Martin Odegaard started on the bench for Arsenal in a Premier League game for the first time in two years on Saturday.
The Norwegian has been a mainstay in this Arsenal side for a long time now, but, at the weekend, he was left out against Sheffield United.
Odegaard, sadly, hasn’t been at his best as of late. He was poor against Chelsea and lacklustre against Sevilla, and now, Mikel Arteta has made the call to take him out of the side.
Speaking on the Handbrake Off Podcast, Adrian Clarke has given his verdict on this call, and he noted that Odegaard had been looking jaded in recent games, and this was a chance for him to simply recharge his batteries and go again.
Odegaard looked jaded
Clarke gave his verdict on the £30m man.
“You never know what’s going on with players, nobody would know would they? Players do play with injuries and especially as the captain you want to be there and out there as much as possible. Maybe he will sit out of the West Ham game as well, he was on the bench, but having a whole week off may rejuvenate Martin who has looked a bit jaded, I think tactically we’ve struggled to get him in the game as much as last season, but it does make sense that being one of the reasons he’s been below par,” Clarke said.
Fine without Odegaard
As much as Odegaard has been one of Arsenal’s very best players over the past two years, they were strangely fine without him on Saturday.
The 5-0 win against Sheffield United was arguably the Gunners’ performance of the season, and they really didn’t miss the Norwegian in the middle of the park.
Of course, Arsenal are usually a better team with Odegaard in the side, but, at the same time, this game showed that they are able to rotate when they need to without losing that much quality.