And … breathe. As Bukayo Saka shot low, hard and ultimately through Kostas Tzolakis in the Olympiakos goal to complete an occasionally uncomfortable 2-0 win, the noise from the home crowd was more a weary, sofa-flopping sigh than a roar of triumph, with the sense, finally, of a midweek putting-to-bed.
This was a game Arsenal always looked like they were winning, despite seeming to realise this a little too early in the piece against eager and purposeful opponents. Nobody attracts the stern and unforgiving eye quite like this Arsenal team, for whom squad depth, the unforgivable act of acquiring a potentially title‑winning team, is the latest crime on the rap sheet.
But sometimes you really do just need to get the job done. Even at kick-off the Emirates Stadium felt like a workaday place, an extension of the rush hour high street just beyond the hard white lights, London urgency, nine to five football, a necessary task as we head now toward that part of the year when the lights come on at four and the season really starts to shift gears.
Victory aside, two interesting things happened here for Arsenal. Martin Ødegaard played 90 minutes. And Victor Gyökeres also played 90 minutes. They did so in differing ways. Ødegaard was brilliant, even in the period when Arsenal were not, and this is important: 84 touches, four shots, an assist, a reel of delightful passes, nudges, prompts. He really is a lovely player to watch when he performs like this, part feather-footed artist, part furiously unforgiving press-machine, veering about like a drop of water in a pan of hot oil.
Gyökeres was Gyökeres: energetically blunt, haring about the place from first to last like a man being chased by a sheep dog. But Gyökeres was also interesting because he speaks progress, different patterns, and to wanting more. And there are points to be digested now, albeit this game wasn’t really one of them.
This was the second Evangelos Marinakis vehicle Arsenal had come up against in the past three weeks and Marinakis was duly present in $500 white T-shirt and California vice-squad silky blazer, the look of a man who at any given moment is either on his way to a speed boat, has just got off a speed boat, or is on a speed boat, ideally accompanied by a group of ponytailed men over a soft-metal soundtrack.
There were some fun crowd moments early on. José Luis Mendilibar, the excitable Olympiakos manager, became embroiled in a tangle with the fourth official, a vast terrifying bald man, like the bouncer at the entrance to a nightclub only for bouncers. On the Olympiakos left Ben White, 6ft 1in, marking Daniel Podence, 5ft 4in, had vague take‑your-dad-to-school vibes. And for a while this threatened to become a stroll, with an opening goal made by Ødegaard and Gyökeres. It was a beautiful thing, a feather-light brush stroke followed by a fist straight through the canvas.
First Ødegaard did something smart, drifting into a half-space between midfield and defence, jinking past his man then playing a perfect pass between two grey shirts into the run of Gyökeres. From that point, enter: the Smashing Machine, Gyökeres basically ran through two defenders, before blasting a shot through Tzolakis. As the ball trickled towards goal Gabriel Martinelli tried to let it run in, then smacked in the rebound off the post.
This was the best of Gyökeres, who often doesn’t look like a very good basic footballer in this company, but doesn’t seem to mind, or feel cowed. Olympiacos gave him some rough stuff after the goal. He was jounced and bumped and barged. He got up, came back for more.
Gyökeres is just a different beast, in this team, with that distinctive way of running with the ball, not so much dribbling as kicking it forward and then running after it, like a Great Dane chasing a beach ball. He’s a bludgeon. But this is OK. Arsenal didn’t actually have a bludgeon before.
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He will need to get better, quicker to shoot, more precise when the competition narrows. But this is also significant, because Gyokeres is also the only part of this re-geared team still waiting to click.
This is not quite a moment to pause: that will only come after West Ham on Saturday, but Arsenal can now at the very least adjust their crampons and take a mouthful of Kendal mint cake.
It always looked like the autumn fixtures would break down into two distinct parts. The first of those is now behind them. Eight games in six weeks, among those Manchester United, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Newcastle, and bookended here with a tricky night against the Greek champions.
At the end of that the record reads: won seven, lost one, drawn one with five clean sheets. There are intangibles, too. Goals spread all over the team, and still only one conceded from open play. They have cover for Saka, cover at the back, cover for Ødegaard. Best of all Mikel Arteta has shown dynamism, has learned on the job, has been impressively fluid and urgent with his patterns in the last three games, in a time of self-hobbling systems fetishism elsewhere.
This is not the beginning of anything just yet. This is not even the end of the beginning. But the next eight games are, in outline, a decent run by comparison, with five league games that look winnable and the Champions League now under control. All things being equal, and with Ødegaard zipping about once again, there is a sense here of credit being squirrelled away. And almost, but not quite, time to take a breath.
