Before Arsenal’s Champions League tie with Sporting CP, Mikel Arteta struggled to recognise his team while rewatching their previous meeting two seasons ago.
After Tuesday’s 5-1 trouncing of the Portuguese champions, inflicting their first home defeat in 418 days, Arsenal look unrecognisable to the team of just two months ago.
Arteta offered the vastly improved injury list and subsequent lift in training level as the catalyst but it was patently obvious to anyone inside Estadio Jose Alvalade, just as was the case at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago and at the Emirates on Saturday, that Martin Odegaard is the main transformative force.
The difference that any individual player makes in a team sport as fluid as football is nigh on impossible to quantify. Football is not an exact science but the problem with that platitude is that the Norwegian is making it look so.
He is geometry in art form. Every angle and touch perfectly calculated, each movement and signal from a team-mate instantly calibrated and input into the algorithm that is the Norwegian’s brain — the place where the keys to this Arsenal team reside.
His return does not just represent an upgrade in one area of the pitch. It is the chain reaction effect he has on the entire team.
Suddenly the high press is suffocating again, Thomas Partey is pivoting and disguising passes through the lines like it’s 2022 again and forwards are making run after run in behind as they have faith that he will find them. Within 20 seconds even Arsenal’s trademark throw-in routine along the byline created an opening.
There was a moment in the sixth minute when Odegaard received on the half turn, drove towards the box and, while losing his balance, played a reverse pass into the path of Bukayo Saka.
Sporting defended it but Odegaard immediately switched to defensive mode and forced the player to run the ball out of the pitch. It won him an above-the-head applause from his manager.
This is his team. You can see it in the way he his team mates acknowledge his influence by subverting themselves at times in possession. It explains why, as soon as he returned onto the pitch, the ball has come to him as obediently as a sheep to a shepherd.
He had the most touches (67), the most progressive passes (4) and the most carries (30) in the team against Sporting but he was flawless and was a step ahead of Sporting all night as he jinked his way out of pressure and clipped delicate through ball to cut open Sporting’s back five. He has brought the playfulness back to Arsenal’s football.
How many players could be out with ankle ligament damage for two months and reappear as if we blinked and missed it? Either Odegaard is gaslighting the footballing world or he really did just respawn without skipping a beat.
It is preposterous that his sharpness of foot, mental dexterity and competitive fire were all completely unaffected by an eight week lay-off but that is how pure a technician he is. There is a repeatability to how he weaves his spells down the right flank but every move also feels entirely spontaneous and unique.
Since he became a mainstay in the team in 2021, Arsenal have rarely had to contemplate how the team functions without him. During the two months without him it was like the bookmark had fallen out and they were rummaging through the pages in an attempt to remember where they had left off.
The building of the Sagrada Familia did not stop in 1936 after an arson attack destroyed many of Gaudi’s original models and drawings. They adapted, choosing to go with imagined interpretation in keeping with the spirit of the architect.
In the absence of Odegaard’s brush strokes, Arsenal adapted by tweaking the shape and using Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz as dovetailing forwards. It initially served an effective gear shift, but as the weeks went past it became clear that by compensating their style to cover the loss of the Norwegian, the purpose of the original blueprint became muddled.
Fortunately for Odegaard, he collided with Austrian midfielder Christoph Baumgartner rather than a tram and could return two months later with plan A back in hand.
There were periods in the first half when Sporting were on a carousel, chasing shadows as Arsenal zipped the ball around them. Odegaard and Partey were incredibly in-sync and the chemistry between Jurrien Timber, Odegaard and Saka saw Arsenal progress down the right flank like they were on a conveyor belt.
Arsenal played with a slightly tweaked set-up in midfield against Sporting when building. Rather than the conventional 4-3-3 that sees Partey holding with Rice and Odegaard operating as two No 8s, Arteta created a diamond in the centre of the pitch.
Rice was tasked with taking up a position as a central No 10 with Calafiori tucking into the left eight position and forming a three with Partey and Odegaard.
Rice would time his run to come from the left position and drift in behind the Sporting midfield, thus creating an easy pass to him from Odegaard.
After what has been a jolting, uncertain start to the season, the resounding nature of the victory in Lisbon provided clarity.
This was Arsenal’s most complete performance of the season and it arrived the first time Arteta was able to field his strongest XI on paper, with Timber and Calafiori underlining how their unique profiles help make Arsenal even smoother in possession.
The team look like they are entering the same relentless vein as in January, when they went on to win all bar two of their final 18 league games. It was around this time last year that Odegaard moved to a new level and took the rest of the team with him.
If he can find any more headroom then Arsenal will not be far away in either the Premier League or the Champions League.
(Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
