The Odegaard options

Morning.

The early reporting on Martin Odegaard’s injury suggests he will miss the North London derby and next week’s trip to Man City. The Norwegian team doctor, Ole Sand, said:

What we have so far obtained from the MRI examination in London is that there is probably no fracture in the ankle. It is always a bit difficult to interpret an MRI scan when you have had an old injury, but Arsenal are almost certain there is no breach, but this may still take some time.

None of this is surprising. It would have been a massive shock if he were available, so confirmation of his absence is, while disheartening, not out of the blue or anything like that. He’ll also miss our first Champions League game, against Atalanta on Thursday – btw, how nice of the schedule to give us a Thursday game when we’re going to the Etihad on Sunday. Cheers for that.

The time-frame of Odegaard’s injury gives Mikel Arteta a lot to think about. Obviously he’ll have been considering what to do without Declan Rice for Sunday, but that’s a one game suspension – you find something you think will work in the very short-term. When it comes to the absence of the captain and the main playmaker, it’s significantly different when you have to find a solution for an extended period of time. It’s conceivable that Odegaard could miss 7 games before we see him again, and that necessitates much more than a sticking plaster solution.

My suspicion is that we’ll see something more tactical than simply a one for one replacement in that position. I could be wrong, but the closest player we have stylistically to Odegaard is Ethan Nwaneri. There is a part of me that would love him to get the nod, and to get a run of games to showcase his talent and potential. We know that Odegaard has been mentoring him behind the scenes, but I can’t imagine the plan would ever have been for him to be required this early in the season, for this long, and with games of this magnitude to contend with.

He is just 17, and while the comparisons are obvious – not least because of their left-footedness – he is still quite inexperienced, and we know from the past that Arteta is reluctant to ask too much of players before he thinks they’re ready. He might well consider Nwaneri ready, we’ll find out in due course, but it wouldn’t be a big surprise if he was reluctant to ask a player of that age to shoulder such a big burden. Even if he did, I don’t think he and Odegaard are like for like in terms of how they play.

The skipper is more creative on the ball, the man who leads the press, and looks to cut teams open with the precision and deftness of his passing. From what we’ve seen of Nwaneri, he has some of that, but looks much more like a ball-carrier, a player who can make things happen in a more direct way. The sample size is small, so I don’t want to make direct comparisons with players of the past, but the point is that if we do swap Odegaard for Nwaneri, it will likely require some change in the way we play.

Other solutions I’ve seen proffered include going to a double-pivot, which would be something to think about when Rice returns, but a Thomas Partey/Jorginho duo would leave me quite uneasy going into Sunday’s game. The manager also has Oleksandr Zinchenko as an option for Odegaard’s position, but has never seemed keen on using him in midfield. There’s also part of me that wonders if, given this might well be classed as a kind of emergency, you could think about Bukayo Saka there, with Gabriel Martinelli on the right hand side of the attack.

That would be a real shift, but if you’re looking for somebody with the experience and football intelligence to do a new job, there’s no question in my mind that Saka has that in his locker. I’ve talked before about how I think he could easily play the ‘left 8’ position, maybe that’s something Arteta will be thinking about now. Of course it’s not ideal to take a player who is one of the best in the world in his position and move him elsewhere, but this isn’t an ordinary situation we’re facing here.

One of the things we’ve spoken about often when it comes to our recent recruitment is both the versatility and intelligence of the players we sign. Those are things we’re going to have to lean into heavily in the period ahead. No doubt Arteta and his coaching staff will be having conversations about how best to cope without Odegaard, and while we as fans will view it with obvious and understandable disappointment, he has to present this to his players as a challenge they need to overcome. There’s no point crying about it, there are still games to win and points to play for.

Maybe we’ll get some idea of his plans at tomorrow’s press conference. My gut feeling is that he will play his cards closer to his chest than ever before, but let’s see. Right, I’ll leave it there for now. Back tomorrow with more here and a brand new Arsecast.

Until then.

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