural quality. He has better players around him. You put him in more and more situations, so the volume is higher with the level of quality that he has. The numbers will be higher,” Arteta said. “He's so eager to learn, to improve, to practise, and it's not a coincidence, he's a really consistent player in everything that he does, and I'm really impressed with him.”
The other player who stood out on the day was, without question, Martin Odegaard. He looks like an entirely new version of himself following a season completely interrupted by injury and misfortune.
football.london understood rumours of a potential exit were wide of the mark and that the player remained very happy and was determined to return to the club in the best possible condition to play the new season. Hearing from Arteta afterwards, this was very obvious.
“Well, he missed five or six months for different things and it was extremely difficult for him to get any momentum,” he said. “So I'm sure this year if we can maintain him fit, available with the players around him, we're going to see a very different Martin.
“And I sense from the first day that he joined that he has something else on the belly that he wants to prove and show, because the team needs it as well.”
That will be music to anyone’s ears who recognises just how good a player the skipper is. And to those who still cannot see it, even after today, I lack the words to explain my despair.
When you win the Premier League, it is like reaching a summit. For Arsenal, the question has been whether this summit is the first of many or whether the pathway instead takes the club back down the other side.
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I loved Mikel’s answer to the question about desire. You can sense the hunger in him, and that is clearly shared by his players in how they celebrated this win – even if it might have caused Declan Rice some embarrassment, if you know, you know.
“Because you want to go through it again,” Arteta said. “When the desire comes, I want to live that moment again. I want to live all the moments, even bigger than them.
“We know what it's going to take, we know the difficulty of the task, that's why we've never done it at this football club to win it again.
“So we know that it's going to demand something special, and we are ready for it.”
I have to be honest, I didn’t think Arsenal would win this game, and I certainly didn’t foresee this result coming, which in some ways proves the adage that pre-season results truly indicate very little. Naively, though, I believe again they can win it all and definitely go into the clash with Coventry with plenty of confidence, as can we on the other side of those advertisement hoardings.