Arsenal were minutes away from recording three away wins in a week at the Stadium of Light. Instead they succumbed to a stoppage-time equaliser, but still have a four-point advantage at the top of the table. And the cavalry is coming.
Manager Mikel Arteta was without Martin Odegaard, Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus for the last two away days. Speaking in October, he was hopeful Odegaard, Madueke and Havertz could return after this international break, while The Athletic revealed it is a similar case for Gyokeres and Martinelli.
Each will bring something different upon returning, but the reintegration of club captain Odegaard will be particularly interesting.
The timing may not be as clear-cut as featuring in the north London derby on November 23, with the Norway head coach, Stale Solbakken, saying last week the midfielder’s recovery “is going in a steady direction, but he is some distance away”. Captain of his country, Odegaard has joined up with the national setup to continue his rehab, as Norway sealed World Cup qualification for the first time since 1998, the year of his birth.
Nevertheless, Odegaard’s return will be welcome whenever it comes.
As was the case with many of his team-mates, the 26-year-old’s medial collateral ligament injury came when he was coming into form. He had just returned from a second shoulder injury of the season with a game-changing cameo away at Newcastle United, an influential 90-minute performance at home against Olympiacos, and then jarred his left knee in a challenge with Crysencio Summerville against West Ham United on October 4.
The timing was particularly frustrating because Arteta was starting to experiment with his role.
Coming off the back of Newcastle (a 2-1 win, September 28) and Olympiacos (a 2-0 win, October 1), Odegaard was much freer in his movement. He roamed into more central, left-sided areas to play through passes to Myles Lewis-Skelly and Gyokeres, which indirectly and directly led to goals.
Odegaard started in a midfield three with Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze against West Ham.
While Martin Zubimendi replaced him to great effect, exerting more control and penetration from a deep midfield role, Arteta’s willingness to start two creators ahead of Rice was exciting. Since Eze’s arrival from Crystal Palace in the summer, many would have wondered what a midfield with him and Odegaard would look like, and while the first half-hour against West Ham wasn’t perfect, it provided a different dynamic.
In a throwback to how Arsenal used to build up with Odegaard in the 2021-22 season, the Norway international started the game by dropping deep to become a passing option in the same line as Rice. The difference now, though, was that he could roam across the pitch.
Inside the first two minutes, he received the ball off Rice and urged Jurrien Timber to move forward before going back left to Rice.
As the ball goes back to Gabriel, both he and Eze drop and rotate to receive the ball in space. Odegaard is the one Gabriel passes to, but he’s fouled before he can free Eze, who is now further wide.
In recent years, Odegaard would usually try to make something work between his right-back and Bukayo Saka. Instead, dragging West Ham’s forward players into higher spaces and then exploiting the gaps they left behind across the width of the pitch seemed to take a bigger priority.
The game wasn’t even five minutes old when Gabriel next passed him the ball. This time, he started the move right of centre when Rice was on the ball and ran across to the left as it moved to Arsenal’s Brazilian centre-back. Able to turn in space, Odegaard’s pass let him down as it was intercepted by Jarrod Bowen.
These missteps did not stop the Arsenal captain or his team-mates probing, though.
Riccardo Calafiori’s chaotic positioning was particularly helpful in allowing Odegaard to roam, as he would move into the same midfield line as Rice. Odegaard and Eze would almost act as two No 10s as a result, with the former floating around.
This almost created an opening for Gyokeres similar to the ones he got against Olympiacos. William Saliba, Rice and Calafiori played multiple bounce passes to change their passing angles and draw West Ham out, before finding Odegaard on the move, as seen below.
Former Arsenal defender Konstantinos Mavropanos was quicker across the ground than Gyokeres on that occasion, but the ball being played is what mattered.
While Odegaard had more freedom to roam, making it more difficult for the West Ham defence to track him, he had a presence in his usual pocket of space out on the right. He played just half an hour, but he still ranked joint-first for line-breaking passes into the final third according to Opta.
Two of those passes created promising openings for Arsenal. The first led to a Timber shot on target. The second, a through ball to Saka, resulted in a melee involving Gyokeres before Eze skied his volley from six yards out.
Having the freedom to get on the ball in so many areas of the pitch gave glimpses of more fluid attacking moves, even if Arsenal’s goals that day did not come from these moments.
Arteta said that West Ham’s plan to go man-for-man made it more difficult for the starting midfield to find space compared to when Zubimendi came on, but these sequences all show the potential.
Asked if he would start the trio of Rice, Odegaard and Eze again, the Arsenal manager added: “Yes. We need more chemistry, and a longer period because they start to live it and find the solutions and the tools that are going to allow them to flourish. Sometimes it takes a while, but it never happened because it was too early with Martin’s injury.”
That West Ham match is still the only Premier League game Zubimendi has not started. While he has been integral to Arsenal’s strong start to the season, having the options to both rest him and work on other dynamics could benefit Arteta.
Even if Odegaard starts with Zubimendi and Rice in midfield, that off-the-ball movement into different areas should continue. Arsenal’s right-sided dominance risked becoming too predictable last season, but this is one way of evolving their play that can not just get more from Odegaard, but others in the team, too — Gyokeres, for instance, with those runs into the left channel.
For all differing perspectives on Arsenal’s draw at Sunderland being followed by Manchester City edging closer to them in the table, Arteta’s side are still top without hitting anywhere near top gear in attack. That is majorly down to their record-breaking defence, but still having room to grow, having built that platform, is encouraging. Whether it is as soon as the north London derby or later, a roaming Odegaard can play a part in restoring that fluidity.