Martin Odegaard's Impact on Arsenal's Ambitions
Arsenal were a penalty shootout away from the greatest season in their modern history. A Premier League title finally banked, a Champions League final lost on spot-kicks to Paris Saint-Germain, and all of it achieved with their captain running on something close to empty.
Martin Odegaard’s body betrayed him last year. His influence flickered. The knee, the shoulder, the stop-start rhythm of a campaign that left him with just one goal and seven assists in 36 games across all competitions. Only 24 league appearances in a title-winning season. Arsenal soared, but their playmaker never quite did.
Odegaard, unleashed
At 27, Odegaard has opened this campaign like a player determined to settle scores with himself. The sharpness that teased a return during Norway’s run to the World Cup quarter-finals – where they fell to England – has hardened into something far more ruthless in Arsenal colours.
The warning came in Cardiff. In the Community Shield against Manchester City, with Arsenal already cruising, Odegaard produced a finish that bordered on cruel. Gianluigi Donnarumma went to ground, Odegaard sat him down again with a feint, then rolled the ball into an empty net. Audacious, arrogant, utterly in control.
He carried that swagger into the league. A goal in the 3-0 win over Coventry City. Then the decisive touch in a comeback victory over Chelsea at Emirates Stadium, a 2-1 win that kept Arsenal’s perfect start alive. The move summed up his intelligence: a late, perfectly timed surge into the box, reading Kai Havertz’s dummy a split-second quicker than anyone else, then thrashing an emphatic finish past Emiliano Martinez.
Those were hints. Naples was confirmation.
A captain’s performance in Naples
Arsenal’s Champions League campaign began with a trip that looked awkward on paper and felt even more so once Napoli settled into their shape. The Serie A side dug in behind a defensive barrier straight out of Max Allegri’s playbook, deep, disciplined, and stubborn.
Arsenal still dominated. They carved out chance after chance, racking up 26 shots – their highest total in a Champions League match since records began in 2003-04, and the most Napoli have faced in that period. Yet the ball refused to go in. Openings were wasted. Frustration lurked.
Then Odegaard decided enough was enough.
Fifteen minutes from time, the captain drifted into space, the ball arrived on his left foot, and he detonated it. A stunning strike, arrowed beyond the keeper, finally cracked Napoli’s resistance and sealed a 1-0 win that felt bigger than the scoreline.
It was the moment that settled the match. It was also the moment that underlined who runs this team.
In Naples, Odegaard did far more than score. He set the tone. He pressed, chased, demanded the ball, and embodied the kind of leadership that doesn’t need an armband to be obvious. The goal was the headline; the work without it was the foundation.
Arteta’s standard-bearer
Mikel Arteta has been clear about what he expects from his captain. Not just touches, not just control, but risk and responsibility in the areas that decide games.
“This what we need,” Arteta said. “Players with that mindset to decide the game, to play with that personality and keep taking risks. He is getting into those positions much more in recent games. It was an incredible goal.”
This is exactly what was missing, at least consistently, last season. Arsenal were brilliant, but Odegaard often watched the fireworks rather than lighting the fuse himself. Now he is stepping into those decisive spaces and finishing moves with the cold precision of a forward.
Former Premier League defender Nedum Onuoha, speaking on Match of the Day, captured the shift in emphasis.
Odegaard, he said, “will want to have a bigger impact on the team this season”. Arsenal, Onuoha argued, have “unfinished business in the Champions League” and a captain desperate to be the first in the club’s history to lift that trophy.
“You would not back against them winning it based on what we've seen them do in this competition in the past two seasons,” Onuoha added. “But he 100% takes Arsenal to a different level when he is on form and playing like this.
“That’s the way it should be as well. I think when he is at his best, Arsenal are at their best.
“I think there have been times when he's not been at his best and as a team they can still look good and win games, but the best version of Arsenal in my opinion comes when Odegaard is pulling the strings, because so many other players will be involved in the way they attack, and the way they attack will look different at certain points.”
Right now, that “best version” is what Arsenal are showing. Smooth as silk, as Odegaard glides through games, and no coincidence the team look just as polished.
A team growing into its ambition
What stood out in Naples wasn’t only the volume of Arsenal’s chances, but the way they handled the grind. There was no panic, no rush to abandon their principles. They patiently dismantled Napoli’s defensive shell, trusting that their quality would eventually break through.
It was the kind of performance you expect from a side that has already tasted success and wants more. Calm, mature, ruthless when it mattered.
Arteta saw exactly what he wanted: “Martin is contributing with goals that are impacting results which is what we want from our attacking players, being decisive. We should have done it in a different way because of the amount of chances we created.”
That last line carries a warning. Arsenal know they will need to be sharper as the competition hardens. Real Madrid are coming to Emirates Stadium. Bayern Munich await in Germany. These are the assignments that have historically exposed Arsenal’s flaws in Europe.
This time, though, they carry a captain playing as if he has a personal score to settle with the Champions League.
Onuoha highlighted Odegaard’s all-round influence: “Arsenal have obviously looked good at the start of the season and he has been a big reason for that. Some of his creativity, especially on the right-hand side, has been excellent.
“He looks after the ball so well. He is always looking for that pass to be able to create opportunities and he even does the defensive work as well.”
When others faltered in front of goal in Naples, Odegaard did not. He stepped up where team-mates had failed, and that, for a side with serious European ambitions, is exactly the kind of hierarchy you want.
The Holy Grail in sight?
For all their domestic resurgence, the Champions League remains the competition that haunts Arsenal. Defeat to Barcelona in the 2006 final. Defeat to PSG on penalties last season. Two near-misses, two painful reminders of how thin the margins can be at the very top.
It is still their Holy Grail. The one trophy that has stayed just out of reach.
But the equation changes when your captain is fully fit, fully firing, and determined to impose himself on the biggest stage. Last season, Arsenal scaled extraordinary heights with Odegaard far from his ceiling. Now he is already stamping his authority on both the Premier League and Europe.
If this is the level he maintains, if this is the version of Odegaard that drives Arsenal through Madrid, through Munich, through the chaos and cruelty of knockout football, then the question is no longer whether they can compete.
It’s whether anyone can stop them.
