Tag Archives: Martin Odegaard

About that Özil-Ødegaard Oxymoron…

14 Replies

Okay, so maybe there isn’t an oxymoron, but, then again, maybe there is. Contemplate that. In either case, I do enjoy the alliteration. With Özil and Ødegaard, we’ve had two of the best chance-creators we’ve had since the Fabregas era, maybe even the Bergkamp era. The comparisons go beyond the diacritics (those little extra marks on the letter O, for the unwashed Philistines among us…). Pedantics aside, let’s delve a little deeper into this dilemma (again with the alliteration…).

Continue reading →

Let’s take a cold, hard look in the mirror here…

15 Replies

First off, I apologise to my handful of loyal followers that I’ve not posted in several days. Between the despair inspired by two shocking losses and the time I’ve spent among friends and family during the holiday season, it’s been hard to post (read: I usually post late in the evening, and I’ve been a bit too soused of late). That said, I’m finally back at the wheel, for good or evil. We have some soul-searching to do.

Continue reading →

Is there anything Ødegaard can’t do?

2 Replies
Scores in blue are from sofascore.

He scores. He creates. He presses. He shoves teammates over to the away end to receive their ovations and hear their names chanted and sung to the heavens. Our captain, Martin Ødegaard, might soon wrest the title of “best Prem midfielder” away from the injured and ageing Kevin De Bruyne. He came away from the Bournemouth match with a goal, an assist, a penalty won, and 55.3% of the MOTM votes in our post-match poll. Not too shabby. Somehow, incredibly, considering how good he really is, there’s a sense that he’s only going to continue to get better. Just how did we hoodwink Real Madrid into selling him for just £35m?

Continue reading →

Ødegaard is our MOTM after trouncing PSV!

Leave a reply

It’s not enough that a player scores what turns out to be the match-winning goal, assists the goal that puts the match on ice, and fails to win MOTM, but Martin Ødegaard’s all-around maestro-esque performance managed to attract 67.3% of the votes while Saka could only garner 11.4%. It’s a testament to the Norwegian’s preternatural talent and leadership but may also reflect the fact that he played the full match. It feels like we were a bit harsh on Havertz; he performed better than White, and Raya didn’t have much to do. It might be that Havertz is going to have score some goals. His all-around effort, if not on Ødegaard’s level, is still not attracting the praise it deserves. Let’s hope he picks the NLD for his breakthrough. For now, though, enjoy the graphic results!

Take that, Yanited! Arsenal pulled off an almost-perfect performance!

2 Replies

By perfect, I refer not to the quality of our play but to the dramatic elements of it. Conceding against the run of play only to equalise 35 seconds later, letting Garnacho through on goal only to have it disallowed by his being offside at the molecular level, Rice scoring the dramatic winner and Jesus adding some sheen? Hollywood would have a hard time penning a more-perfect script.

Continue reading →