How Arsenal's Martin Odegaard Destroyed Chelsea
Arsenal 5-0 Chelsea and Mikel Arteta's men look like taking the Premier League title race all the way to the wire. But while praise has been heaped upon Kai Havertz for his two goals against his former club, it was actually his captain who was the architect behind the Gunners emphatic victory over their London rivals.
Adam Clery looks at Martin Odegaard's performance, and his season in general, to make a case for him being the Premier League's Player of the Year.
Adam Clery looks at Martin Odegaard's performance, and his season in general, to make a case for him being the Premier League's Player of the Year.
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00:00Alright then, so this was Arsenal last night, here is our man in all of his glory.
00:05And not to tell you too much about my life, but I live in North London now, really fancied
00:10a pint after work, ended up in the faltering full-back, which is a famously Arsenal bar,
00:14and spoke to people who were nervous.
00:17Arsenal's last few performances have been a little uuuuugh, and Chelsea against the
00:20big sides tends to be a bit uuuuugh, but you needn't have worried because Michael Arteta
00:25had a plan and it worked absolutely brilliantly.
00:27And that plan, super duper simply, was when Arsenal go to their 4-4-2, pressing shape,
00:33that's it, here with all of these players, instead of like squashing them up in their
00:37own box like they normally do, they just sat off them.
00:41They encouraged Chelsea to try and play through.
00:43Whereas against like Bayern in particular, the quality of the player they were pressing
00:46meant that this left them way too open by sitting off a bit and sort of denying any
00:51room to like Galaga or Fernandes or Caicedo, that forced Chelsea to try and do all their
00:56build-up and all their play-making with Badiashili, Di Sarsi and Petrovic.
01:01Three players who throughout this game looked about as comfortable on the ball as a monk
01:05in a strip club.
01:06And that forced them to keep going long or going wide where they kept losing the ball
01:10and then to counter it, they started dropping Fernandes and Caicedo way deeper so they could
01:14get on the ball, which is great, but then they're trying to play into this press and
01:18this block into players like Jackson and Modric who are no good receiving in these areas so
01:24they kept losing the ball that way, yada, yada, yada.
01:26That's how they set up.
01:27That's why they looked so comfortable.
01:28That's why Chelsea had more possession despite the scoreline.
01:32That's not what we're here to talk about.
01:34We're here, and I'm going to do the Rod Stewart, boom, for this man.
01:38Now you may have seen the game, you've probably seen the highlights, maybe you've seen some
01:41of the statistics.
01:42Urdegaard had an absolute blinder.
01:45Now thanks to the magic little pixies at Opta, we know we created eight chances in this game,
01:50which is not only a personal record for him, look, you can see them all here.
01:54That is an absurd number of chances for one player to create in a game of Premier League
01:59football.
02:00Two of them ended up being assists.
02:01You've got that unbelievable pass for Kai Havertz, which got him in and he scored from
02:04that.
02:05And you've got the one over the top for Ben White, which I'm absolutely sure he meant
02:09as a shot.
02:10Why not?
02:11We'll go with that.
02:12But this, we want to look beyond this, right?
02:14Because this only tells you half the story about his performance.
02:17Because to me, the weird thing about how these stats in particular are recorded is that this
02:21one here counts as a chance created, right?
02:24And I'll just show you exactly what happened.
02:26He plays the ball to Trossard, nothing really happens, there's not really much going on.
02:31Trossard gets a shot blocked, but because he did get a shot, that counts as a chance
02:35created, which looks great.
02:36But this, which happens mere moments later and completely splits Chelsea's defence open,
02:42doesn't count as a chance created because nobody got a shot away.
02:45And this again, mere minutes later, doesn't count as a chance created, despite the fact
02:49that Erdegaard spatchcocks Chelsea open like a delicious chicken.
02:53Like, I'll just show you his heat map, right?
02:57And this, to me, does not look like a player who's created a record number of chances and
03:01absolutely dominated the game.
03:03You'd expect him, when you're having like nearly 100 touches and breaking records for
03:07chance creation, to be everywhere, to be constantly on the ball in your own half, to be floating
03:11out to both flanks, to be wide, to be deep, to be in the box, everything.
03:15And he's not.
