Not every soccer game is going to be a thriller.
The Premier League’s opening match of the season between reigning champions Arsenal and newly promoted Coventry City was what many would call a bore. Arsenal showed off its prowess and flexed its muscles, while Coventry looked entirely overmatched in its first game back in the top flight in 25 years. It might sound cliché, but there was never a moment where Coventry was even sniffing taking any sort of points from this match. Arsenal was just that dominant.
I presume this shouldn’t be all that surprising. Arsenal proved that it hadn’t missed a beat with its 3-0 beatdown of Manchester City in the Community Shield last weekend. That was technically the curtain-raiser rather than the beginning of the title defense, but it gave us a pretty decent indication that the Gunners were still the Gunners. A week later, now with points actually on the line, they looked even more comfortable.
But there were at least fleeting moments where Coventry looked presentable. The key word there is fleeting. The first 13 or so minutes saw both sides feeling each other out, and while Coventry didn’t have any golden chances — or any chances at all, for that matter — it was able to keep possession for at least some amount of the time and did a formidable job of limiting Arsenal on the other end. For a club playing its first Premier League game since before Olivia Rodrigo was born, it wasn’t a bad start.
