Arsenal maintained their 100% start to the Premier League season with a 5-0 battering of Leeds United at the Emirates Stadium, but the win came at quite the cost for Mikel Arteta.
The home crowd were already celebrating even before the first whistle blew, as the Gunners announced the signing of Eberechi Eze 30 minutes before kickoff, and the £67.5m playmaker was unveiled on the pitch to rapturous applause.
Arsenal could have done with Eze's inventiveness in the first half hour as they struggled to generate open-play chances once again, but a classic corner goal - this one from Jurrien Timber - broke the deadlock before Bukayo Saka's thunderous finish doubled the hosts' lead on the stroke of half time.
In between both strikes, Arteta lost influential skipper Martin Odegaard to injury, and Saka then followed suit in the second half, but not before summer signing Viktor Gyokeres opened his Arsenal account with a fine low finish.
Timber's second of the afternoon not long after enabled Arsenal and Arteta to launch the experiments, as the Spaniard sent on 15-year-old Max Dowman for his Premier League debut, as the 2009-born phenom became the second-youngest player to make an appearance in the competition behind teammate Ethan Nwaneri.
Dowman had a couple of cracks at goal himself - which sailed high and wide - but the teenager then won a last-gasp penalty for Gyokeres to strike his second and Arsenal's fifth.
Corner FC was very much in business for the opening 45 minutes of Saturday's game, where in an all too familiar tale, Arsenal lacked ingenuity in the final third and needed Rice's dead-ball devastation to get them out of trouble.
However, Leeds' defensive structure was broken by Timber's pinpoint header, after which the defensive frailties and high line of Daniel Farke's side were exposed by Arteta's men, who displayed a refreshing ruthless edge that has often eluded them.
Gyokeres's first brace, Noni Madueke's promising display and Dowman's momentous debut were the ingredients for a perfect afternoon, but the injuries suffered to Odegaard and Saka will soon be at the forefront of Gooners' minds once the dust has settled.
Kai Havertz's recent knee issue has also deprived Arteta of another attacking favourite, but unlike 2024-25, the Gunners finally have the depth required to cope with such concerns - at least on paper.
Whether Arteta's men really can survive without three critical names will be answered at Anfield if Odegaard, Saka and Havertz all miss out, but on a more pleasing and pertinent note, today's display was far more akin to that of a side with realistic title ambitions.
