Arsenal's Perfect Start: Three Wins in Three Games
Three league games, three league wins. Arsenal have hit the new season at full tilt, and the only way it could feel any better in north London is if Manchester City had already stumbled. They haven’t. But right now, that barely dents the mood. This is not just a perfect start on paper; it’s a team winning in different styles and looking superior in every one of them.
Arsenal show their range
The opening week brought a controlled, almost stress‑free dismantling of Coventry City. Then came Aston Villa: tight, tense, and decided in that brutal 15‑minute spell after half-time when Arsenal simply cranked up the tempo and squeezed the life out of the game.
Chelsea was different again. Open, frantic, and the first time this season Arsenal’s defence was breached. Xabi Alonso’s side asked questions, went in front, and for the first time Arsenal had to chase. Yet even from behind, there was a sense of inevitability about the outcome. They looked like the better side, the more complete side, the one that knew exactly how to win.
They still needed a moment of defiance. Estevão’s late effort seemed destined for the corner until David Raya flung himself across and clawed it away. It was a stunning save, but also a reminder: even when opponents break through the structure, they still have to beat a goalkeeper who specialises in those morale‑draining interventions.
Arsenal carried a threat from everywhere. Set-pieces, open play, quick combinations, longer spells of possession – they had it all. They even coped with Declan Rice having one of his less convincing afternoons. His late, cynical trip on Morgan Rogers, far from the ball and far from subtle, somehow escaped punishment. It was the sort of foul the sport could easily justify treating as a red card. Arsenal survived it, but it underlined how much edge now runs through this team.
A lighter Ødegaard, a sharper attack
The surge may partly be psychological. The weight of not having won the title, of three consecutive second-place finishes, seems to have lifted. The tension has drained from their shoulders. What’s left is a side that looks quicker in thought and movement.
Martin Ødegaard is the clearest example. Last season he was hampered by injuries and managed just one league goal. This season he already has two in the league and another in the Community Shield. Some players come back from a World Cup jaded, stuck between the high of a global tournament and the grind of the league. Ødegaard looks like he has been reset.
There’s a lightness to his game again, a touch of mischief. He took his goal against Chelsea beautifully, timing his movement and finish with a calm that cut through the chaos. His combinations with Kai Havertz were often exquisite – little give‑and‑goes, disguised passes, angles that seemed to appear from nowhere. Their interplay produced the winner, two mercurial talents bending the game to their rhythm.
In a side that last season built a reputation for steel and physicality, watching Ødegaard and Havertz float between the lines feels almost surreal at times, as if two flickering figures have been dropped into an industrial machine.
Saka and Calafiori raise the level
Bukayo Saka’s story is different but no less significant. At 25, he already has 205 league starts behind him and a heavy England workload on top. Last season felt like the bill arriving for all those early years of constant football. The legs looked heavier, the spark a little dimmed.
His World Cup was strange too. Thomas Tuchel left him out of the semi-final for reasons that were never fully explained, then watched him hit a hat-trick in the third-place game. The picture around his fitness and fatigue never quite cleared.
This season, the fog has lifted. Saka looks like Saka again. He is driving in off the right, committing defenders, whipping in corners that cause panic. The energy is back, the timing sharper, the delivery more consistent. Arsenal’s right flank, dulled at times last season, now crackles.
On the other side, Riccardo Calafiori has burst into the early weeks as another major positive. The Italian has already forged a promising attacking connection with Christos Tzolis, overlapping, underlapping, and offering a constant outlet. There are still defensive details to iron out on that side, but his influence with the ball is obvious.
Calafiori, who also scored in the Community Shield, is a menace from set-pieces and a menace with the ball at his feet. He breaks lines, drives into space and forces low blocks to shuffle and stretch. Against teams who sit deep and wait, that ability to step through pressure is a weapon Arsenal did not always have.
Chelsea improving, Arsenal already there
Chelsea, for their part, are moving in the right direction. Alonso’s team were far more compact through midfield than they had been against Fulham and Brighton, less open, less naïve. It is easier to manage shape against sides that don’t naturally want the ball, but the improvement was clear.
As the season wears on and European commitments drain legs and minds elsewhere, Chelsea could grow into something far more dangerous. The structure is taking shape, the talent is obvious. They may yet become one of the season’s defining forces.
Arsenal, though, are there already. They are playing with authority and also catching opponents at good moments – Villa away and Chelsea at home while both are still knitting their patterns together. The schedule has been kind, but you still have to make it count. Arsenal have.
It is early. The first international break hasn’t even arrived. Injuries, slumps, freak results – they are all waiting somewhere down the line. Football punishes complacency and laughs at early proclamations.
Yet look at the evidence on the pitch. The champions have started like champions. Right now, it feels less a question of whether their grip on the title will loosen, and more whether anyone can stop them wrapping it up with games to spare.
