Arsenal still haven’t solved their Martin Odegaard problem

Arsenal’s 2022/23 season has taken a different trajectory than the previous campaign but ended with the same hollow thud, and for the same reason: Mikel Arteta still hasn’t solved the Martin Odegaard problem.

That’s not a criticism of Odegaard. He’s a joy to watch and easily the best signing of the Arteta era. Yet, two games against Brighton have exposed a fundamental flaw. Namely, stopping Odegaard means stopping Arsenal.

The Seagulls stopped him during a sobering 3-0 win at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. The defeat all but ended Arsenal’s title push and was eerily reminiscent of Arteta’s team losing 2-1 to Brighton on home soil in April 2022.

Then it was Moises Caicedo who marked Odegaard out of the game. He set the template for a tactic Tottenham repeated with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg before Newcastle asked Bruno Guimaraes to do the same.

Arsenal lost all three matches and missed out on the UEFA Champions League because Odegaard was kept under wraps. Arteta still hasn’t resolved the issue, despite his best efforts.

Martin Odegaard’s a marked man

Brighton moved Caicedo to right-back for their latest visit to north London, so boss Roberto De Zerbi asked central defender Levi Colwill to blanket Odegaard, per Sam Dean of The Telegraph:

The fact Brighton risked taking a centre-back away from Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus to man-mark Odegaard speaks volumes about the latter’s threat. How comprehensively the strategy worked is also an indictment of Arsenal’s over-reliance on Odegaard’s influence.

With the Norwegian starved of meaningful touches, Arsenal were reliant on forcing turnovers from the press, rather than threading passes between the lines. The result was dominance of possession by the visitors, with these stats from Orbinho revealing a bleak picture of the pattern of play.

The final numbers, via the official Premier League website, show Brighton had 59.1 per cent possession, 694 touches and 535 passes that led to six shots on target and three goals.

An Arsenal team vying for the title shouldn’t be bossed like that at home against anybody. It won’t happen again if Arteta finds new ways to help Odegaard.

Arteta needs Odegaard plan B

Arteta initially responded to the Odegaard problem earlier this season. His tactical riff involved stretching the pitch to breaking point, with wingers Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka staying wide and Jesus moving into the inside left channel.

Opposition players following Arsenal’s main goal threats into the flanks has often created more room in central areas for Odegaard. He’s used the extra space to score 15 goals, assist seven more, create 14 big chances and play 22 through balls in the league.

Those numbers underline Odegaard’s importance, but he’s also alone in Arsenal’s creativity department. By contrast, Brighton put three ball-playing technicians, Pascal Gross, Alexis Mac Allister and Billy Gilmour, on the pitch together.

Long gone are the creative collectives featuring multiple playmakers that defined Arsenal under Arsene Wenger. Now, it’s Odegaard or bust, a problem Arteta tried to solve with Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Having Zinchenko tuck into midfield has allowed Granit Xhaka to push forward and draw more attention away from Odegaard. The plan falls apart when Kieran Tierney comes in for the Ukrainian, the way he did against Brighton, with the Scot more comfortable hugging the touchline than wandering centrally.

Odegaard needs another playmaker or two on his wavelength in the middle, so Arteta should make more use of Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira next season. Or else move Martinelli central and use a creative wide player defined more by work on the ball than runs off it.

This Arsenal team will only go as far as Odegaard takes it, but that won’t be far unless he gets some help.