Arsenal have a pivotal early-season moment – but is it Gyokeres’ goals or Saka setback?

Arsenal’s 5-0 win over Leeds was routine, emphatic and routine enough in the end, yet when the season’s story comes to be told it already feels like one of two second-half moments will be earmarked as pivotal to the Gunners’ entire season.

Arsenal fans will hope that moment is a first Premier League goal for Viktor Gyokeres, who is now officially Up And Running; they will fear it is in fact the worrying hamstring injury picked up by Bukayo Saka shortly after.

Saka wasn’t even the first Arsenal captain to limp out of this game, with Martin Odegaard unable to shake off a first-half injury.

Injuries to that key pair of players – as well as Kai Havertz – were so crucial last season and, while Arsenal look better equipped to cope with those things after a fine summer in the transfer market, there will still be concern among the Gunners ranks.

Those will, of course, be eased by the presence of the man presented to a jubilant crowd before kick off, and Arsenal were able to give Spurs another little dig in the ribs late in the game when Gyokeres scored his second from a penalty won by precocious 15-year-old Max Dowman to jump above their local rivals/playthings on goal difference at the top of the very relevant and in no way silly league table.

But if the Saka injury is anything like as severe as his evident disappointment suggested he fears it might be, then it really could be the most meaningful moment of the day.

Saka wasn’t quite at his best for long periods here, but had still done more than enough to show just how brilliant he is and important he remains to a team whose open-play football so often feels at curious risk of tending toward the dreary.

Arsenal had huffed and puffed for most of the first half against a Leeds side who were set up to frustrate yet with no clear idea of how they might ever be able to get the ball towards the other end of the pitch without it coming straight back. It was unlikely to be a sustainable strategy across 90 minutes – and so it decisively proved – but for the first half-hour it had Arsenal scratching their heads.

They had fashioned no real chance in that time and found trying to pick a path through or around the massed blue ranks in front of them frustratingly difficult work. The breakthrough arrived from a corner, naturally, but it was the second goal just before half-time that was more pleasing.

Jurrien Timber, having headed home a typically lethal Declan Rice delivery so adroitly, turned provider with a beautifully weighted pass. Saka ran on to a ball at an unhelpfully tight angle but was able to lash a shot over Lucas Perri’s shoulder before the Leeds keeper even really knew he was in any actual danger.

It was by a wide margin the standout moment of a first half that had previously been all about endeavour and effort rather than effervescence and excitement.

Arsenal may now need a bit more and a bit more quickly from Eberechi Eze than anyone would have hoped. The speed with which Arsenal responded to the Havertz injury also means the sight of both Odegaard and Saka limping off should set off alarm bells elsewhere. Aston Villa, for one, are currently in a distinctly miserable mood, and will likely now be bracing themselves for a rather more difficult fight to keep hold of Morgan Rogers.

By the time Saka departed, the day’s other potentially pivotal moment had already arrived. Gyokeres’ struggles at Old Trafford last weekend have been extensively covered, but the first half here was if anything more troubling.

𝗔𝗥𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗟 5️⃣-0️⃣𝗟𝗘𝗘𝗗𝗦: Oohhhh, you better believe that’s a paddlin’…

𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗦 👉https://t.co/y2qovOGCUg pic.twitter.com/mTfKiK5SIV

— Football365 (@F365) August 23, 2025

Being a passenger in a tough game Arsenal spent largely on the back foot at Old Trafford is one thing; remaining invisible at home to Leeds was rather harder to simply explain away.

Modern football has little time for nuance or indeed anything else; had the second half gone the way of the first for Gyokeres and with Liverpool up next for Arsenal, some premature but conclusive verdicts would have been delivered.

Instead, from his first really meaningful contribution he scored a fine goal to put this game firmly to bed yet far more importantly get his Arsenal career up and running before whispers became screams.

Questions are there to be asked about how Leeds attempted to deal with his cut in from the left and low right-footed shot, but it was still precisely the sort of goal he needed. Any goal would have done, but one largely created and scored himself felt doubly so.

This is not the sort of goal that could be explained away as anomalous and revealing of nothing in the way a header from a corner or indeed his late penalty otherwise would have been. This was a proper ‘I’ve arrived’ goal and the first real indication that things could be so very slightly yet so significantly different for Arsenal this season.

From that moment on there appeared no possible downside for Arsenal from a near-perfect day. They signed a superstar, they won 5-0 to go top of the table, their shiny new striker of whom so much is expected and required is up and about, they handed a debut to their next big thing and even Spurs’ win over Man City earlier in the day is, in almost all likelihood, a fantastic result for Arsenal. It took the Gunners above City to the top of a calendar year table that right now probably means slightly more than this season’s.

But when you’ve finished second three years in a row you grow accustomed to a specific kind of pain, one that recognises the potential for a small cloud to arrive out of nowhere and p*ss all over absolutely everything even as the sun shines.