Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season | OneFootball

Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season | OneFootball

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Evening Standard

·08 de março de 2025

Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season

Imagem do artigo:Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season

Gunners skipper gets back on track in Champions League thrashing of PSV

Imagem do artigo:Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season

Back to his best? Martin Odegaard impressed as Arsenal thrashed PSV


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Imagem do artigo:Martin Odegaard admits his Arsenal performances have 'not been good enough' this season

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Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard has admitted his performances this season have “not been good enough” - but he hopes Wednesday’s thumping win over PSV Eindhoven will be a turning point.

Odegaard was named man of the match against PSV as Arsenal ran out 7-1 winners in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

The Norwegian scored twice and setup another goal and he is eager to take that form into Sunday’s trip to Old Trafford.

Odegaard, who missed three months of this season with an ankle injury picked up in September, has had a difficult campaign.

Before scoring twice against PSV, he had found the net just three times this season and the Gunners captain admits that is not up to his high standards.

“To be honest, I’m very used to people speaking about me, judging my performances and I think I do that myself,” said Odegaard.

“I’m harder on myself and I know that I have not been good enough, especially in front of goal, so that’s normal.

“I work hard every day to improve it and I know I have the ability and the talent to do it. PSV Eindhoven was good and hopefully now I can do more towards the end of the season.

“There’s always more to play for at the end of the season, but every game in this league is so important from the start to the end.

“Hopefully we can - like last year - hit the top form towards the end and then we’ll see where that takes us in the league and also in the Champions League.”

Arsenal have a tall order catching Liverpool, who before this weekend were 13 points clear of them at the top of the Premier League.

Mikel Arteta’s side do have a game in hand, though, and Odegaard has vowed that they will not throw in the towel.

“We’ll fight until the end,” he said. “That’s the mindset of everyone.

“We’ve been fighting three years in a row for the title and you go a couple of years back then we were leading with a lot of points and then we finished second.

“It shows that everything is possible and the main thing is to keep going, keep working hard and day-by-day get better in the games and then we’ll see.

“We have to do our job, we can only focus on ourselves, we can only win our games and we’ll see what happens.

“We’ve put ourselves in a difficult position at the moment but we have to keep going, we have to try to win every time we play and then we’ll see what happens with Liverpool.”

Manchester United, in contrast to Arsenal, have had a miserable season and are closer to the relegation places than the title race.

Odegaard, however, has warned his team-mates about underestimating Ruben Amorim’s side after they dumped them out of the FA Cup in January.

“It’s always tough when you play them,” he said. “I don’t think they are where they want to be in the table but we know the quality they have when they play at their best.

“They have a lot of individual quality and when they play as a team, it’s challenging to play them.

“It’s a big challenge for us and we have to take the good feelings now from this game [against PSV] and what we did - especially going forward - into the next game and hopefully do more of that.

“But we go there to win and, yeah, we’re Arsenal and we’re not scared. We will go there to win the game.”

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