Title entries are nervous, very, very nervous. Arsenal fans found that out last season when a collapse in April ended all hopes of a Premier League title.
But when that run-in includes a visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as it did this weekend, the nervousness increases again.
Today’s clash is huge, let’s not be mistaken about that. The Gunners are currently top of the table, but Manchester City still have a game in hand. Mikel Arteta’s men simply need to keep winning and anything less than a win against their old rivals on Sunday afternoon would be disastrous.
So how can Arteta engineer a win? He will certainly rely on Martin Odegaard to set the tone.
Why Martin Odegaard is so important
The Norwegian started this current campaign slowly. Without Granit Xhaka, the end of 2023 proved to be quite difficult for the club captain. Odegaard only managed four goals and three assists in the league.
But since the turn of the year, he and Arsenal have taken their game to a higher level. The midfielder has scored five goals and seven assists in the 2024 league game and is just a testament to this.
A few days ago he saved perhaps his best game of the season for Chelsea. We know Mauricio Pochettino’s men haven’t been particularly good this season, but they were torn apart by an overpowering Gunners side who banished any fatigue and mental fog from their brains after defeats to Aston Villa and Bayern Munich.
Odegaard was at the forefront of this victory, providing two assists – one of which was a beautiful assist behind Kai Havertz’s first goal.
It was a “A Kevin De Bruyne-style assist“, as the Telegraph’s Sam Dean put it, while others were quick to suggest that he “heavenly“That’s not bad praise, is it?
So what was different at the Emirates during this game? Well, for the first time in 2024 we saw a midfield consisting of Thomas Partey, Declan Rice and Odegaard.
Why Partey needs to start regularly now
We haven’t seen much of the former Atletico Madrid star this season, mainly due to injury.
In fact, Partey has missed 26 games due to groin and hamstring injuries, leaving Arteta without one of his most trusted midfielders.
Losing Xhaka was already a huge blow, but losing another third of the midfield in the 2022/23 title race was hard to swallow.
Unfortunately, Arteta’s midfield is now complete again. The Ghanaian has only had fleeting cameo appearances on the bench in recent weeks – and to be honest he hasn’t particularly impressed – but this was a timely reminder of what he brings to the team after being recalled to the starting XI .
At one point he sold Moises Caicedo back to Brighton with a wonderful dummy in the middle of the pitch before completing 86% of his passes, winning 100% of his aerial duels and making three interceptions.
The reporter received a match rating of 8/10 from GOAL’s Matt O’Connor-Simpson, noting that he was “outstanding in just his fourth Premier League start of the season”.
Further celebrated as “extraordinary”. By Arsenal Content Creator Rohan Jivan The £200,000-a-week player has once again established himself as an important cog in the team.
As a Gunners insider noted that he was full-timePartey’s “passes take Arsenal’s flexibility to new levels” and “also allow Odegaard to stay higher up the pitch and focus on creating.”
So if Arteta wants to keep his skipper’s performance level at the level we saw against Chelsea, Partey will simply have to start in the North London derby.
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