Mikel Arteta hailed the performances of Martin Odegaard and Thomas Partey after Arsenal beat Leicester, saying the pair have “come a long way” since they joined the club.
Odegaard and Partey both impressed against Leicester on Sunday as Arsenal ran out 2-0 winners to move back up to fourth in the Premier League.
Partey opened the scoring in the 11th minute with a header and Alexandre Lacazette sealed the three points in the second-half with a penalty.
Odegaard was impressive too, though, and he created six chances during the 90 minutes - twice as many than any other Arsenal player.
“He was terrific again today, in every aspect of the game: what he had to do defending, when we were high, when were were deep, in build-up phases, in the final third,” said Arteta of the Norwegian.
“The way he understands and manages the game when he is needed, I think he is coming a long way since his arrival.
“He is showing great maturity and responsibility on the pitch. And he makes the other players better, I think.
“I don’t know, it’s still a bit early to say that [he was a bargain]. But we were certainly convinced a player with good feet in our club, in our model, that he has every value that we want from a player to represent this club, and then also the quality for what we want to do. We are really happy with him.”
Arteta was full of praise for Partey too, who has turned his season around after previously rating his performances as four out of 10 during an interview with Sky Sports.
Asked how that was achieved, Arteta said: “Probably being at his neck every day, because he needs it a little bit.
“But I think at the end it comes from the player.
“I think when a player accepts the reality and when a player accepts that okay, he wants to be in a different position, you cannot expect that to happen if you don’t change anything that you do.
“He started to do many other things and you can see that he is enjoying being on the pitch, and this is what we want.
“He almost scored before - he had a great shot off the crossbar. He was involved in both goals: the header he scored and the penalty as well, and the other action when he had the shot. You could see, he was voted player of the month.
“He has come a long way, he has the consistency of minutes, he understands what we want much better. I think his cohesion and understanding with the rest of the players is getting better and better. Now it’s about consistency to keep doing it.”
