Mikel Arteta has praised new signing Martin Odegaard as a ‘unique talent’ and thanked the Arsenal hierarchy for making the effort to recruit the Norwegian on a permanent basis after last season’s loan.
The 22-year-old moves to Emirates Stadium from Real Madrid in a deal worth £34 million and is expected to provide competition to Emile Smith Rowe for the role of creator-in-chief in the Gunners midfield.
Odegaard scored twice and provided two assists in 20 appearances last season and will be looking to better those numbers once he gets his work visa signed off. Unfortunately, that won’t come in time for Sunday’s clash with Chelsea.
“He brings a lot of things that he brought last season,” said Arteta when asked about Odegaard’s qualities.
“He made us better, we needed more options, alternatives, creativity and players that can be models for this football club. He is still a really young man but he has huge experience in different clubs already.
“He has a unique talent based on the way we want to play so I’m delighted that the club has made an effort and we have Martin on a permanent deal here.
“You’ve seen the numbers and what we did after Christmas when Martin was in the team and we had people like Emile, the team performed at a completely different level. He’s someone that we admire and he’s still at the age in his career when the potential he has is still immense.”
Delighted! Welcome (back) to Arsenal Martin
yes, yes, welcome back. now lets get rid of the dead weight.
Mikel first.
Boring..don’t you ever bore yourself with how boring your responses are? lol
Super. Love this signing.
When you put it in context with the Willock sale, it makes a lot of sense too. Willock is a wonderful talent and great character but if you can basically pay £10m for Odegaard, a player who is proven to fit into our side, you have to say it’s the best move for all parties concerned.
I think of Willock as a straight swap for Lokonga. And I’m cool with that business.
In a couple of years time you will be wishing you had willock. Are you basing this on lokonga versus brentford? He didn’t affect the game either positively or negatively. He might be a good player in the future, but at the minute he’s no where near ready for premier league. He will get abused on Sunday if he starts against Chelsea.
Would agree if 4231 is how he wants to play. He made excuses that he wants to play 433 but doesn’t have the players. We spent 58 million on aubameyang, Mikel lobbied for his 350k a week contract neither system suits him. We gave 72 million for pepe neither system suits him. He bought white for 50 million neither system suits him. He won’t play 352 which would suit all 3. It would also suit partey who he gave 45 million for. From all I’ve seen it would suit saliba, would definitely suit martinelli who will be played out of… Read more »
I was disappointed when he signed for Madrid. If memory serves there was some chat that he would come here back then.
All’s well that ends well.
He has all the basic ingredients to be a true legend of the club.
Yup. He even had dinner with Arsene Wenger, and visited the club for a showcase/trial. But he chose RM instead
I think it’s been a good window, this plus Ramsdale to be confirmed I reckon Arteta has pretty much achieved his target despite the hundreds of made up rumours of who we wanted etc, maybe not so much on who we shipped out but a few moved on from the surplus and hopefully a few more before deadline We could be at points zero by the time we come back after the Internationals but I believe our season will start there, with injuries and illnesses hopefully behind us and new guys feeling at home I think we will climb the… Read more »
We need a right back and a defensive midfielder, but happy with who we got in the window considering our position in the league. It would be unrealistic to expect an ideal window and to achieve all our squad short comings in one window. Also have to remember that all our young players signed contract extensions which is great.
There is a lot riding on Arteta now, am excited for the season at last.
Also, wish Partey would remain injury free this season.
RB I agree with but not sure about defensive midfield.
If everyone’s fit (big if), we have Partey, Xhaka, Lokonga, Elneny & AMN that can play at the base of midfield. Personally I think paring either Xhaka or Lokonga with Partey makes for a formidable double pivot & Elneny’s not a bad squad player to fill in on occasion.
We need a quality cm, one that can progress the ball well and is press resistant/mobile. Cm is priority over rb for me as partey will be at the afcon and we’d need a quality partner for him anyway.
Am I missing something with AFCON? Players involved will likely miss 3 matches. Potentially only 2, maximum 4. You don’t build a squad based on who might miss out an a couple matches, particularly when most (all?) clubs in the PL will be losing players for the same reason and similar duration.
