Arsenal's Midfield Maestro - Martin Odegaard

Arsenal have been quietly replacing the quite industrial midfield in the last 18 months with more technicians.

Mikel Arteta himself mentioned the fact that Arsenal needed to get back to the likes of Cazorla’s and Rosicky’s in the middle of the park to start controlling the pace of games more. This summer window is an ode to the statement as well in that Arsenal spent a particularly sizeable chunk of money on Fabio Vieira.

One for the rotation as well as future, however a pointed move in the direction of “technicians” considering that there might be other areas considered as a priority by the club.

This is why faith was put into Martin Odegaard last summer.

He was/is the fulcrum of the team and everything good that happens from an attacking point of view went via Odegaard.

In actual fact the closer Odegaard and Bukayo Saka were to one another, the more fluid the football was. It’s exactly why Vieira was purchased as there was quite some burden placed on Odegaard in terms of minutes last season.

He played in 36 of the 38 league games and a total of 40 games in the season. Whilst teams at the very top have pros that play 50-60 games most seasons, the situation is all relative.

The psychological burden of playing the majority when things are both good and bad on the pitch can take its toll, so you can imagine it may have felt fairly taxing.

This is only going to be exacerbated with the added fixtures in Europe this season. He will still play the majority of games, however having rotational options will give him the opportunity of a break during the season as and when required. So he will need managing during the course of the season.

And he needs managing purely because he is one of Arsenal’s key creative outlets.

He registered seven goals and five assists in the season, and it would be argued that this was within a team that only began to function effectively as an attacking unit from January 2022.

The home loss vs Man City was when we saw Arsenal have a methodical plan from an attacking stand point that was sustained largely throughout the game, even when being reduced to 10 men. From that point it felt like there was a structure in place that allowed Odegaard to work his magic in the middle of the park.

The second half of the season showed that even when Arsenal were under immense pressure from the opposition, moments of creative spark were available outside of purely relying on the likes of Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli to come up with something at such a young age.

That’s not to say that Odegaard is a veteran by any stretch, but he’s seen a little more of top level football and had more experience in leading from the front.

This will grow and grow when there are more technicians placed around him as space creation is the way number 10s love to operate. Gabriel Jesus adds to this in a big way as well, so if we think of Odegaard as the signing of the season last summer, then he may become even more integral to the heartbeat of the team with additions of technical quality placed around him. 

He was 4th on the chance creation list from this past season, sitting behind Trent Alexander-Arnold, Bruno Fernandes and Kevin De Bruyne.

That’s some great company to be in. Now if the right outlets both technically in the midfield and potently in the centre forward position are added, not only could that number go up but it could be reflected in the assist stats as well.

Interestingly Saka is 7th on this list. In comparison both Manchester City and Liverpool have three players each in the top 15 chance creators, whereas Chelsea have one and Spurs also have one.

It really does feel like Arsenal are trying to replicate a hybrid version of both the way that Liverpool and Manchester City attack, so giving Odegaard more responsibility as well as adding more technically proficient footballers around him will only propel him forward.

There could be a big season coming for the Norwegian, and it should also be an expectation at this point as he’s now played with the team for one and a half seasons. He knows the lay of the land and is fully settled in.

Added to this there is a chance he is officially made captain of the team, which will only add to how he demands more from the rest of the team. He does it excellently for Norway so Arsenal should expect a similarly positive output for the 2022/23 season.