Arsenal Maintains Perfect Start with Odegaard's Goal Against Napoli

Arsenal’s perfect start to the season rolled on in Naples, but it took a captain’s intervention and a manager’s fury to get them there.

Mikel Arteta’s side ground out a 1-0 win over Napoli in the Champions League, Martin Odegaard finally slicing through the tension with a decisive strike in the 75th minute. One clean hit, three hard-earned points, and a statement that Arsenal intend to stay in Europe’s sharp end this season.

Odegaard breaks a stubborn Napoli

Arsenal dominated the night. They moved the ball with authority, pinned Napoli back for long spells and carved out chance after chance. The problem was the finish.

Time and again, promising moves fizzled out in the box. Shots were dragged wide, blocked, or pushed away. Napoli’s defence, organised and obstinate, survived on a mix of discipline and Arsenal’s profligacy.

The pressure finally told. With a quarter of an hour left, Odegaard stepped up, the calmest man in the stadium. The captain found the breakthrough that had been threatening all evening, turning control into something more tangible. Relief washed through the Arsenal ranks. It had been coming.

That goal preserved a flawless record: five wins from five to start the 2026-27 campaign. Domestic form, European form – all in sync. Performances like this, even when wasteful, carry the weight of a team beginning to believe it belongs among the contenders.

Arteta delighted – and deeply irritated

Arteta’s assessment cut through the euphoria. He loved the display, loathed the finishing.

"We fully deserved the three points," he told TNT Sports. "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."

The word “shame” did a lot of work. Arsenal should have buried Napoli long before Odegaard’s winner. The volume of clear openings they created would normally be enough to win two games at this level.

"On any other day the result would be different. 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," Arteta added, satisfied with the points, far less so with the edge – or lack of it – in front of goal.

That duality summed up the night. A commanding team performance, wrapped in a narrow scoreline that flattered the hosts.

A late lapse lights Arteta’s fuse

If the missed chances irritated him, what happened late on enraged him.

With Arsenal still nursing their 1-0 lead, Napoli broke dangerously on the counter. As blue shirts surged forward, three red ones did not. Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke and Christos Tzolis were slow to recover, ambling back as the move developed.

On the touchline, Arteta exploded.

According to TNT Sports co-commentator Lucy Ward, the Arsenal manager was "absolutely raging" at the trio’s failure to track back. It was a flash of anger that cut through the satisfaction of a job nearly done, a reminder that in his world, standards do not drop just because the scoreboard looks right.

That moment will linger in his debrief. The win keeps Arsenal perfect, sharpens their European credentials and extends a superb opening run. But for Arteta, the real measure of this team will be whether they turn dominance into ruthlessness – and whether his forwards sprint as hard towards their own goal as they do towards the opposition’s.