Martin Odegaard's Transformation: Arsenal's New Star
Martin Odegaard looks like a new footballer. The numbers say it, the eye test screams it, and Mikel Arteta knows exactly why.
On a hot European night in Naples, Arsenal’s captain once again decided a game. One clean, ruthless strike from the edge of the box settled a ferocious Champions League tie at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, sealing a 1-0 win over Napoli and extending a blistering personal start to the season.
That goal followed his late clincher against Chelsea at the weekend. Four goals in five games across all competitions. The same player who found the net just once in an injury-ravaged 2025/26 campaign now looks like the sharpest attacking blade in Arsenal’s armoury.
Arteta’s new Odegaard: fitter, higher, deadlier
Arteta did not dress it up. For him, the transformation starts with something brutally simple: availability.
“First of all he needs to be available and last year he missed so many games through injuries,” the Arsenal manager said afterwards. When the body fails, rhythm goes. When rhythm goes, confidence follows. This version of Odegaard has his fitness back – and with it, his edge.
But this is not just a case of a fit player returning to his old level. Arteta has pushed him into new territory.
“He's got that edge and different relationships around him as well and that helps,” the Spaniard 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 data backs him 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. He is living higher up the pitch, arriving in the areas where games are decided rather than simply knitting them together from deeper zones.
Arteta credits the cast around his captain for that shift.
“We have a lot of players that can take the ball there and progress the ball much better than we did in the past,” he said. “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 the clearest example. The summer signing already has four assists, three of them laid on for Odegaard, including the clever pass that set up the winner in Naples. With others now driving Arsenal up the pitch, Odegaard is free to attack the final third rather than carry the ball into it every time.
Arsenal’s attack swarms, Odegaard strikes
This was not a smash-and-grab. Arsenal swarmed Napoli from the flanks and through the centre, pouring forward in waves and turning one of Europe’s most intimidating arenas into their playground for long spells.
They unleashed 26 shots – their highest total on record in the Champions League since 2003/04 – and racked up an expected goals figure of 4.05. The scoreline said 1-0. The performance suggested a far wider gap.
Napoli clung on, blocked, scrambled and survived. Ben White was released by a delightful scooped pass from Odegaard, only for Piero Hincapie to somehow fail to convert what looked a golden chance. Other opportunities came and went. The pressure kept building.
Eventually, it told.
The goal itself summed up this new Arsenal and this new Odegaard. A 29-pass move, patient but purposeful, dragged Napoli’s block from side to side. Then the opening appeared. Odegaard, hovering at the edge of the box, stepped into space and thumped his finish beyond the goalkeeper with a conviction that simply wasn’t there last season.
One chance, one ruthless decision. Game won.
Everything runs through the captain
Nick Wright, analysing for Sky Sports, captured the feel of Odegaard’s performance: from the opening minutes he demanded the ball, dictated the tempo and kept slipping passes into cracks in the Napoli defence. Napoli’s midfielders tried to get tight; most of the time, they ended up chasing shadows.
By full-time, Odegaard had more touches, more passes and more chances created than any other player on the pitch. He did not just score the decisive goal; he controlled the contest.
The scooped pass to White was only one flash of his imagination. Time and again he picked passes that sliced between Napoli shirts, threading runners into space that seemed to barely exist. He played like a man unburdened – by injuries, by last season’s struggles, by any doubt about his place at the heart of this team.
Arteta could hardly have asked for more from his captain.
“Martin is contributing goals,” he said. “That is obviously impacting results which is what we want from our attacking players, to be decisive, and certainly he was that today.”
Decisive is the word. Arsenal created enough to win two or three games. When they needed someone to make sure they at least won this one, Odegaard stepped up and took the responsibility.
The contrast with last season is stark. Then, he toiled through 36 appearances and found the net only once. Now, with his body right, his role tweaked and his confidence surging, he is leading from the front in the most literal sense.
Arsenal are feeling the benefits already. If this version of Martin Odegaard stays on the pitch and stays in these positions, the question is no longer whether he can keep this form going – it is how far it can carry this team.