03:16He's so precise with what he's doing.
03:19When he needs to get on the ball deep, he gets on the ball deep here.
03:22He doesn't go wandering, looking for it.
03:23He just does it where he's needed.
03:25And when he can get on the ball in the final third, he wants to do it specifically here.
03:29He's not going looking.
03:30And it's this right here that I think demonstrates like what makes Erdegaard such a unique player,
03:36such a special player, right?
03:37Because this is a heat map of someone not going looking for space.
03:41And yet when he has the ball, it always feels like he has so much of it.
03:45He has this like freakish ability to sort of slow down time around him so he can move
03:51quicker than everybody else, but at the same time, speed time up in his head so we can
03:56see play developing in a way that nobody else can.
03:59And you saw this last night against Chelsea, and if you've been paying attention, you've
04:02been seeing it all season, right?
04:04Martin Erdegaard, when he gets on the ball in good positions, right?
04:08He delays and delays and delays his pass to the point that good chances wither and die,
04:14but great chances suddenly out of nowhere just appear.
04:18It's 1-0, Tomi Asu's got the ball down the left-hand side, Erdegaard arrives into the
04:21final third screaming for this pass, but the ball is sadly fractionally behind him.
04:26So he's got to turn his body to receive it.
04:28And as a total aside here, shows great strength in barging Fernandes off the ball to make
04:33sure he retains it.
04:34Problem now, though, is because the pass wasn't great.
04:36He's now got his back to goal.
04:38But thankfully, Arsenal are on the counterattack here.
04:40He's got loads of good options.
04:42Now, I think the good players in this scenario give a really perfectly weighted ball back
04:47to Declan Rice, who is asking for it.
04:49He can get a shot away.
04:50He can drive into the box.
04:51That's probably the best option.
04:54Probably see this movement from Ben White on the far side.
04:58And as the Chelsea defence sort of narrow around him to tighten the net, roll it across
05:02to the opposite flank to completely open things up.
05:05But Erdegaard, he does not do either of these things.
05:09He delays and delays and delays his pass to the point that these two good chances both
05:14wither and die.
05:15And then suddenly, out of nowhere, with his vision and his close control, he creates a
05:21great chance.
05:22He somehow manages to get turned.
05:24He somehow sees Alfa Gilchrist coming in and skips past him.
05:27And now, all of a sudden, he can roll Tom Iassu in to get one across the face of goal.
05:33That's why I said you've got to look past the stats for this, because that does not
05:36go down as a chance created, even though he is 100% responsible for creating that chance.
05:43A few minutes later, Bakaio Saka has got the ball down the right-hand side, gives it to
05:46Erdegaard in a position where he can't really do anything about it.
05:49So he gets the ball under control, shields it with his body, stops Chelsea taking it
05:53off him, and assesses his options.
05:55You can see he's got Ben White here who he could roll the ball back to.
05:58He could put a cross into the box.
05:59That's actually a pretty good option.
06:01He could get the ball to Thomas Partey.
06:02That's an easy pass.
06:03He could then recycle it round to the opposite side.
06:05They could start again.
06:06Again, that's a good option.
06:07But again, Martin Erdegaard does not do either of these things.
06:10He manages to get himself a little bit of space.
06:12He gets turned.
06:13He faces up Chelsea's defence.
06:15He's now looking in the direction he really wants to play the ball.
06:18And as he's doing so, this gap opens up to Saka.
06:22Now, Saka would have a lot of work to do here.
06:23Don't get me wrong.
06:24You'd have to turn.
06:25You'd have to drop a shoulder.
06:25You'd have to do something a little bit clever.
06:27But it's still a good chance to give your team-mate.
06:30But Erdegaard delays, and he delays, and he delays, and he delays.
06:35And that good chance for Saka suddenly becomes a great chance.
06:39Instead of giving him a good pass with his back to goal,
06:41he waits long enough, draws Chelsea's defenders towards him,
06:44because he's got the ball, he's the danger,
06:46and then slips him in behind the defence.
06:49Now, I need to stress here, a lot of really good players make these exact passes.
06:53It's not that he's doing things that other players can't do,
06:55but they make them when they're on.
06:57They make them when they're obvious.
