LONDON — This is a pretty simple sport. Has your team hit a creative rut that coincided with the absence of your primary playmaker? Get it back and all your problems will evaporate. So, yes, the semi-frequent lead-footed attacking, fruitless possession and clumsy decision-making that reared its unknown head at Arsenal over the past two months was nothing more than a team unable to cope without Martin Odegaard.
As he progressed in his second game in two months, tearing apart one of the Premier League’s best defences, you could see why Odegaard’s absence had been felt so keenly. Mikel Arteta and Edu, the now former sporting director, have been understandably criticized for the summer deals that left Arsenal without senior backing for their club captain. But really, would any of them, Fabio Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe and even Ethan Nwaneri (as promising as his cameo was once again) have been able to offer a fraction of Odegaard’s creativity and control?
“When he’s in the team he feels something different,” Mikel Arteta said. “It’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s different.”
His ability to manipulate his opponents is unrivaled in the Premier League. Woe to anyone who gets too close to the Norwegian! He runs the risk of the ball slipping between his legs as Odegaard enters the open field. There’s no angle he can’t make, no pass he can’t detect. Bukayo Saka finds his captain in the right corner of the area and immediately two Nottingham Forest bodies converge on Odegaard.
At first, you think that the first touch has let him down, trapping the ball just under his legs, so he will have to take another touch before making a pass. At least you or I would have to. Not Odegaard, who instead slides the ball through a rapidly closing space and straight into Saka’s path. One touch, another and another. Another lucky goal and a quick shot puts Arsenal ahead in the 15th minute. The dynamic duo: crash, punch and punch like Adam West and Burt Ward.
“That’s chemistry, sometimes you meet someone, you immediately make eye contact and something flows,” Arteta said. “That’s the case with those two.
“When you put them together in the right spaces, things flourish and happen naturally. With others, you try to force it and it doesn’t work. With these two we are very lucky to have them.”
Odegaard calmed the nerves of a crowd well aware of where his team’s title fight would be if they dropped more points. More than that, he wasn’t opposed to giving the Emirates a good laugh when necessary. Ninety minutes of torrential rain could drown out the intensity of any crowd. However, when a six-man play culminated in a deflected shot from Gabriel Jesús, who might not have looked so unlucky in front of goal if he were more willing to test his fortune by shooting more than once a game, Odegaard demanded noise. The End of the Clock responded.
Everyone danced to Odegaard’s tune. There was hardly a step of the game that wasn’t enhanced by a flick, a maneuver or a quick pass to get Forest out of position. The six chances he had created by the final whistle were the most he had achieved since the final day of last season, his 13 progressive passes the most of anyone in red this afternoon. Not bad for a player who says he’s still working to get back to 100 percent.
Those statistics don’t even reflect all of Odegaard’s excellence. He won’t get an assist for his contribution to the second goal, but he probably deserves to share Saka’s. After all, Thomas Partey would not have had the space to deflect a shot from 25 meters if it had not been for Odegaard’s run that took Ryan Yates from the edge of the area and deep into the penalty area. That gave Partey all the time he needed to take a touch and attack. “You can’t allow that space,” said Nuno Espirito Santo, unimpressed by his team’s defensive work during the 90 minutes.
With 40 minutes left, Arsenal could breathe. We’d have to go back six months to see the last time a victory felt so easy around these parts. In fact, it was comfortable enough that Arteta could go further on his depth chart than the unused Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli or Declan Rice, the latter still nursing a toe injury. Instead, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Raheem Sterling came in, the latter finally getting on with an assist for Nwaneri.
The 17-year-old, now Arsenal’s second-youngest goalscorer in the Premier League, lived up to the standards set by Odegaard and curled an elegant finish past Matz Sels’ near post. It was enough to make one wonder if he deserved more starting opportunities in those dull days when north London awaited the return of their talisman.
That was then, but from now on, he is the only man who can get this team back to what it was before his injury. Odegaard is back. So is Arsenal.
