Martin Odegaard is enjoying his football at Arsenal again after recovering from hellish 18 months of multiple injuries which ex-professionals have described as some of the most challenging a player can suffer.
07:00, 08 Jan 2026
Martin Odegaard has returned to form for Arsenal in the best way at the best time and is now rediscovering a key part of his game
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Martin Odegaard has returned to form for Arsenal in the best way at the best time and is now rediscovering a key part of his game(Image: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC, Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC, Rob Newell – CameraSport &Annelie Cracchiolo/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Martin Odegaard has returned to form for Arsenal at the perfect time following 18 months of pain, frustration and determination. Three goal contributions in his last three games and again the Norwegian is one of the first names on the team sheet as the Gunners prepare to face Liverpool.
With Arsenal finishing two points off a Premier League title victory in May 2024, Odegaard’s miss-hit shot found the feet of Kai Havertz on the final day to beat Everton in the final minutes. However, Manchester City had sauntered to victory against West Ham United, already closing and locking the box containing the coveted trophy at the Emirates Stadium.
Odegaard added his eleventh and twelfth assists of the season against the Toffees, capping off his most successful campaign to date since his permanent switch from Real Madrid. He finished with 23 goal contributions, one more than his tally from the previous season.
He was stopped in his tracks from taking the next step in the red and white of Arsenal when he suffered a significant ankle injury while on duty with Norway in September of 2024. He missed nine games for the Gunners before returning to a side that would endure one of the worst injury-hit seasons under Mikel Arteta’s reign.
Had Arsenal been less impacted by injuries, there is little doubt that Odegaard would not have been exposed to as much football as he was. football.london understands that professionals in the game, discussing the injury at the time, described it as one of the hardest to come back from.
Yet Odegaard would go on to play in 42 more matches that season as the Gunners reached the Champions League semi-finals and finished second in the league for the third season running. With eyes firmly set on a strong 2025/26 season, Odegaard’s injury fortune would not emerge.
Two separate shoulder injuries caused by awkward, hard landings followed by a contact knee injury which damaged his medial collateral ligament, but thankfully did not require surgery. Eight games out and Odegaard has since returned and the skipper has looked back to his very best.
Since making his first Premier League start since the injury, in the 2-0 win over Brentford, his presence has been impossible not to see. According to Opta, Odegaard has created 21 chances since December 3, the highest of any player in the Premier League.
Two big chances created, the second highest in the Arsenal team, 41 passes into the penalty area, Arsenal’s second highest and tenth best in the Premier League. While he has added two assists, as mentioned, which is the joint highest in the side too.
He adds a drive to the team, making 148 total carries, unsurprisingly the team’s highest, while making 35 line-breaking passes into the final third, the eighth highest in the league.
Eberechi Eze has been starting in the skipper’s stead but has not featured in the past four league games. Odegaard has been favoured by Arteta centrally, and when you look at his defensive numbers, it is no surprise as to why.
Since December 3, Odegaard has won possession seven times in the final third, the highest in the Arsenal team, and the third highest in the league. Overall, winning possession 30 times and making eleven tackles, the second highest amongst the Gunners’ squad for both.
He has led the press for Arsenal, with 248 high pressures applied (1st) and has been the energy that the side perhaps lacked without him. The defeat to Aston Villa was the only match in which Odegaard started that Arsenal did not win; the Gunners were victorious in all eleven other matches.
Asked by football.london in his pre-Liverpool press conference what this showed about his importance to the team, Arteta spared little detail in waxing lyrical about his captain. “He is a massive player for us,” he said. “That’s why he is our captain.
“This season, we started a long part of it without him, especially with a lot of interferences in relation to the injuries that he had, starting games and having the problems from his shoulder.
“Coming back and then having another one (shoulder injury), having the knee injury. So, the team is obviously different with him. It is true that we have very good options to do that as well when Martin is at his best, and the manner that he is playing at the moment. He is a player that makes a huge difference for us.”
The numbers speak for themselves, and for Odegaard, with the arrival of Eze in the summer, it is perhaps the first time that he has a viable, senior competitor for the attacking midfield role. The likes of Ethan Nwaneri, Emile Smith Rowe and Dani Ceballos, the players who have offered support to the role, haven’t been able to truly push the 27-year-old.
Eze on the other hand is the first to spark debate amongst supporters as to whether the skipper’s place could be under threat. This however is exactly what Arteta wants from his team.
“I think we can extend that to any position in the squad,” he said. “That’s what we have to try to do with Piero arriving or Mosquera - probably guys didn’t expect as much from the level of performances that he had.
“But that’s what we want. And Ebz has been exceptional when he has played and when he hasn’t played that much.
“That’s a big quality that we have in the squad that we have to recognise, because then the other players can fulfil role and everybody is happy because the team is performing and winning.”
Whether it is on or off the pitch, Odegaard has already made his mark on the season, and behind the scenes, the feeling is he is getting back to truly enjoying himself after such a challenging 18 months. Come the end of the season Odegaard will have just two years left on his current deal.
While talks over an extension are not understood to have begun, with focus on the season and Bukayo Saka’s own extension the priority at present alongside others such as Jurrien Timber and Declan Rice, Odegaard remains a player that the club are keen to keep for the foreseeable future, football.london understands.
Odegaard is yet to score against Liverpool, but set up the electric opener for Gabriel Martinelli in the 3-2 win at home to the Reds in 2022 as the Gunners’ surprise title challenge was just beginning.
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Fast forward to 2026 and Odegaard is leading a charge of wholly different expectations. With the chance to make yet another statement, it could indeed be a game which sets the tone for the New Year and sets the Gunners on the path to Odegaard being the man to lift that coveted Premier League trophy come May.
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