06:59Erdegaard's, like, composure and his ability to delay the pass
07:03often just creates them out of nothing.
07:05And I think that is genuinely a trait unique to him.
07:08Just go to any Arsenal match you want.
07:10Like, he isn't doing it against West Ham when they got beat that time.
07:13He's got it.
07:14This is an option.
07:15This is an option.
07:16This is an option.
07:17But he delays, he delays, he delays.
07:19Then all of a sudden, a great option appears,
07:21and Arsenal should score from that.
07:23And the thing is, even when he's not doing that delay trick,
07:25he does just seem to see things that other players just rarely ever do.
07:29Like, in the second half, he gets the ball back from White here.
07:32There's a million options.
07:33Like, Gabriel's screaming for it.
07:35He could go all the way across to Tomiasu.
07:36Partey's there.
07:37He could go into Saka's feet and try and play a 1-2.
07:40But no, somehow he sees this space, and he sees this run,
07:44and he waits perfectly to put Kai Havertz in.
07:48Like, if you showed this freeze frame to anyone and said,
07:50can you tell me who the next Arsenal player to receive this ball is?
07:53Like, Trossard's bottom of the list because he's offside.
07:56But after that, your last guess would be Kai Havertz,
07:59let alone that he should score from it.
08:01And the thing as well is that even when the pass is incredibly obvious,
08:05even when you can see exactly what he's going to do,
08:07he's so technically ruthless, is probably the word,
08:11that he can make scenarios just undefendable.
08:14Like, I think every single player in this scenario would want to play that exact pass,
08:17but so many of them would have it cut out by the first defender
08:21or go too long with it, so Havertz has to run away from the goal.
08:24Instead, Oedegaard does it so perfectly that it's not close enough
08:27to the goalkeeper that he can sweep it out.
08:29And by the time it gets into the area in front of Havertz,
08:33it's almost stopped completely dead,
08:35so he can take it in whatever direction he needs to.
08:37Like, it looks like an obvious thing, but Kukere has not lost him here.
08:40Havertz isn't actually in any space.
08:43That ball needs to be almost completely dead,
08:45so he can take it away from the defender and get his shot away.
08:48Like, too much power, slightly wrong direction.
08:51That isn't actually a chance.
08:53Now, that's all great, isn't it?
08:55What a great performance.
08:56I think you got like a 9.9 on sofa score,
08:58which I haven't seen, like, all season.
09:00But the thing is, it's not about last night.
09:02Like I said at the start of the video,
09:03I think he should be player of the year,
09:05and it's not because he just absolutely thumbed Chelsea.
09:08It's because he's been doing this all season.
09:11Like, in its most simple terms,
09:12he is the leading chance creator in the Premier League this season.
09:15Arsenal have got the best goal difference.
09:18They've scored the most goals.
09:19They've been the best attacking side,
09:21and they've done so, as we've talked about numerous times,
09:24without an out-and-out centre forward.
09:26And I know that having like only eight assists sounds a bit weird,
09:29given he's supposed to be so important to this great attacking side.
09:32But as you've seen in this video,
09:34it's not necessarily about him dropping the ball on a plate
09:37for a teammate over and over and over.
09:39He is involved in every single attacking move,
09:42whether he starts it deep or he finishes it in the final third.
09:46You might not get the assist, but he's always involved.
09:49And the thing is, if we look at his FB ref profile,
09:51specifically his passing numbers,
09:53that's probably a little bit underwhelming as well, right?
09:55You'd expect him to be scoring really high in the league
09:58for short, medium, long passes,
10:00getting on the ball, getting all these touches.
10:02You'd expect him to sort of have like Kevin De Bruyne-style numbers.
10:05But if you look past the numbers that are just passes for passes' sake
10:09and start to look at the metrics that really hurt teams
10:12and really make things happen, he is peerless.
10:15He is the Premier League's number one for shot-creating actions this season.
10:20So that's whatever it is, be it a tackle or a pass or a shot itself
10:25or just getting fouled, anything that leads directly to your teammate
10:29getting a go on goal, he's doing that five or six times every single game.
10:33Passes into the penalty area,
10:34which is obviously the one thing that terrifies the opposition.
10:37He does that three or four times in the top 1% for it.
