The voting for this year’s FWA Footballer of the Year awards have been open since the start of April and unlike last year, there’s no standout candidate to take the men’s awards when it’s revealed in three week’s time.
Last season, Arsenal duo Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard did well to make the shortlist but were unsurprisingly beaten by robot goal machine Erling Haaland.
While the Norwegian striker is still on pace to take the Golden Boot for a second successive season, you suspect voters may look elsewhere this time. Saka’s upturn in raw numbers suggests he’s in with a shout but we reckon connoisseurs of the game could tick the box next to Odegaard’s name.
Across all competitions, the Gunners captain has 11 goals and nine assists to his name – two goal involvements down on his tally for last season – but that tally doesn’t necessarily do justice to the influence he has on Arsenal’s game.
No player in the Premier League this season has created as many chances as Odegaard (78) and in 2024 he leads the way for through-balls (19) and chances created (43). In fact, his numbers stack up against the best of them across Europe, turbo-charging the Gunners title charge and push into the Champions League quarter-finals. (More on Odegaard here from Adrian Clarke)
Having challenged his star to evolve, manager Mikel Arteta is impressed.
“We have demanded him to be much closer to the opponent’s box in certain moments and he’s done that. He keeps evolving, he keeps growing, he wants more,” he said on Friday.
“The impact that he’s got on the team obviously, it’s huge and he wants more, which is good to know.”
Having arrived at the Emirates, initially on loan, from Real Madrid, it took some time for Odegaard to rebuild confidence damaged by years of being on the fringes of things at the Bernabeu.
Having founded his home in N5, he’s now flourishing. Asked what has driven his player to new heights, Arteta said:
“At the end, it has to come from him. Something has to inspire him. And we have to help him sometimes, not to convince him, but to show him what he can do, what is the room for improvement, the things that he needs to maintain doing that are super good.
“And then he needs faith in the people around to help him to develop.”
Pressed on whether fostering self-belief has been the key to unlocking the best from Odegaard, he continued: “Probably and in various ways because nobody questions his talent.
“It’s more about can you settle in somewhere and be one of the most important players, become a role model, become a captain?
“So there’s a lot of steps there to make and he’s done that really fast.”
Arteta says Odegaard, who took the captain’s armband ahead of last season, is able to thrive in the role as a result of the support of his teammates.
“It’s not only about him because he needs to have that role, but that role has to be given as well with the blessing of a team, a group of players that as well believe in him and they are capable and happy to give him that space and that responsibility and give him support.
“We were really lucky because we had that with a few of them. And then because it’s a team that individually has unbelievable characters that makes life very easy for you as a captain.”
Odegaard has four days remaining to convince the country’s football writers he’s worthy of their vote. A man-of-the-match performance in Sunday’s north London derby wouldn’t go amiss.
I grew up watching Liam Brady and was a heartbroken 16 year old when he left. Then came Charlie Nicholas and I loved watching him play. I was gutted when he left. Players that I loved like Limpar, rocastle, wright, Bergkamp, vieira, Henry, Pires, Fabregas, I loved watching Hleb, Ozil sanchez van Persie, and now I am privileged to watch Martin Odegarrd. Every time I feels the grief of someone I love leaving and I feel that void and wonder if it will ever be filled again along comes odegarrd saka rice saliba etc and then I am reminded how… Read more »
I can almost hear that saxophone playin’ with your words, bleeding gums. Keep on playing
I adore you! Odegaard is our artist, who is not good enough for Madrid fortunately 🤓
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and take it that you meant: “and we are fortunate that Madrid are a bunch of ignorant cockwombles who think he’s not good enough for them.”.
Quality
Foden will probably win it, unfortunately.
I really don’t get the Foden hype for real. He looks a player who wouldn’t flourish anywhere else outside the well-oiled City system. These balloon d’or shouts I am seeing for him are baffling.
For the first half of the season, he was anonymous and only shot into light these past few months. Whereas, there are people like Declan Rice who have been different gravy since day 1!
Rice might shade Arsenal player of the season at the moment due to that consistency from the first match.