Not to mention that Calum Chambers was POTY for Fulham playing as a DM
I like Odegaard and I think he’s a very good player but I kind of feel that spending this amount of money and knowing how Arteta feels about him, this might mean that ESR is pushed out wide again. Which A. I think suits him less and B. I think will mean we’ll see less of Pepe again which I’m a bit disappointed about as I think he desperately needs a run of games and to feel the managers confidence
ESR’s number improved quite a bit our wide left when with Martin Odegaard. MO’s presence will allow Emile to find those spaces between the lines where he’s most dangerous in the attack.
No his numbers didn’t improve when he was our left. Why does this keep being repeated.
This was his output at both positions:
4 goals, 6 assists, 24 key passes in 23 appearances at CAM
0 goals, 1 assist, 10 key passes in 9 appearances at LW
It’s a good transfer at a good price but I really hope Mikel knows what he’s doing.
Didn’t mention– whether he played one or the other ‘position’.
Did mention– when he was on pitch with MO (which tends to push ESR out wider on the left) he was more productive and the team scored more and more frequently. Give a flip what position he was listed as having played.
Let them duke it out and the best players will play!
ESR meshed really well with KT when he played wide left (and pretty well even when he was just a left-of-center midfielder).
ESR is 20. He should not be saddled with the responsibility of a nailed-on starter, and creator-in-chief, in a club like Arsenal.
Ødegaard’s coming will help ESR develop at a healthy pace, even if that means being shunted to the left.
There are also musings of Pepe through the centre; so he should be fine
Who knows what Arteta has in mind?
ESR can play anywhere (apart from CB or Keeper!) and he’ll make us better. The more creative quality he can have to work with the better.
M
Ofits the bill. He can help feed Pepe the ball closer to the opposition goal which is what he needs, to score those cracking goals.Can we get him to lure Haaland in future?
That all depends on top four.
Good luck…..🙄
Well he has a release clause of 90 mill that activates next year I think. So if somehow we overachieve this season, we might have a slight chance 😅
While I think Arsenal should target players who have delivered productive performances in at least 2 season (15+ starts per season) in Europe top 5 leagues or the Championship, Odegaard does have one very strong season of performances for Real Sociedad on this resume. An attacking midfield three of Smith-Rowe, Saka and Odegaard, backed up by Nelson and Willian, seems promising albeit largely unproven. Hopefully Odegaard’s arrival will see Arteta abandon his Wenger style ‘square peg round hole’ tendency to play Martinelli, Aubameyang or Pepe in attacking midfield roles. All three of those players appear to have skill sets better… Read more »
Saka Smith rowe and odegaard will score 10-15 goals a season. Leaving the 1 in your 4231 to get 50 for us to get in the Europa league places.
A good signing, no doubt about it.
People who moan about the players (with the exception of Willian, Xhaka, Cedric and Elneny) really are missing the point.
You could have the best players in the world, but, to use today’s car themed metaphor, it’s no good having a 1963 Ferarri 250 GTO, or a Bugatti when you’ve got a plum who’s barely passed his test permanently keeping it in second gear.
You surprise me. Thought you were a fan of the gaffer…
Really pleased about this, and at potentially half the cost of Maddison (who is good too but still, half!) – can’t wait to see if he can pick up where he left off, and have really high hopes of him growing as a player here.
In two seasons, we’ll be signing a player or two at most, to address pressing needs. The team is almost sorted for half a decade.
Exciting days ahead.
I see him being better than last season with a point to prove now that he is assured of steady playing time. Also with the fans back in the stands urging him on and having Partey and Lokonga just behind him, I see a very bright prospect for him this season
Unlike most signings that have an uncertainty about them (how long they’ll take to adapt to the Premier League, how will they fit with the squad, what will their attitude be like, etc.) we know exactly what we are getting with Odegaard and Arteta will have hesitancy to play him right away. It was so impressive last year how he fit right in from his first match and adapted so quickly at such a young age.
Substitute the word “Odegaard” with “grealish” and I could maybe agree with you.
One decent game against west ham last season. That was it. You obviously didn’t watch any of his other games.
Didnt even dream about this a month ago.
He was a pundit on tv here in Norway during the Euros, and it seemed for certain that he was gonna stay in RM then.
Very glad that he changed his mind!
Haven’t been this excited about a signing since Ozil. He’s a great player to watch, hopefully he’ll really kick on with us and fulfil his potential.
Decent player who should improve what we are at this time.
Needs to start showing against the better teams as he was anonymous in those games last season.
Bit expensive but at least a known quantity.
He was OK good potential. Not sure if he is game changing but at least building on some previous with us.