James Olley Sep 9, 2026, 07:02 PM ET Close James Olley is a senior soccer writer for ESPN.com. Read his archive here and follow him on Twitter: @James Olley. NAPLES, Italy -- This was about to turn into one of those nights when Arsenal fans hark back to the missed opportunities of the summer transfer window -- until Martin Ødegaard intervened.

Cometh the hour, cometh the captain. The Gunners had created and wasted a plethora of chances before some smart interplay on the edge of the box involving substitutes Bruno Guimarães and Christos Tzolis, with Ben White also in the mix, led to Ødegaard taking aim from the edge of the box. The 27-year-old fired the winning goal on 75 minutes as Arsenal defeated Napoli 1-0 in the UEFA Champions League.

It was an unerring finish -- not in keeping with the previous profligacy all around him -- and one that maintains Ødegaard's excellent start to the season. Fresh from rifling home the winner against Chelsea last weekend, Ødegaard took his tally to four from five games. He managed just one in the previous campaign, ravaged by injury and a loss of form."First of all, he needs to be available," manager Mikel Arteta said. "Last year, he missed so many games, so many injuries.

He's got that edge, and he's got now different relationships, I mean, and that helps. And now he can start to occupy some very different heights in the team, especially in the attacking phase. And we're getting into those positions that we can expect."Has Arteta encouraged Ødegaard to get into those positions more often? "Yes, we have," he continued. "We now have a lot of players who can take the ball there and can progress the ball much better than we did in the past, and when that happens, he needs to take different heights and angles and positions in order to disorganize the opponent, and he's done that really well tonight. [A goal target?] Yes, goals every week.

Every game, goals, that's the target."When Arteta speaks about the improvements that can come from within his squad, Ødegaard's regular contribution at his best is near the top of that list. He remains the conduit through which so much of Arsenal's best football flows. His deft pass found Bukayo Saka clean through just before the interval but the England international skied his effort from close range.

Saka was flagged offside but replays suggested the VAR call would have been tight. And shortly after the restart, Ødegaard produced one of his scooped passes over Napoli's befuddled back four for White, whose cross left Piero Hincapié with a simple chance he somehow stabbed over the crossbar. Arteta was relatively calm during the first half, presumably reassured by how readily they were exposing Napoli's defense, but he became visibly more agitated as time drifted away.

That was until Ødegaard struck."The way we attacked the game from the very first minute, the way we competed, the clarity that we had, how we had to attack them, how we had to disorganize them, the purpose, the quality, the amount of chances that we generated ... the scoreline has to reflect a very different result," said Arteta."We will get there because we are a bit more precise. [The margin] should have been much bigger, but to do what we've done today in this stadium against this opponent is remarkable for me."A draw here -- at the notoriously intimidating Stadio Diego Armando Maradona -- would hardly have been a disaster, but last season's run to the final inevitably frames performances through the prism of whether they can go one better this time around. Arsenal ended with an expected goals figure of 4.05, amassing 26 shots -- their most in a Champions League game since records began in 2003.