LONDON — This is a fairly simple sport. Has your team found itself in a creative rut that coincided with the absence of your primary playmaker? Get him back and all your problems will disappear. So yes, the semi-frequent lead-footed attacks, barren possession and clumsy decision-making that has reared its ugly head at Arsenal over the past two months has been nothing more than a team unable to cope without Martin Odegaard.
As he played through his second game in two months and cut to pieces one of the Premier League’s best defences, you could see why Odegaard’s absence was felt so deeply. Mikel Arteta and Edu, the now former sporting director, have understandably been criticized for the summer activities that left Arsenal without a senior back-up for their club captain. But would any of Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe and even Ethan Nwaneri – as promising as his cameo was – have been able to deliver a fraction of Odegaard’s creativity and control?
“When he is in the team you feel something that is different,” said Mikel Arteta. “It’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s different.”
His ability to manipulate opponents is unparalleled in the Premier League. Woe to anyone who gets too close to the Norwegian, you run a great risk of the ball slipping through your legs as Odegaard drives into the open field. There’s no angle he can’t make, no pass he can’t see. Bukayo Saka finds his skipper in the right corner of the box and immediately two bodies from Nottingham Forest converge on Odegaard.
At first you think the first touch has let him down, causing the ball to end up just under his legs, forcing him to make another touch before he can play a pass. At least you or I should. Not Odegaard, who instead slides the ball through a rapidly shrinking gap straight into Saka’s path. A touch, another and another. One more for luck and a rifle strike gives Arsenal a fifteen minute lead. The dynamic duo: crash, bang and walloping like Adam West and Burt Ward.
“That’s chemistry. Sometimes you meet someone, you immediately make eye contact and something flows,” Arteta said. “That is the case with those two.
“If you put them together in the right spaces, things blossom and things happen naturally. With others you try to force it, but it doesn’t work. With these two, we’re lucky to have them.”
Odegaard calmed the nerves of a crowd keenly aware of where their side’s title challenge would be if more points were dropped. In fact, he was not opposed to giving the Emirates a big boost if needed. Ninety minutes of driving rain could stifle the intensity of a crowd. However, when a six-man move culminated in a shot curled wide of Gabriel Jesus, who might not have looked so hapless in front of goal if he were more willing to test his fortunes by shooting more than once a game, Odegaard demanded noise. The Clock End responded.
Everyone danced to Odegaard’s tune. There is hardly a passage of play that hasn’t been enhanced by a tap, a jink or a quick pass to pull Forest out of position. The six chances he created at the final whistle were the most he has delivered since the final day of last season. His thirteen progressive passes were the most of anyone in red this afternoon. Not bad for a player who says he’s still working his way back to 100 percent.
These statistics don’t even begin to capture all of Odegaard’s excellence. He doesn’t get an assist for his contribution to the second goal, but he probably deserves a share of Saka’s. After all, Thomas Partey would not have had the space to bend in a shot from 25 yards if Odegaard had not pulled Ryan Yates deep into the penalty area from the edge of the penalty area. That gave Partey all the time he needed to touch and strike. “You can’t allow such space,” said Nuno Espirito Santo, far from impressed with his side’s defensive work throughout the 90 minutes.
With forty minutes to go, Arsenal could breathe. You’d have to go back six months for the last time a win on these events felt so easy. Indeed, it was comfortable enough that Arteta could go deeper on his depth chart than the unused Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli or Declan Rice, the latter still nursing a toe injury. Instead, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Raheem Sterling came on, with the latter eventually providing an assist for Nwaneri.
The 17-year-old, now Arsenal’s second-youngest Premier League scorer, lived up to Odegaard’s standards and produced an elegant finish beyond Matz Sels’ near post. It was enough to make you wonder whether he deserved more starting chances in those dull days when North London awaited the return of their talisman.
That was then, but from now on it’s all about that one guy who can get this team back to what they were before his injury. Odegaard is back. That also applies to Arsenal.