Martin Odegaard’s brace against Wolves not only sealed three points for Arsenal at Molineux it also saw the Norwegian leapfrog Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli in the scoring rankings for the season.
With six goals and two assists in 13 Premier League appearances, our club captain has become a menace in and around the penalty box to decisive effect.
It’s not happening by accident. Like fellow midfielder Granit Xhaka, he’s been working on the timing of his runs into the box.
“I think I’m better at coming into those areas now – I attack the box more,” he told Arsenal.com.
“They may not be the most beautiful goals but I’m in the right places and that helps a lot. I’m always happy to help the team with goals.”
It’s just as well.
At the tail-end of last season, Mikel Arteta told his players that they needed to score between 90 and 100 goals to have any chance of challenging for the title.
Given his side netted 56, 55 and 61 times respectively in the last three seasons, stepping things up to that level looked like a tall order.
At the current run rate (2.35 goals per game), we’ll come very close to reaching the manager’s target.
The addition of Gabriel Jesus – despite a six-week goal drought – has certainly helped, as has the team’s improved ability to dominate possession.
In the aftermath of last night’s 2-0 win, Odegaard also pointed to other factors.
“We talked about it before the game, and we talked about it at half-time – it’s difficult to play against these teams with five at the back and we had to stay patient. I think we did and in the end, we got the goals.
“It was a tough one, I think we had to dig deep today. The first half was a bit slow, we were struggling on the ball to create chances really. They defended well and we know they’re always dangerous on the counter, so it was a difficult game.
“Then we changed a few things. We sped up the game a little bit in the second half and we know we have quality, so we’re always going to create something, but we did good to get the win.”
These days I watch The Arsenal play with a deep certainty that however well the opposition plays, We are still going to come out with all 3points and that’s down to the quality in the team and the captain especially.
Losing Xhaka I was worried. We lost one of our key threats in arriving late against low block defense. But Ødegaard provided the same threat and ultimately won us the game.
The ability of our players to cover each others positions is outstanding.
Well done, Odegaard – a real captain’s performance all round. At this rate, he could end up as one of our leading scorers over the season. That would be great for him as a midfielder of course, but perhaps it wouldn’t be such a positive reflection on other elements of the team if goals continue to be distributed as now. Long way to go yet though.
Great stats so far this season. One of a series of great buys for us. Main thing is to keep the first team fit. If we can do that we have a chance of the PL. And that’s the first time we can say that for many seasons!
I agree, but “keeping the first team fit” is as much down to the opposition in the first instance, isn’t it? A few reckless challenges here and there and players won’t be fit and, as we’ve already seen, recovery can take time. Although we didn’t have too many problems in the first part of the season it was clear the squad was very “stretched” at times, nevertheless. The second part will probably be tougher as games mount in across competitions, assuming we don’t get knocked out of the two cups early, and they’re playing on harder pitches in the early… Read more »
Common blogs player ratings? I need to give everyone 10s already!
The man was at a wedding.
No excuses 😉
It’s out now thanks blogs
I remember when we were in for EMI Buendia and at the time it seemed like Arteta was keen to wait on Odegaard. I wanted us to sign EMI and felt bad when it seemed he dumped Arsenal for Aston Villa. Respect to Edu and Arteta, the held out for Odegaard, didnt sign a striker in January window and got us Jesus in the summer. This shows they have a well thought out plan at squad building. Exciting times ahead. COY table toppers😁😁😁😁
I remember when we were in for EMI Buendia and at the time it seemed like Arteta was keen to wait on Odegaard. I wanted us to sign EMI and felt bad when it seemed he dumped Arsenal for Aston Villa. Respect to Edu and Arteta, the held out for Odegaard, didnt sign a striker in January window and got us Jesus in the summer. This shows they have a well thought out plan at squad building. Exciting times ahead. COY table toppers😁
You can say that again.
It’s crazy to think we have the second best attack in the league, whereas our best goalscorer is only ranked 11th with 6 goals. It really is a whole team’s effort.
This lad has no ceiling to how good he can be, we’re lucky to have him.
Quite. All clubs make mistakes in the transfer market (we’re in no position to cast the first “Pepe shaped” stone), but Real Madrid made a big misjudgement in not keeping him, or at least demanding a far bigger fee than they got. They’ll just keep ploughing on regardless but it’s certainly our gain as far as Odegaard is concerned.
Big improvement by Martin. Last few games, specially against Chelsea he has had good chances and he didn’t take them. Yesterday he was MOTM with a great performance all over. Just feel like Vieira will definitely benefit from more game time. Once he adjusts to the pace and physicality of the Premier League he will be an amazing player.
Those numbers should be even higher if only he took some clear cut chances in earlier matches…Arteta has got work to do with our Captain…Better Finishing and he is absolutely world class no question.
I remember Ljungberg saying no one in the invincibles cared who was scoring the goals although obviously Thierry got a lot of them.