Manchester United’s Luke Shaw was asked to name the best player in the Premier League in June 2024 – his answer? Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard.
The Gunners may have missed out on the title for the second year in a row that season, but few would have disputed Shaw’s assessment as Odegaard re-emerged as a key player in Mikel Arteta’s side.
A very entertaining footballer to watch between the lines, the Norwegian prodigy scored 22 goals and assists in league play in 2022/23, adding a further 19 goals in 2023/24.
Unfortunately, those best times are now a distant memory after two consecutive years of injury and poor health.
Why Odegaard took a big step back at Arsenal
Of course, the obvious answer could be injury, with Odegaard missing 36 games for club and country since the start of the 2024-25 season, according to Transfermarkt.
Repeated stints on the sidelines certainly didn’t help, but there was more at play here, with the 27-year-old underperforming even in his most recent appearances.
Perhaps the former Real Madrid man is just a victim of Arteta’s change in style, with the Spaniard seemingly pursuing a win-at-all-costs approach with a physically dominant and relentless set-up.
It is to Arteta’s credit that he has managed to create such a brutal winning machine, with a brand of football that delighted purists as the Gunners were left empty-handed in the 2023/24 season.
His fluid, free-flowing football suited Odegaard, and the left-footed player played as a No. 8 or No. 10 on the right, creating 17 “big chances” that season and averaging 2.9 key passes per game.
For comparison, he has created just five ‘big chances’ in 2025/26 since then, averaging just 1.6 key passes per game, with Arsenal’s patient approach perhaps at odds with their playmaker’s desire to up the tempo and funnel the ball in behind.
In a team of giants and physical specimens, Odegaard has looked a bit out of place lately, and his direct replacement has no doubt accelerated his decline somewhat.
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Excitingly, even in a season that could end with an incredible quadruple, there is a sense that the Gunners are still not firing on all cylinders, especially not even up front.
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If that happens, there may be a change of guard on the wings in the not too distant future, with Max Daumann targeting Bukayo Saka’s right flank, but even in the middle, the playmaking role that Odegaard had previously held firmly has been usurped by Ebelesi Eze.
Now, there’s no denying that life in north London hasn’t been the perfect start for the former Crystal Palace man, with Eze enduring a particularly difficult period over the Christmas period, failing to even make it onto the pitch for four consecutive Premier League games.
His derby hat-trick against Tottenham Hotspur, with whom he was close to signing, looked an anomaly for much of the season, but as he always does, the 27-year-old came back to life at the critical moment of the season.
For context, this is typically Eze’s period of development, scoring 32 of his 65 total Premier League goals between just March and May during his time at Palace and now Arsenal.
Ezu’s PL record since March | ||
|---|---|---|
season | the goal | assist |
2025/26* | 2 | 0 |
2024/25 | 6 | 2 |
2023/24 | 6 | 3 |
2022/23 | 6 | 1 |
2021/22 | 1 | 1 |
2020/21 | 1 | 3 |
total | twenty two | 10 |
Following another brilliant derby performance, the Englishman scored an impressive FA Cup win against Mansfield Town and then went even better with a stunning opening goal in Tuesday’s Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen.
Much has been said about his best role in this team, but it doesn’t matter, Eze, like the imposing Santi Cazorla, flies around to devastating effect.
The diminutive Spaniard has been in spectacular form, as in his 2014 FA Cup final free-kick, but he is not tied to a specific role, drifting from place to place and appearing in the pocket to wreak havoc on opponents.
Eze may not boast quite the same two-footed qualities as Cazorla, but he is equally adept at picking off passes and winning matches, and his 15 goals and assists this season are not far off from the 25 goals Cazorla scored in his debut season at the Emirates.
Arteta was previously asked if he resembled his compatriot and former teammate Tomas Rosicki, and he certainly didn’t deny such a topic.
“They have a different feel on the ball. Everything slides and moves so smoothly. The way they carry the ball, the way they touch, the way they change direction, it’s beautiful to watch. Ebele definitely has this talent.”
Either way, he has performed well at the right time, and with Odegaard no longer reliable, Eze has proven he can be a creative and goal-scoring lynchpin under Arteta.
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