Martin Odegaard Shines in Arsenal's 3-0 Victory Over Manchester City
Martin Odegaard walked off in Cardiff with the Community Shield in one hand and the man-of-the-match award in the other, but what really lingered was the feeling that Arsenal’s conductor is back in full voice.
This was a 3-0 dismantling of Manchester City, a statement result in August, and at the heart of it all was the Norwegian who spent most of last season wrestling with his own body.
From injury-riddled season to centre stage
Arsenal may have ended their 22-year wait for a Premier League title last season, but for Odegaard it felt oddly hollow. Knee and shoulder problems chopped his campaign into pieces. He started only 16 league games. One goal. Seven assists. His leanest return since making his move from Real Madrid permanent in 2021-22.
For a player who had become the face of Mikel Arteta’s rebuild, it was a jarring step back. The touch was still there, the vision too, but not often enough, not for long enough. Even the captaincy came under scrutiny as former players questioned whether he should wear the armband.
On Sunday, those doubts were shoved firmly to the edges.
A captain everywhere you looked
Odegaard didn’t just decorate the game, he drove it. He completed more passes than any Arsenal player on the pitch – 55 out of 58 – glided through three dribbles out of three and won possession nine times. Numbers that only underline what was obvious to the naked eye: he was everywhere.
The performance had bite as well as silk. He pressed, he snapped into duels, he demanded the ball in tight spaces and kept asking questions of a City side that never found an answer.
Then came the moment that will stick in the highlights reel. With Arsenal already in control, Odegaard finished the job with a ruthless third goal, selling Gianluigi Donnarumma with a cool dummy that left the City goalkeeper on the turf before rolling the ball home. A flourish, but one that summed up his day – clarity, confidence, total control.
Arsenal’s midfield arms race
Arteta has not stood still since lifting the league trophy. Arsenal’s manager has doubled down on his midfield, landing Bruno Guimaraes for £75m to add yet another elite option to an already stacked department.
Mikel Merino, one of those jostling for minutes, has called the club’s midfield pool “probably the best in football”. Look down the list and it is hard to argue: Odegaard, Guimaraes, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Martin Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Merino himself. It is depth with quality at every turn.
On this evidence, that competition might be exactly what Odegaard needed. He looked sharper, quicker in his decisions, keener to impose himself. As if the presence of another playmaking heavyweight has nudged him up a level.
He and Guimaraes seemed to click immediately in their first start together. The passing angles opened up, the tempo lifted, and Arsenal’s attacks flowed with a freedom that has been missing at times.
“Sometimes you are just in the flow. You need to find that on the pitch,” Odegaard said afterwards. “All of us were flowing pretty good out there. I will just try to keep that up and keep going.”
Using the pain as fuel
Odegaard’s resurgence did not begin in Cardiff. He finished last season fit, then carried that form into the World Cup with Norway, starting five of their six matches and supplying four assists. The rhythm that eluded him at club level for months began to return on the international stage.
“Last year was really a big struggle with a lot of difficult moments. To miss so many games because of injury was really frustrating,” he admitted. “It is the worst thing for a footballer to not be able to be on the pitch and I had quite a lot of weird injuries, and bad luck.
“It was good for me to end the season with a title, here, and then a good World Cup. Then I had my break and I feel good, ready to go again.
“What I have just worked on is to use that as motivation for this year and to come back stronger. And to use all of those experiences in a positive way.”
Those words matched what Arteta has sensed since pre-season began.
“Well, he missed five or six months for different things and it was extremely difficult for him to get any momentum,” the Arsenal manager said. “So I'm sure this year if we can maintain him fit, available with the players around him, we're going to see a very different Martin.
“And I sense from the first day that he joined [pre-season training] that he has something else on the belly that he wants to prove and show, because the team needs it as well.”
A “new signing” without spending a penny
When Arteta first brought Odegaard into the fold, he became the symbol of Arsenal’s new era – technically gifted, tactically intelligent, relentlessly team-focused. Injuries dulled that edge last season, but did not erase it.
Now, surrounded by what might be the strongest midfield group in the game, he looks ready to reclaim his place at the centre of it all. Fit, hungry, and playing with that easy arrogance that marks out the very best No.10s.
Arsenal have paid big money to strengthen the squad this summer. Yet if this version of Martin Odegaard stays on the pitch, the most important addition to Arteta’s title defence might be the one he already had.
