What did we learn from week one of PL action?
Mikey Thompson on X: "Did @AnishESPN just reference the Jump to Conclusions mat? That's as good as it gets. #officespace https://t.co/hyksuP1nwN" / X
Had Arsenal gone to Old Trafford and really, truly blown Manchester United away, the victory lap among supporters online would’ve been legendary. You’d probably see tattoos of “Arsenal 2026 Premier League Champions,” Gyökeres doing the Bane celebration and much more. But of course, that’s not what happened. Has it ever, really?
As I said after the whistle, I really was never expecting an Arsenal cakewalk in Manchester. It’s just something Arsenal have never done, mostly because United historically have been very good, but also because Old Trafford is a place full of ghosts for Arsenal, a genuine bogey stadium for the club and a rivalry match that even the worst United side will get themselves up for. As we’ve seen in recent seasons, when United are poor, it isn’t the matches against Arsenal that they struggle to get motivated for and embarrass themselves in — it’s matches like April’s home loss to Wolves, where a goal allowed on one of four shots and an inability to score even once results in zero points. (Sideyes Saturday’s match at Craven Cottage…)
So the talk amongst Arsenal fans that United were liable to embarrass themselves against Arsenal here — just like many Arsenal fans anticipated Spurs would embarrass themselves against PSG in the UEFA Supercup — was more about underrating sides Arsenal fans despise and over-indexing a league campaign in which both had downed tools, while underrating each side’s need to make a statement against a club with a big target on its back. In each case, the club in question ultimately fell short while the major target club looked underwhelming.
Meanwhile, in a nearly perfect recipe for headloss, seemingly all of Arsenal’s main “Joneses” were matched up with relative cupcakes on the league’s opening weekend. Bournemouth — and I fear I’ll peeve some people by saying this — were never going to get a result at Anfield, having lost three defenders and a keeper to transfers, and down Justin Kluivert and Ryan Christie to injury. And still, it took a fortuitous bounce off a knee to free up Hugo Ekitike for the game’s opening goal. Bournemouth only got back into it through two pretty … lackluster … efforts by Liverpool’s midfield and back line which allowed Antoine Semenyo to score.
Likewise, City’s trip to the Molineux was fraught with about as much danger as my last stroll through my local Target’s pillow aisle. Wolves were one of the Premier League’s worst sides last season, hanging on to a place in the league thanks to an uncanny run of hot form over the second half. They’ve lost Cunha and Aït-Nouri, their two best players, and replaced them through a series of high-risk transfers which feel more unlikely than likely to be enough to replace those players.
Spurs drew Burnley for the league opener, and Scott Parker’s latest promotion project actually put up a decent first-half fight before fading like you’d expect a side with the players they had on the pitch to fade in the second half.
These results were big if you had “Liverpool good, City good, Arsenal bad” on your bingo card heading into the season,” and some Arsenal fans seem to. Perhaps because they don’t like certain signings the club has made and would like to be right, perhaps because they’d prefer to return to the days of Wengerball rather than Mikel Arteta’s hyper-efficient, safety-first hybrid of Moyes-ball and Pep-ball, often mislabeled as sufferball. Either way, most of it seems more rooted in a dislike for the aesthetics of current Arsenal than anything, because the results quite literally are the best they’ve been in more than 20 years.
To add some insult to the injury, it sounds like Spurs should close on Ebe Eze this week, bringing an end to a love affair many Arsenal fans hadn’t experienced since January, with Ollie Watkins. Or maybe Ivan Toney before that.
In all seriousness, it’s easy to see the appeal of an Eze for any side, and it’s also easy to see where the hesitation might come from in paying a market-topping fee for him: He’s 27, and transfer fees tend to be more about a player’s potential than a player’s current ability. Even if he’s only purchased for £60 million, Eze would come about 40% more expensively than the next-most-expensive PL-to-PL midfielder sale for a 27 or older player, which was Everton’s Gylfi Sigurdsson purchase way back in 2017. In a market where Florian Wirtz goes for £108 million, £60 million may not seem like much, but it still is. In three seasons, Wirtz will be two years younger than Eze is now. In short: the Wirtz window is much larger. But that doesn’t ease the blow of seeing him lift the white shirt.
Speaking of seeing guys in new shirts…it’s definitely OK to mention that this past weekend,Viktor Gyökeresdidn’t sparkle. No, that doesn’t mean he’s mid, that doesn’t mean he’s a flop. Arsenal themselves are still bedding in a new style of play that would play to Gyökeres’s strengths, be it something they do full- or part-time.
Hugo Ekitike, meanwhile, had a goal and an assist, and that equally doesn’t mean he’s a hit signing. We need to remind ourselves that adjustments for players can be more or less significant depending on clubs they join and the systems they’re playing in. In some cases, the opponents they’re playing also matter, and in other cases, it’s simply a flash in the pan or growing pains. Some reminders, if you need them:
Ekitike’s goal and assist this weekend made him just the second Liverpool debutante to get one of each, ever. The other? None other than Darwin Núñez, the very same Darwin who was sold this summer to Al-Hilal after failing to make good on his potential. And that’s not factoring in his performance in the Community Shield a week earlier, where another prominent new striker signing looked uninspiring (This headline below is from the BBC):
Antony quite literally scored on his Premier League debut, against…Arsenal, at Old Trafford.
Does anyone else remember the timeline after this debut?
It’s not just players this happens to, either. One of the most dominant Arsenal opening day matches I’ve ever watched was their 2020 dismantling of a poor Fulham side, 3-0 at Craven Cottage. That was Willian’s debut match, and one where he set up two goals. Arsenal put up 1.9 xG to Fulham’s 0.1 xG and despite delivering a feel-good first week result went on to eighth.
Two seasons later, Arteta’s Arsenal provided a very business-like 2-0 win at Selhurst Park where they were beaten on xG, but would muster a genuine title challenge and finish second.
August 2023 saw Newcastle tear Aston Villa limb-from-limb on opening day, 5-1. By season’s end, though, the Magpies had regressed to 7th, while Emery had claimed 4th and a spot in the Champions League. Last, and then I’ll shut up: Conte’s Spurs roared to a 4-1 win over Southampton in his debut before sputtering to an eighth-place finish, and plenty of drama.
Anyway, all of this isn’t to say Arsenal have nothing to improve upon. What we saw this weekend is clearly a work in progress. And if we don’t get more from Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Gyökeres, Gabriel, Saliba and Declan Rice in particular, then the side are definitely in trouble. Thankfully, we know most of those guys well enough by this point to feel awfully secure in the likelihood that isn’t going to happen.
Until then, enjoy the journey.