Mikel Arteta’s champions have opened the 2026-27 season with four straight wins, scoring eight goals and conceding just one, to lead the table before the fifth round of fixtures.

The pattern is what has raised eyebrows. Arsenal beat newly promoted Coventry City 3-0 at Emirates Stadium on opening night, then ground out a 1-0 win at Villa Park, Bukayo Saka finishing from close range on 59 minutes. A week later they turned around a first-minute Morgan Rogers goal to beat Chelsea 2-1, Kai Havertz equalising against his former club before Martin Ødegaard settled it in the 50th minute. Last Saturday brought a 2-0 win at Sunderland, sealed by a stoppage-time penalty that kept the perfect record intact.

Two of the three away trips have produced clean sheets. It is the kind of start on which unbeaten-season conversations get built.

The 2003-04 benchmark, still standing

Wenger’s Arsenal remain the only side to have completed a 38-game Premier League season without defeat. The Invincibles finished on 90 points from 26 wins and 12 draws, scored 73 goals and won the title by 11 points from Chelsea. Thierry Henry finished as the campaign’s top scorer and Player of the Season.

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The English top-flight unbeaten run stretched to 49 matches in all, between May 2003 and October 2004, before it was ended at Old Trafford. More than two decades on, no team has matched it.

Arteta’s champions came closer than the headline suggests. The 2025-26 side scored 71 goals to the Invincibles’ 73 and matched them on 26 wins, but five defeats and only seven draws left them on 85 points, five behind Wenger’s total. In other words, the goals were there; the fatal weakness was losing games at all.

What Arteta has changed

He has strengthened rather than started over. Bruno Guimarães arrived from Newcastle United for £75m, with the spine that ended Arsenal’s 22-year title wait otherwise intact.

Depth is the story. Arteta has options in central midfield he did not have last season.

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Saturday at the Amex is the next test

Match five is Brighton away on 19 September, a fixture that has repeatedly troubled Arsenal at the Amex Stadium. Come through it and the next resistance points are a run of six, then ten, then getting to Christmas with the record intact.

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