Martin Odegaard's Transformation Under Arteta: Fitter and Deadlier
Martin Odegaard is a different footballer this season. Same left foot, same vision, but a completely different presence – and Mikel Arteta knows exactly why.
The Arsenal captain settled another big European night on Wednesday, smashing in the only goal in a 1-0 Champions League win away to Napoli. Four days earlier, he had finished off Chelsea at the Emirates with the decisive strike in the Premier League. That makes it four goals in five games across all competitions, from a player who found the net just once in an injury-ravaged 2025/26 campaign.
This is not a gentle uptick. It’s a transformation.
Arteta’s new Odegaard: fitter, higher, deadlier
Arteta put it down to two things: a fit body and a new map of the pitch.
“First of all he needs to be available and last year he missed so many games through injuries,” the Arsenal manager said after the win in Naples. Now Odegaard is not only playing, he is playing higher, more often, and with different options around him.
“He’s got that edge and different relationships around him as well and that helps,” Arteta explained. “He can start to go by different heights in the team, especially in the attacking phase, and when we get him into those positions he’s a really dangerous player.”
The numbers back that up. Odegaard’s touches in the opposition box have rocketed from 2.5 per 90 minutes last season to 4.3 per 90 so far this term. Same role on the teamsheet, very different reality on the grass.
Arteta pointed to the players behind and beside his captain as the key to that freedom. Arsenal now have more footballers who can carry or pass the ball through the thirds, which allows Odegaard to push on and occupy more chaotic, damaging areas.
“We have a lot of players that can take the ball there and progress the ball much better than we did in the past,” said Arteta. “When that happens, [Odegaard] needs to take different heights and angles and positions in order to disorganise the opponent and he’s done that really well.”
Christos Tzolis is firmly in that group. The summer signing already has four assists, three of them for Odegaard goals, including the winner at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. But it wasn’t just that combination clicking in Italy. Arsenal attacked with menace down both flanks and straight through the middle, repeatedly ripping into Napoli’s shape.
They finished with 26 shots – their most on record in the Champions League since 2003/04 – and an expected goals figure of 4.05. On another night, the scoreline is a rout. The performance deserved more than a single goal; the finishing did not. Odegaard made sure that didn’t matter.
“That’s what we need,” said Arteta. “The players with the mindset to decide a game and play with personality. To keep taking chances and risks.
“He’s getting into those positions much more in recent games and now you feel he has the emotional state that he knows the ball can go in, and he scored an incredible goal tonight.”
Everything runs through the captain
From the first whistle in Naples, Odegaard looked like the best player on the pitch. He demanded the ball, dictated the tempo, and repeatedly found seams in Napoli’s defensive block to slide passes forward. Attacks flowed through him almost by default.
His goal summed up the new version of Arsenal’s captain: patient in the build-up, ruthless at the finish. After a 29-pass move, he took aim from the edge of the box and thumped in the winner. It was clinical, but it was also symbolic – the end product to a long spell of control in which he had been the reference point.
By full-time, he had more touches, more passes and more chances created than any other player. Napoli never truly got close enough to disrupt him. When they tried to crowd him, he simply changed angle, found a new pocket, and went again.
One moment stood out. A scooped, improvised pass to release Ben White carved open the Napoli defence and should have led to a tap-in, only for Piero Hincapie to waste the chance. It was just one example of his imagination; there were plenty more.
Odegaard played with freedom, but not the carefree kind. This was freedom with purpose, with an edge. He knew he was the man to decide it.
“Martin is contributing goals,” Arteta added. “That is obviously impacting results which is what we want from our attacking players, to be decisive, and certainly he was that today.”
Arsenal are riding that decisiveness right now. If their captain keeps striding into the box with this confidence and this clarity, how far can they go?