(I think Foden might have been a half-decent player for Rotherham, Sheff Utd, or even a team as bad as Chelsea, though)
Well, I really love Arsenal and I really don’t like City. I don’t much like Foden either, as a person, from the little I can tell (though I am perfectly willing to admit I could be wrong about that). But it’s just crazy to think he isn’t a brilliant player–for City, for Arsenal, for Madrid, for anyone. I think Ødegaard deserves the award more than Foden, but not because Foden is crap.
The football community is obsessed with comparing brilliant players and wanting to conclude that the one that doesn’t play for their team is totally unworthy; hence the constant Foden/Saka debates with either side launching grenades when their guy is more in form and vice versa. It’s a waste of time! It’s obvious both are quality players, with some overlapping qualities but also some quite different ones. Neither guy is a “fraud” and both guys are going to have some brilliant spells and some where they are less effective. I’m all for hating City as a club because of what they’ve… Read more »
He’s been utterly fantastic, nice to see the so called tactico prodigy, @Nonewthing in the mud again after his ridiculous Odegaard agenda
His arrogance is part of his brand but his insights are unique from what I’ve seen in the tactico sphere. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s also not the only one talking about where Odegaard would be best deployed; EBL2017 has also been advocating for moving him to the left to open up better passing angles for him and to take him out of Saka’s orbit, so that B has more space to operate. I do think NNT does not value what O brings on the other side of the ball in terms of how he sets… Read more »
What he says about Odegaard basically invalidates anything else that he comes out with. It’s such horseshit. And to be honest, I suspect the whole account is a ‘bit’ of some kind.
An absolutely gem of a player.
Passionate!
Committed!
Tenacious!
Graceful and Elegant to watch.
A captain who leads and forces others to “do”, by being the biggest “doer” himself.
I absolutely love him.
ODEGAARD!!!!!!!
*I meant to write “An absolute gem of a player”.
Autocomplete doing me some unwanted favours this morning.
Next great Arsenal captain.
Future Arsenal legend.
’nuff said.
I would throw Saliba into the mix for that award, and Declan Rice… and Ben White… and Gabriel. We are as good as we are because we’re built upon a strong foundation.
It gives forward players the opportunity to take risks.
Can I say, I feel the disappointment after Man $hitty statement victory this week among us fans, even here on our cherished forum?
I feel it, but could also be wrong. On another post, somebody responded to me that I should send back my fake psychology diploma, lool. Perhaps, I deserve a diploma from fact checking university as well.
When I lived in Italy there’s a great app to play football and I met a guy who not only looked like him but played just like him, sam mannerisms and running type, wonderfully gifted. I almost for a second feel like ive played with Ø
Not so much out of topic, but about another article. Can someone tell me what blogs meant on the blog from this saturday with the following lines? I mean, is he talking about someone specifically who did that?
“I also just can’t see Odegaard going on some bleached-wanker’s podcast after he’s retired, telling stories about how he refused to travel with his team because things weren’t exactly to his liking. And, that for me, is the true essence of leadership 😉”
Pretty sure that was a recent interview of John Terry where he was bragging about how he raised a fuss with then-manager AVB about where the team vets were seated on a flight Wray’s the young guys—and acted like that was true captain leadership. I don’t know who the bleached wanker podcaster is. Couldn’t be arsed to look it up. But now you can…
I fully expect Communist Gunner to want everybody seating on the rotten wooden floor of a shaking old aircraft.
And no, I don’t want people seating on shaking aircrafts. I do would like everyone to have access to decent medical care, a home and transportation to be fair free and public. Instead of millionaires living off our backs and flying private jets while some of us cannot afford a bus ticket.
Thank you for the replies!
John Terry the w**ker.
Er, no.
Everyone here knows that John Terry is a cunt.
The bleached wanker is Simon Jordan.
Where he gets the energy from I don’t know, to being usually the 1st man at hard press, his silky skills playing the ball through lines, he scores, he assists, leads by example, never injured given the clattering he takes, not seen him do the old cramp trick to slow game down either, a captain of both our side and Norway at such a young age is incredible, an example to our academy players of how to be a top professional, that said Player of the year will go to the team that wins PL, hopefully Odergaurd..