Well, that's exactly how you want to start a Champions League campaign. Not pretty at times, if I'm honest — we should have had this one wrapped up well before the hour mark — but three points from Naples on the opening night is three points from Naples on the opening night, and I'll take that every single time.
For long spells of this one, it barely felt like a contest. We had the ball, we had the territory, and we had the better chances — Mikel Merino, Saka, and Piero Hincapié all had sniffs at goal, and on another night we're talking about a 3-0 or 4-0 job here rather than a nervy one-goal margin. Alex Meret in the Napoli goal had to be at his best a few times just to keep the scoreline respectable.
Credit where it's due, Napoli weren't just there to be swept aside. De Bruyne popped up with a couple of moments of genuine quality on the counter, the kind of thing that reminds you he's still capable of hurting sides even from deep. But defensively we were excellent all night — organised, patient, never rattled, even while the final ball kept letting us down at the other end.
Saka in particular will be kicking himself about a good chance before half-time, and Hincapié had a similar one early in the second half. It's the one blemish on an otherwise near-complete away performance: we needed a moment of quality to actually put the game to bed, and for a long time it just wasn't coming.
Odegaard with fifteen minutes to go, and up he pops.
Christos Tzolis — on as a substitute — linked up with Ben White before the ball found its way to our captain on the edge of the box, and Martin absolutely leathered it in off the post and past Milinković-Savić. Cue the away end going up.
That's four goals in his last five appearances for Ødegaard now, and it's becoming a proper theme this season: when Arsenal need someone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, it's the captain stepping up. Arteta's been banging the drum for a while now about wanting more end product and more attacking personality from Martin, and right now he's delivering exactly that. Long may it continue.
Once we were in front, there was never really a sense of panic that Napoli would find a way back in. That's been the story of this Arsenal side for a while now — even when the finishing is off, the platform underneath it never wobbles. We kept our shape, kept the ball moving, kept pressing at the right moments, and Naples never really got the foothold they'd have needed to turn this into a nervy finish.
Havertz thought he'd made it 2-0 deep into stoppage time, but it was chalked off for offside. Didn't matter in the end — the job was already done by then.
The Honest Verdict
If I'm being completely straight with myself: this was a game we controlled from start to finish and probably should have won more comfortably than the final score suggests. Arteta more or less admitted as much afterwards. That's the only real gripe from an otherwise excellent night — we're creating enough to be putting sides away, and at some point that profligacy in front of goal is going to cost us against a team clinical enough to punish it.
But you don't get too greedy on nights like this. We went to one of the most hostile away days in European football, dominated the game, didn't concede, and came home with all three points. After how last season's European run ended, that's exactly the kind of statement start we needed.
One down. Five to go in the league phase. And if Ødegaard keeps playing like this, I like our chances in every single one of them.
COYG. 🔴⚪
