All Praise Martin Odegaard: Our astonishing Arsenal captain 

We’re Lucky To Have You, says Gooner Fanzine print writer Henry Waddon 

We’re on our way.

Mik Arteta’s boys in red managed to keep two feet firmly on the ground on what was the ultimate ‘banana skin’ fixture, even if it wasn’t the lightfooted, easy-breezy, win-at-a-canter affair we might have chosen. 

Arsenal nicked all three points at Old Trafford on a white-hot Sunday afternoon, a feat that was once a proxy for being dead-cert champions, and still should absolutely not be sniffed in August 2025.

“Champions have to be able to win ugly”. I’m unsure if I wholly believe that to be true, but champions certainly, undoubtedly, unquestionably, have to be able to win, full stop. And in that testing match-up on Sunday afternoon, one Arsenal player took it upon himself to plug holes, and fill gaps, and run into the ground to ensure Arsenal did exactly that. 

Our captain, Martin Odegaard

Whatever this astonishing, generational player does, noise is never, ever very far behind him. The man has been under the microscope of public scrutiny since he was fifteen, an age at which most of us were trying to wrap our heads around things like ‘surds’ and ‘Pythagoras’ Theorem’.

Now, far be it from me to criticise the mythological, peerless, statue-meriting legend that is Tony Adams, but I found his comments regarding the Arsenal captaincy to be simultaneously unhelpful and untrue.

His calls for Martin Odegaard to be surplanted by Declan Rice in the role completely misrepresented Odegaard’s importance to this team, and the catalytic role he’s played in the revolution we’ve witnessed in N5 over the last three years.

He is a leader, he is a role model, and he categorically is a player that this squad turns to when they need that little something extra.

Few players on this earth are disrespected as regularly and as seamlessly as Odegaard. His performance on Sunday was yet another exhibition of the endless qualities he brings to this squad.

On a field of players who looked two-thirds of the way back to full match fitness, Odegaard led our press and tore around the field with a tenacious intelligence that few others possess, he stepped up when it counted from a defensive point-of-view (a trait of his that is very rarely acknowledged), winning five duels and making five clearances, and oh-so-nearly set up Bukayo Saka for a late, game-clinching dagger with a trademark, genius flicked ball through.

Yet, of course, you’d be foolish or naive to ignore that his highly developed game still has plenty of room for improvement (his prolonged decision-making and slowness to take action on the counter attack, for one).

But this man has captained this side to the very best days of the Emirates era. Even on his bad days, which seem to have regrettably accumulated over the last twelve months, he still does the quiet, thankless stuff better than almost any other player.

Odegaard is our captain, and my God, I promise you, we are so lucky to have him.

And let me tell you something, when he starts his textbook arm-waving at the Clock End come next Saturday evening, I’ll be ready to run through a brick wall on his behalf. 

I pray to our Maker that this special, special player gets to lift some silverware for our beloved club this season, with the armband firmly in-place.