Chelsea put on their best Tottenham impression, conceding three goals in just over half an hour as Arsenal waltzed away to do the double over Chelsea for the second time in three years. Captain Martin Ødegaard and his loyal sidekick connected twice with the former captain finding the current one with two very similar passes into the box to Ødegaard, who cleverly eluded his (admittedly clueless) marks. Just like that, we’re back on top, there this time to say (no, not really).
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I tried to warn us. Southampton may be bottom of the league, but they’re a bogey team at the worst of times. When we went down 0-2 and again 1-3, too many of us gave in, threw in the towel, resorted to the old loser mentality of the last decade or so when fourth place and an occasional FA Cup were enough to sustain us. Thin gruel, that, and it’s understandable to a degree that such a mentality is hard to shake. Old habits die hard, but this is one that we have to put to the sword and fast. Too many of us left the stadium early. Too many of us started tweeting out absolute bollocks. Too many of us don’t get what it means to support this club.
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Having scored 28 Prem goals with ten matches to play, including four Prem hat tricks one another in the FA Cup, it’s hard to imagine that anyone has any chance of snatching this prize away from the 22 year old. He’s scorched opponents left and right…and yet, there’s something just a bit off about Haaland. For as devastating as he’s been, one can make a case that a significant part of his success is the excellence of his supporting cast, the sheer dominance of Man City over just about everyone else in the league.
Continue readingSpain and Man City defensive midfielder Rodri did his level best on Saturday to join the likes of Ryan Shawcross, Dan Smith, and Martin Taylor during Spain’s match against Norway in Euro qualifiers, going in with a reckless, studs-first tackle on Norway and Arsenal midfielder Martin Ødegaard. It was, to be honest—and regular readers will know that I’m averse to hyperbole—disgusting. Ødegaard had planted his right foot and had taken the shot with his left. Rodri, late to close down, slid in from Ødegaard’s right (from his planted foot) and scythed the Norwegian down in a move that reverberated down through the years.
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Okay, okay, so to be clear, I should have gone with “currently” instead of “now”. “Now” suggests a permanent status, a sense that Ødegaard has surpassed De Bruyne once and for all and has assumed the mantle of Best Midfielder in the Prem (although it is true that he and not De Bruyne took home Football London’s Premier League Player of the Year award, something for which De Bruyne isn’t even good enough to be eligible for…or something. I can’t be bothered to look these things up. De Bruyne is far away from even meeting the minimum qualifications, and that alone tells you all you need to know about who’s best. On a more-serious note, let’s be clear: I’m not here to somehow prove that Ødegaard is actually better than De Bruyne. However, the fact that a reasonable comparison can be made that Ødegaard at age 23 is about as good as one can get without yet matching De Bruyne at age 31.
I’m not the only one making bold claims. That doesn’t make me right; it just means I’m not alone. No less an authority than Jamie Redknapp has weighed in:
Right now, Ødegaard is the number one [midfielder in the Premier League].Normally you’d say De Bruyne is the best midfield player, not just in the Premier League but in the world. Something isn’t quite right, he’s not playing as many games as he’d like. But Ødegaard does this thing which all great players possess: it’s like time stands still when he has the ball. The calmness he possesses. He’s scored four or five goals like he did against Fulham, with that left foot. He’s the captain, he’s the leader. He’s leading that team. When he hasn’t got the ball he goes and presses it and it catches.
There you have it, folks. If you can’t trust Redknapp, whom you can trust? More to the point, look back at the graphic up there. They have the same goal contributions (16). What’s more, Ødegaard has more successful dribbles despite facing more pressure than De Bruyne. Sky Sports has a more-detailed statistical breakdown that I’m borrowing from here. Ødegaard’s been pressured 510 times to De Bruyne’s 336.He’s dealt with defenders closer than two metres 466 times to de Bruyne’s 248. Despite facing more pressure more often, Ødegaard completes passes at a higher rate (82.4% to 74.2%) although this does reflect that de Bruyne sends in more crosses and attempts longer passes on the whole, both of which are likely to cut into that accuracy.
Before I get bogged down into that stat-by-stat rundown, though, I want to return to the bigger picture. De Bruyne has spent most of his time in the Prem playing for and acting as the lynchpin for one of the biggest juggernauts in history. He’s an immense part of why they’ve been so good; I’m not trying to take anything away from him. He might very well be my favorite non-Arsenal player. All I’m saying is that one can amass certain statistics passing to the likes of Sergio Aguero or, more recently, Erling Haaland. Ødegaard has faced the somewhat more-difficult task of coaxing goals out of Eddie Nketiah, Alexandre Lacazette, and late-stage, sulky Aubameyang.
The gap between Ødegaard and De Bruyne is still vast. Ødegaard is starting to narrow that gap, though. Aged just 23, he’s only just now starting to plumb the depths of his considerable talent as are so many of the teammates he depends on. De Bruyne is much closer to the end of his career, making an already-imperfect competition even less precise. Different positions, roles, squads, ages…What’s perhaps more clear is that we have on our hands a preternatural talent. I daresay we may soon have the most compleat & complete creative midfielder we’ve had since the great, the legendary, the magnificent Dennis Bergkamp. I normally shy away from breathless hyperbole, but this is one of those rare instances when such a comparison may sustain itself very well in the long run.