Martin Odegaard underlined his leadership credentials by jumping to the defence of his Arsenal team-mates during their friendly win vs AC Milan.
The Premier League leaders are ramping up their preparations for the return of club football with a string of high-profile matches in the Dubai Super Cup. Having already thrashed Lyon 3-0 last weekend, the Gunners took on the Italian champions on Tuesday afternoon.
And they ran out victorious as first-half goals from Odegaard and Reiss Nelson helped them to a 2-1 win. But while Mikel Arteta will be pleased with the result, the overzealous approach from their opponents won’t have gone down well.
The Rossoneri were in no mood to shirk a tackle, firstly when Thomas Partey was brought down by Aster Vranckx. The injury-prone Ghanaian appeared to suffer no ill-effects, but that did little to stem the constant flow of physical challenges.
Sandro Tonali was the source of much of the issues, bumping into several Arsenal stars before sending Fabio Vieira to the deck with a flailing elbow. And Football.London report that Odegaard was unable to hi8de his frustrations, rushing to the defence of his younger colleague.
After initially separating the two sets of players, the Norwegian international turned towards the Milan head coach Stefano Pioli, shouting: "F***ing two times! It's a friendly!”
The tussle in Dubai is the latest episode to show Arteta’s decision to name him as the club’s permanent captain was a shrewd one. Despite being just 23, the Gunners boss had no issues in giving him the armband following the departures of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
"Martin has a lot of qualities that we want as a captain… one of them is that he thinks about the team before himself,” Arteta said this summer. “He had a period at the start where he wasn't playing, he was the first in training, the last to leave, asking the right questions – why he wasn't playing, what he had to do – he was always listening, he was always helping his teammates."
Odegaard was also overheard before the win over Lyon, shouting “let’s go boys, full gas!” to his assembled teammates. "It's more the way they want to live, the way they want to interact with each other and how do we want to be perceived as a team,” Arteta added on his skipper.
"The tactical and technical decisions, it will be mainly us deciding what we want to do but obviously there always has to be that relationship, that feel from the player that what you ask him is exactly what he can do. And he feels that he can do it. If not, it's not going to work."
Not only flourishing in his leadership role, Odegaard has become one of Arsenal’s most important and effective midfield players. His performance in their final game before the break - an impressive win at Wolves - he was influential.
The Gunners’ list of previous captains are a who’s who of Premier League greats, with Patrick Vieira and Tony Adams having both lifted the famous trophy. In Odegaard, Arteta has appeared to find his own perfect on-field general.
