Pundit Tony Cascarino has produced a scathing review of Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard’s performance against Chelsea yesterday.
Speaking on TalkSPORT (22/10 7:48am), Cascarino was analysing a difficult match for Mikel Arteta’s side at Stamford Bridge.
Considering they looked completely out of the game for the first 75 minutes, they’ll be relieved to have come away from the match with a point.
Cole Palmer and Mykhaylo Mudryk must have thought they had won the game for the hosts after giving them a comfortable 2-0 lead.
However, a mistake from Robert Sanchez gave Declan Rice an opportunity and he took it from 35 yards.
Substitute Leandro Trossard rescued a point by capitalising on Malo Gusto switching off at the back post but Mikel Arteta will be concerned by some of the performances he witnessed last night.
Oleksandr Zinchenko was hooked at half-time after picking up a booking and question marks are beginning to grow around David Raya.
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However, Martin Odegaard won’t want to look back on his latest performance for Arsenal against Chelsea after being anonymous for much of the match.
It was no surprise to see him replaced by Kai Havertz after 78 minutes who won a few duels in the middle of the pitch and helped link play together as Arsenal searched for an equaliser.
Arsenal captain Odegaard struggled against Chelsea
Speaking about the match yesterday, Cascarino said: “For the first 45 minutes I thought they were awful. I mean I’ve never seen [Martin] Odegaard play so poorly in a game.
“I thought [Oleksandr] Zinchenko, [Raheem] Sterling kept getting the better of him and obviously came off at half-time, didn’t he?”
The £30m playmaker has been sensational since arriving at the Emirates, but it’s no surprise that when he has a bad game Arsenal suffer as a result.
He managed just 20 passes before being substituted and failed to complete a single dribble.
Chelsea did brilliantly to mark Odegaard out of the game and his normal link-up play with Arsenal star Bukayo Saka was virtually non-existent.
It says a lot about the state of the Arsenal team right now that they can still grind out a result even when their talisman is off the pace.
Odegaard will want to turn his form around in midweek when the Gunners face Sevilla in the Champions League on Tuesday.