Martin Odegaard’s Arsenal transfer stance and fee talk emerges

Real Madrid to Want £35m for Martin Odegaard

Since even before the window opened the numbers being flung about for Odegaard’s signature ventured from the farcical to the nonsensical.

Fees as low as £25m were mentioned in some sectors while they soared as high as £60m elsewhere. Nobody really knew. It was a lot of guesswork with agents feeding different information all over the shop.

Since the news of the Norwegian desiring a return to north London reemerged, so has talk of the fee it would take to lure him away. With two years left to run on his contract, the aforementioned figures have been squeezed together like a trap in an Indiana Jones film and, according to one source, ended up at £35m.

Football.london’s Chris Wheatley was asked what fee it would take and stated it would be ‘around’ that figure, constituting significantly less than the potential outlay for Maddison, which is said could reach as high as £70m. For his output, that’s entering crazy territory.

£35m comes across as an absolute steal. For a player to have produced as Odegaard did in five months despite arriving injured, picking up more injuries and being thrust into a poor Arsenal team amid a pandemic all around him, he did brilliantly. Only 22 years old, there is much more to come from him.

Contrasting reports from ESPN state that Madrid want €50m (£42.5m), which does little to aid the fans who’re eager for some clarity on the situation. They state that Madrid see a future for him but some figures inside the club are unsure of his mentality in not wanting to stay and fight for his place.

Don’t we all just love the transfer window? We do, right? Right?

Back to Spain, Defensa Central run an exclusive stating that Arsenal’s contract offer for the midfielder hovers at around £115k-per-week, equating to just under £6m per year. What is helping entice Odegaard is that this is 33% more than he currently earns at Santiago Bernabeu.

There needn’t be too much looking into those reports.

What to decipher from the latest? The most likely stance from all parties is a ‘yes’ from Arsenal, an ‘I’m open to the idea’ from Odegaard and a ‘give us the money and we’ll talk’ from Madrid.

But what do we know? What can be certain is that this won’t be the end of what is sure to be weeks of lengthy discussions and further speculative tripe. If it’s £35 though, that’s no grounds to say no.