10:40Key passes as well, which are the ones that if your mate
10:43can just stick it in the back of the net would give you an assist,
10:45like the direct pass before a shot.
10:47He's doing that two and three times every single match on average.
10:50And this is the one where you can see the vision as well through balls.
10:53So a pass between the opposition defenders into the space behind him,
10:57specifically the one thing teams are trying to stop Arsenal doing,
11:01he does every single game.
11:03Like truly, genuinely, honestly, right, I think between his vision,
11:06his composure, his positioning and his technique,
11:10he is, for me, the most dangerous on the ball player in the Premier League.
11:16But there is one other reason for which I absolutely adore him
11:20and I'm going to show it to you now.
11:22Now this mate of the untrained eye,
11:23just look like a bit of headless chicken,
11:26Ning Ning Odegaard is chasing round Chelsea's players.
11:29He's determined to win that ball back.
11:31He's trying to press them, force a turnover so they can get a chance out of it.
11:34But he doesn't do it.
11:35I'm actually showing you a fail.
11:37Why am I showing you that?
11:38Well, let's zoom out ever so slightly, shall we?
11:41You see, it is the 85th minute.
11:44Arsenal are 5-0 up.
11:46There is no need for him to be doing this whatsoever.
11:50He could be sitting on the ground for all it would matter at this stage of the game,
11:53but he still has that determination to work hard for his team
11:58and to try and make things happen.
12:00And this from a man, let's not forget,
12:02who has not really had a break in this Arsenal side this season.
12:05Like he has played every game, on average, 88 minutes.
12:10In fact, he has the third most minutes of any Arsenal player this season.
12:13And given that the other two, you could argue,
12:16have far more like static roles in the side,
12:18Saliba especially, I know Rice gets up and down.
12:21Erdogan's job is to not only get on the ball deep,
12:24but to lead the press.
12:25He is up and down all game,
12:27and he's still doing that in the 85th minute when they're 5-0 up.
12:31And the reason I'm pointing that out
12:32isn't just to give him a round of applause or pat on the back
12:34or, oh, look, doesn't he work so hard?
12:36That this is intrinsic to how Arsenal play football.
12:39They are a high-pressing team.
12:41They do not give you time on the ball.
12:43And if we look at these numbers here,
12:45in terms of high turnovers, they rank very highly.
12:48But why Erdogan is so important
12:50is if you just look at this graph next to it,
12:52when it comes to turning those high turnovers
12:55into actual chances,
12:57Arsenal are clear of every other team in the league.
13:00And that's because in those crazy, frenetic situations
13:03where the ball's just been turned over,
13:04there's no set pattern of play,
13:05nobody really knows what to do.
13:07The difference between Arsenal
13:09and every other side in this league
13:10is that they have Martin Erdogan,
13:12who sees things other players don't see,
13:15who doesn't rush himself,
13:16who delays until the chance comes about.
13:18Arsenal are the most effective team
13:21at turning high turnovers into chances because of him.
13:25And that, combined with everything else
13:27you've seen in this video,
13:28is why I think Martin Erdogan
13:30should be the Premier League Player of the Year.
13:32He's been, all season, absolutely utmeket.
13:37That means excellent.
13:38But yes, as I always say in these things,
13:39it's just my opinion.
13:40I mean, you've probably got one of your own,
13:41so please let me know it in the comments below.
13:43Is Erdogan that important to Arsenal?
13:45Do you think they can still win the league?
13:47Who should be Premier League Player of the Year?
13:48There's been shouts for, like, Palmer, Van Dijk.
13:53You can, of course, always get me on, like,
13:55Twitter, Instagram, TikTok,
13:57whatever they're all called,
13:57at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
13:59the 442 sources in the corner of the video.
14:01Oh my God, Arsenal fans, would you look at that?
14:04It's only an invincible issue of the magazine.
14:06You're going to want to pick that up
14:07at all good retailers and the bad ones as well.
14:09Newsletter, you can subscribe to that in the comments below.
14:12And I think that's it, yeah.
14:13Just about to go off now and start my hashtag
14:17Erdy4Potty, Player of the Year 2024.
14:21It needs work, it does need work,
14:23but I'll do that.
14:26Bye.
14:26Bye.