Mikel Arteta said his Arsenal team were deserved winners in their Champions League opener against Napoli, suggesting his team could have won by a more comfortable margin.
Playing in their first match in the competition since their defeat in last year’s final to Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal came out on top with a 1-0 victory over the Serie A giants.
Martin Odegaard scored the decisive goal in the 75th minute, rounding off a brilliant passage of play with an arrowed, left-footed finish that struck the post on its way into the net.
But that did not begin to tell half the story, with the Gunners dominating for much of Wednesday’s encounter at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka were guilty of passing up glorious first-half chances, with Noni Madueke denied by substitute goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic late on.
Arsenal’s 26 shots against Napoli were their most on record (since 2003-04) in a single Champions League match, with their attempts generating an expected goals (xG) value of 4.05 compared to their opponents measly total of 0.22 from their five attempts.
The Gunners have now won their last 13 group stage games in the Champions League, the second-longest run in the competition’s history after Bayern Munich (17 between December 2020 and November 2023), while they also maintained their perfect start to 2026-27.
“Everything,” Arteta said when asked what pleased him the most about Arsenal’s performance.
“The way we competed, the attitude, the courage, the way we imposed ourselves, the quality that we showed in a lot of moments to break them down, which is difficult to do.
“Fully deserved three points. The performance probably doesn’t reflect the result; the team was superb. On any other day the result would be different.”
Øde to joy pic.twitter.com/vIdyDDsEQU
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) September 9, 2026
Odegaard’s strike continued his fine start to the campaign, too. He now has four goals in five appearances across all competitions for Arsenal this term.
He also netted his first Champions League goal since March 2025 (two against PSV), while three of his six goals overall in the competition have come from outside the box.
As well as scoring the winner, Odegaard created the most chances (six), had the most touches (120) and made the most passes that broke the defensive line (five) in the match.
“Martin is contributing with goals that are impacting results, which is what we want from our attacking players, being decisive, and certainly he was again today,” Arteta added.
“We should have done it in a different way because of the amount of chances we created.”
There were 29 passes in the build-up to Arsenal’s winner, their second-most on record (since 2003-04) for a Champions League goal (33 for Lucas Perez’s second at Basel in December 2016), with Odegaard impressed by the way his team performed in Naples.
“We played brilliant football and should have scored many more goals, but we got there in the end,” Odegaard said.
“We did really well, created so many chances. We just missed the detail in the end, but we kept playing with the right mindset.”
