Martin Ødegaard is relishing the “heat” of Arsenal’s rivalry with Manchester City and is ready to put his friendship with Erling Haaland to one side when the teams meet on Sunday.
Ødegaard was injured for the bad-tempered 2-2 draw at City in September when Haaland, his Norway teammate, confronted Mikel Arteta at the final whistle and told the Arsenal manager to “stay humble”. Haaland scored the first goal but City needed a late John Stones strike to rescue a point against a team they have not defeated in their past four meetings. Arsenal have finished as runners-up to City in the past two seasons and Ødegaard is expecting an extra edge to proceedings.
“It is normal when you play these big games that there is a big rivalry,” he said. “You are competing and you want to be the best. So that’s how it should be and there should be a little bit of heat sometimes. But then I think a lot of the players know each other from the national team – England, Brazil, me with Erling – so on the pitch and off the pitch it is a bit different. When we are on the pitch, then it’s a good battle.”
Ødegaard, asked whether he had been surprised by Haaland’s outburst towards Arteta, said: “In football, games like this, the emotions are so high and the adrenaline is there and everything. So that’s something that can happen on the pitch and then when you walk off the pitch, then you are done with it. It is not something I think too much about. We are good friends. Him and a few of the other boys from the national team, we have a little group chat, so we stay in touch there and we speak every now and then. To be fair, not about football, just about random things. We haven’t spoken about the game, but he is a good friend.”
Arsenal’s hopes of signing the Norway Under-21 midfielder Sverre Nypan in this window appear to be over after he decided to stay at Rosenborg until the summer. The 18-year-old has been compared to Ødegaard and also held talks with City’s sister club Girona and Aston Villa this week but has opted to defer a decision on his future. Arsenal are believed to be in talks with his representatives over a potential summer move.
Creative responsibility will continue to fall on Ødegaard, who admitted his return of only one Premier League goal this season “hasn’t been good enough”. David Raya is a doubt to face City owing to a muscular injury that meant the goalkeeper sat out the victory over Girona that secured qualification for the last 16 of the Champions League.
Arsenal are set to head for a warm-weather training camp in Dubai after the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle on Wednesday, and Ødegaard is hoping they can replicate their brilliant form of the second half of last season, when they dropped only five points from their last 18 matches.
“We’re in a good position and we have to remember that,” he said. “But I feel like we have another gear to hit and it was the same last year. We really hit top form towards the end of the season. Hopefully we can do that again.”
Ødegaard added: “When you’ve been so close, you get even more hungry, you get even more determination to do it, especially last year when we were there on the last day and really could feel it was that close. I feel the whole squad is ready now to push for it.
“I have been dreaming about this since I was a young kid. To win one of the big trophies and especially the Premier League was always something special growing up so this would be the biggest dream. It’s what we work for every day and I think it’s important to stay in the moment and not look too far ahead. Just focus on the day by day and keep going and in the end hopefully we will be rewarded.”
