Arsenal: Martin Odegaard receives nonsense criticism

As much as Martin Odegaard will have aims and desires at Arsenal, his focus will be entirely on Norway securing an unlikely win away at the Netherlands on Tuesday to keep his World Cup dreams alive.

Everything hangs on the final matchday after a devastating 0-0 draw at home to Latvia, and if their task away at Louis van Gaal’s side wasn’t tough enough, they will also need Turkey to suffer an upset away at Montenegro if they are to clinch top spot.

However it pans out for Odegaard, upon his return to Arsenal ahead of a crunch trip away to Liverpool on Saturday there will be no guarantees of his place in the starting lineup.

Struggling to replicate the kind of form of late that prompted Mikel Arteta’s side to fork out £34m for his services in the summer, Alexandre Lacazette has come into the team and performed valiantly in his stead.

Arsenal and Norway midfielder Martin Odegaard is the subject of bizarre and nonsense criticism from Spanish media ahead of World Cup qualifier

Definite improvement is needed from the 22-year-old, but he has been subject to some quite ridiculous criticism from AS back in Spain, where he spent six years as a Real Madrid player.

Known for some of their scathing reportage on certain individuals – Gareth Bale springs to mind – this bizarre and unnecessary critique of the midfielder leads with the title ‘history repeats itself’.

It’s mentioned that Arsenal are highly disappointed in Odegaard’s performances and have relegated him to the bench as a result, a situation much like he had at Madrid where he was being ‘pushed out by big signings’. Funnily enough, there have been no such ‘big signings’ at Arsenal doing so in this instance. Odegaard was the ‘big’ signing.

Citing Emile Smith Rowe’s form as the reason why Odegaard can’t get a game – he’s been on the bench in the past three matches, a sample size hardly reflective of his five seasons in Spain – also makes little sense. The player replacing Odegaard in the team is quite clearly Lacazette, while the argument can be made that Odegaard’s own performances against Brighton and Crystal Palace are what has seen him drop out.

To top it all off the report states that Arteta is already looking to bring in new signings in his stead (citing a Mirror article about wanting £80m Raheem Sterling) which while may be partly true, will not be a direct result of Odegaard having two poor matches.

Is there some bizarre bitterness in this uncalled for attack? AS are the ‘Real Madrid’ outlet and in an effort to seemingly defend the club, they’ve sought to launch this uncalled for and poorly researched Odegaard opinion piece.

The Norwegian has undoubtedly been lagging behind slightly whereas Lacazette has given Arsenal some more bite creatively to warrant his selection. But none of that means Odegaard’s time is up, which is ludicrous, and at 22 years old there is still plenty more to come from him this season and in the ones to come.

Focus on your own patch.