Saturday round-up: Odegaard, Gabriel, Havertz

Morning all.

Let’s do a quick Saturday round-up, with some bits and pieces for you to read. First, Mikel Arteta has been speaking about Martin Odegaard, his development as a player, and his position as captain. On the latter, he says:

It’s not only about him because he needs to have that role, but that role has to be given as well with the blessing of a team, a group of players that as well believe in him and they are capable and happy to give him that space and that responsibility and give him support.

We were really lucky because we had that with a few of them. And then because it’s a team that individually has unbelievable characters that makes life very easy for you as a captain.

There are still the vestiges of this idea that a captain has be big, brash, and someone who shouts a lot. How many times did you see people bemoan the fact we needed another Tony Adams down the years? As I’ve often said though, captains like that don’t come along very often, they are generally quite singular figures, and their impact lives on for a long time. So when you get another captain who isn’t like that, people can think it’s bad, when in fact it’s just different.

Even if an Adams or Roy Keane type is your preference, they kinda belong to the past, and I’d challenge anyone to cast doubts on Odegaard’s leadership qualities in the modern era. As Arteta says, he has the respect of his teammates, because not only is he an intelligent, technical player around whom much of what we do revolves, he works so hard for the team. These numbers tend not to be available publicly via the stats websites etc, but I’d wager he’s very close to the top of distance covered per game, and the amount of sprints he does as he leads the Arsenal press. When you see your captain putting in the hard yards, even when a game is won, you don’t shirk your own responsibility.

Part of it is the culture Arteta has instilled at the club, but I think there’s a direct connection between…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/04/saturday-round-up-odegaard-gabriel-havertz/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-04-27 07:54:05

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