Coventry’s first Premier League half in 25 years brought no tackles and no touches in Arsenal’s box

Coventry City waited 25 years for another Premier League match, and for the first half of it they did not touch the ball inside Arsenal’s penalty area or make a single tackle. Opta has been logging that data since 2007 and has never recorded a team doing both in the same 45 minutes. By the time Coventry made their first tackle, on 69 minutes, they were three down.

Three goals, and none of them difficult

Arsenal opened the defence of their title on Friday, 21 August at the Emirates, with a 12.30am IST kick-off for anyone in India who stayed up. Kai Havertz put them ahead on 15 minutes, taking Riccardo Calafiori’s pass first time into the far corner after Christos Tzolis had won the ball back high up the pitch.

Saka made it two on 23. Tzolis crossed, Carl Rushworth got a hand to it and only succeeded in pushing it into Saka’s path, and the finish from close range was a formality. The third came four minutes after the restart, Saka and Ben White working the ball through the right channel for Martin Odegaard, whose shot came off the wrong part of his boot and went in anyway with Rushworth going the other way.

Arteta’s assessment afterwards was that there was a lot to like and that his side were dominant with the ball. He was not overstating it.

Tzolis had a hand in two on debut

The best individual performance belonged to a player making his league debut for the club. Tzolis, the Greece international Arsenal signed from Club Brugge in July for a reported £34m to replace Leandro Trossard, won the ball back for the first goal and crossed for the second. That is a reasonable evening’s work for a first league outing in an Arsenal shirt.

For Arsenal, that is the kind of start a title defence wants. Three points, a clean sheet, a new signing who looked at home immediately, and none of it requiring anything close to full effort.

Lampard called it a learning curve

Frank Lampard’s side won the Championship to get here, going up automatically rather than through the play-offs, and he was named the division’s manager of the season for it. This was their reintroduction to the level above. His post-match line was that it was a big learning curve and that his players would have to go through it and experience it, which is what managers say when the alternative is saying something worse.

The Opta number is harsh on Coventry in one sense, because a promoted side away at the champions on opening night is the worst fixture on the calendar. It is less harsh in another. Going 69 minutes without a tackle is partly about how much of the ball Arsenal had, and partly about where Coventry were choosing to stand.

What comes next

Coventry sit 20th after one round, which is what happens when you lose the opener 3-0 and everyone else has played the same number. They are at home to Hull City on 29 August, a promoted side against a promoted side, and that will tell them considerably more about their season than this did.

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