LONDON — Quite a simple sport this. Has your team hit a creative rut that coincided with the absence of your key player? Get him back and all your problems will evaporate. So yes, the semi-frequent lead-footed attacking, sterile possession and clumsy decision-making that has reared its unknown head at Arsenal over the last two months has been nothing more than a team unable to cope without Martin Odegaard.
As he spent his second game in two months cutting down one of the Premier League’s top defences, you could see why Odegaard’s absence was so deeply felt. Mikel Arteta and Edu, the now former sporting director, were understandably criticized for a summer trade that left Arsenal without a senior back-up to their club captain. But really, would any of Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe and even Ethan Nwaneri — promising though his cameo was once again — be able to deliver a fraction of Odegaard’s creativity and control?
“When he is in the team, you can feel something different,” said Mikel Arteta. “It’s hard to put a finger on it but it’s different.”
His ability to manipulate opponents is second to none in the Premier League. Alas for anyone who gets too close to the Norwegian, you run quite a risk of the ball slipping through your legs as Odegaard drives into open field. There is no corner he cannot fabricate, no passage he cannot glimpse. Bukayo Saka finds his skipper on the right corner of the box and immediately two Nottingham Forest bodies converge on Odegaard.
At first, you think the first touch has brought him down, catching the ball right under his legs so that he will have to take another touch before playing a pass. At least you or I should. Not Odegaard, who instead slides the ball through a quickly closing gap and straight into Saka’s path. Touch, another and another. One more for luck and a rifle strike shoots Arsenal into a 15th minute lead. The dynamic duo: crash, bang and bang like Adam West and Burt Ward.
“That’s chemistry, sometimes you meet someone, immediately you make eye contact and something flows,” Arteta said. “That’s the case with those two.
“When you put them together in the right spaces, things blossom and things happen naturally. With others, you try to force it and it doesn’t work. With these two we are very lucky to have them.”
Odegaard calmed the nerves of a crowd acutely aware of where their side’s title challenge would be if more points were dropped. More than that, he was not opposed to giving the Emirates a good run as needed. Ninety minutes of rain could dampen the intensity of any crowd. However, when a six-man move culminated in a shot curled wide by Gabriel Jesus, who might not have seemed so unlucky in front of goal had he been more willing to test his fortunes by shooting more than once a game, Odegaard demanded a shout. The End of the Clock answered.
Everyone danced to Odegaard’s tune. Hardly a pass of play wasn’t boosted by a move, shock or quick pass to get Forest out of position. The six chances he created at the final whistle were the most he had delivered since the final day of last season, his 13 progressive passes 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.
Those stats don’t even capture all of Odegaard’s excellence. He won’t get an assist for his contribution to the second goal but he probably deserves a share of Saka’s. After all, Thomas Partey wouldn’t have had the space to bend a shot in from 25 yards if it wasn’t for Odegaard’s run pulling Ryan Yates from the edge of the area deep into the penalty box. That gave Partey all the time he needed to get to touch and hit home. “You can’t allow that kind of space,” said Nuno Espirito Santo, not at all impressed by his side’s defensive work throughout the 90 minutes.
With 40 minutes, Arsenal could breathe. You’d have to go back six months for the last time victory felt this simple around these parts. Indeed, it was quite comfortable 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. Instead, in came Oleksandr Zinchenko and Raheem Sterling, the latter catching fire in the end with an assist for Nwaneri.
The 17-year-old, now Arsenal’s second-youngest Premier League goalscorer, rose to the standards set by Odegaard and curled an elegant finish past Matz Sels’ near post. It was enough to make you wonder if 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 about the one man who can fire this team back to what they were before his injury. Odegaard is back. That’s how Arsenal are.
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