Bernd Leno predicts Arsenal will have fun with Martin Odegaard after the Norwegian caught the eye in his first few days of training.
Signed on loan from Real Madrid to help grease the wheels of the Gunners attack, the 22-year-old made his debut on Saturday as a substitute in the 0-0 draw with Manchester United.
Leno already likes what he sees.
“I think we should all be very excited because he is an attacking midfield player who is turning, wants to go forward, wants to play passes and create chances and have assists,” he said.
“In his first days he has been very impressive and has been very open to everyone, and I think we will have a lot of fun with him in the next months.”
If Arsenal are to close the gap on the top four, Leno knows that attacking improvements have to be based on a solid defence. On that front, Mikel Arteta’s men have shown promising signs in recent weeks.
Five clean sheets in the last six Premier League games – a record equalled only by league leaders Manchester City – is, in his mind, a testament to an improved collective attitude.
“I think our mentality [has changed],” said Leno.
“Because everybody is defending, even the striker is sometimes defending in the box and then you can see the difference.
“It is much harder to score goals against us and even to create clear chances.
“For me, of course as a goalkeeper, it is always better to have a clean sheet but I think to be a successful team the defence is the most important thing.”
Good vibe, better in defence by a mile plus lots of class players to come back in, arguably our best three. No domestic cup competitions so can concentrate on the league and Europe. And Sp*rs to keep us amused.
Big change from people talking about relegation!
That’s the spirit C.B.!!!
Agree, although relegation was never a serious probability. We do need to get up the table to a EL qualifying place if possible (realistically, a top four finish is in the same category as that relegation talk you mentioned). Hopefully, the absence of domestic cup distractions will help focus minds on the PL in the second half of the season though.
Dosmetic Cups are not distractions to a team that is not going to be top four.
does cb stand for chalupa batman?
it stands for Complete Beauty.
I’m glad we kept Leno
Yes, so am I but if the posts are still available in the archive, you’d be surprised how many Gooners thought he should have gone (like those who thought Willian was a terrific addition etc.). Fickle football, eh.
I’ll freely admit to being one of those. I got no problem with that. And I’ll stand by my comments that Martinez is a great goalie. He has continued what he showed last season with Villa. His save% is truly elite (77%). Leno was a little shakey during the first 1/4 of the season, but he has been nearly flawless since; brilliant since about November onwards. On the season his save% is at 71%, which is really good. I’ve always said Leno is a really good Goalie, on form he is a great goalie. If he keeps it up we… Read more »
I think it’s really an argument in favour of “wait and see” isn’t it. We clearly couldn’t keep both keepers for long so the club had to decide who to keep. I’m pleased we retained Leno but of course Martinez is a good keeper as well.
Yep. You have to also remember that we kept the keeper who was happy to fight for his place, rather than the one who wanted a 100% guarantee that it was his to keep
I can understand where Martinez was coming from with that, considering his career to date. But I can’t blame the club at all for letting him find somewhere who would give him that guarantee. Could maybe have pushed for a larger transfer fee, but still
Arsenal was never going to keep both of them because of financial reasons. You guys are laundering the reason why we sold Emi. It was so much about maximizing the profit they wouldn’t even spend quarter on the money to but the replacement.
Same, I was surprised by how well Emi did but I felt a lot of fans forgot how good Leno was before his injury. A lot of people were dreading that injury when he went down.
But I was worried Emi would be a flash in the pan and Leno was the safer of the two to keep. Instead I’m glad that Emi is performing well at Villa and we were able to get a decent fee for him that a few months before the summer, we never would have dreamed of getting
Ode to that
It’s good to giggle.
The season has been unpredictable. No historical data or the current table could help predict who would make it to top 6 or win the league.
We had the worst start in the league, doubted for fighting relegation before new year. A month later, 2 goals conceded from 6 games at 10th position in the league.
Hoping that Odegaard’s move could help assist Pepe / Saka and Laca to find more chances and an opportunity for ESR to play alongside last year’s la liga’s best player.
Our best Scandinavian January loan signing since a certain Kim K!!
Kim K needs an statue. Scored an excellent penalty and gave 4 excellent diagonal passes to monreal.
And smiled cheerfully on the way to take the penalty. Legend with balls
That sounds like Martin is about to go through some king of Teutonic fire based initiation
“BRAND HIM IN THE NAME OF ODIN”
I can’t smell
You got covid 😂😂😂
Leno is having an outstanding season. That is all.
For some reason think Odegaard would benefit if he has ESR next to him, with Smith Rowe always making himself available for a pass and with his movements. Them developing a partnership and understanding can help us with teams who like to sit deep. Tierney links up well with both Saka and Martinelli. Developing partnerships might help us do better in netting more goals.
Do you think ESR could play in midfield next to Partey at times? His workrate defensively has been excellent. When we really want to attack we could possibly go with:
Leno
Cedric[Bellerin]-Holding-Luiz[Gaby/Mari]-tierney
Partey-ESR
Saka-Odegaard-Auba
Laca
It would be an interesting look. Surely there is some goals in that team?
That means Partey will sit deep
I wouldn’t put Partey as a single holding MF. He likes to bring to play forward and as consequence seems to lose ball a bit too much.
Funny enough Xhaka is sadly the best MF in Arsenal in terms of balancing forward vs backward passing.
Partey lost the ball a couple times against Manure, but apart from that his ball retention has been stunning. He’s also played as a DM for one of the most disciplined teams in Europe. Pretty sure he knows how to do it. Personally, I prefer him in a more box-to-dox role or dual pivot, that allows him to get forward with it a bit because he’s amazing at carrying the ball too. But, I wouldn’t mind seeing that team rolled out once in a while.
Yes, Willian is also turning… But back towards his own defense to make a back pass and provide technical security