Odegaard will lookk at the vide of this game (as will Arteta, and the coaches). He will see where he went wrong. Also, Rice was yelling at him to 'think' and will also have talked to him already. Rice is the unofficial captain on the pitch. The players will figure it out, especially Odegaard is my guess. He knows he hasn't been playing as well as he did a while back. He's not stupid. The pace of the attack was faster under Eze as the 10. We have a run of a few fairly easy games (compared to the last 4 or 5) for them to work out and not (hopefully) cost us.
Brother, with all due respect, I have seen so many shit strikers at this club it don't take long for me to recognize one. Yung Gyok is cheeks. Get him outta here.
He had the worst "highlight" video I ever have seen. I'm not surprised. I never understood the hype, but I hadn't watched him play live, so I tried to be open-minded. I like him as a person though (not that I really know him) and like that he really wanted to be here, but he lacks quality. When people start talking about how your #9 "occupies defenders" and "works hard," you know that you're in trouble. I also don't understand why we went for a traditional #9 when it's obvious to me that we play better with a false 9, but that's a discussion for another day.
Guys, Odegaard >>> Eze centrally. He's the only creative midfielder we have. Give him a few games to get up to speed. His season has been very stop-start so far.
I don’t know if it was hype or that we needed a different option I feel better about Gyokeres than Sesko in that the club didn’t give him a crazy outlay. I still think we go for someone like Julien Alvarez next summer.
I can definitely see a strong argument against Gyokeres. I was fine with his effort and what he tried to until the Villa match. He was always a bit of a 18 yard box bully but he was doing the fall over thing and it was embarrassing. I hope Arteta has a talk with him about it. His strength and value to the attack in addition to scoring (which hasn't been much as we like) is to keep the center backs occupied. Its to force them to double on him to create space elsewhere. Hoping he plays at Brugge to redeem himself, hopefully get some goals to get his confidence up. Also play against Wolves which should be easier to score against them than most.
Gyokores is a one trick pony, we need a versatile guy. The only players that currently fit what we do are Haaland, Alvarez, or Kane at the top level. Guys who can grow into it, I'm sure exist I just don't know them.
https://www.cannonstats.com/p/were-odegaard-and-zubimendi-redundant "There are a few situations where I think you could say that Odegaard is coming and takes the ball off of a player that maybe you would think he doesn’t have to, but this much more the exception than the rule in my opinion."
Listening to Handbrake Off pod and Adrian Clarke's & Amy Lawrence's takes on this game... Amy shared a (somewhat simplistic but hard to refute) comment she'd heard: that when our offense was at its peak of decimation earlier in the season, our defense stepped up and compensated, but Saturday when our central defense was at (peak?) decimation, our attack didn't return the favor. Adrian, who's not a half-bad analyst and watched this game twice, said we should've played more defensively but instead our attacking emphasis and our general openness just played into their hands. Also, he said he didn't think fatigue was a primary factor, but rather the tactical plan. So I guess Amy kinda puts the blame on the players, whereas Adrian puts it on the manager. Personally, I generally hate setting up conservatively, and believe in going for goals... multiples... unless maybe we're already up by 2 or 3. So, if Adrian's take is correct, I'm OK with the associated risk Mikel took.
Scoring one goal with the midfielders and forward line we had is just simply not enough to beat Villa away
I heard recently he had another setback so now they're hoping for end of year, but that sounded a bit optimistic. Got the impression he's not even training with the team yet.
https://kennysproty.com.ng/2025/12/...ls-what-martin-odegaard-told-him-after-shout/ Odegaard made no attempt to win the ball, which didn’t go down well with Rice. The Arsenal midfielder was furious with his skipper, shouting and throwing his arms in the air before racing after the ball.
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/declan-rice-martin-odegaard-arsenal-33015186 Declan Rice was furious with Martin Odegaard after he pulled out of a fifty-fifty in the dying embers of stoppage time.
For what we paid for Havertz and what we pay him in wages (I think 280k a week) we should have done so much better. My thoughts at the time was we would never get our money's worth but if he can score important goals (opening goal, tying goal or the winner) then I will be okay. We won't get our money's worth from Gyokeres either but if he scores the same important goals, it will be enough. I'd love to go in for Sesko in a year or two if Man Utd implode. Jesus will be gone either in January or the summer. The type of striker we should get is a tricky one.
Hmm. I definitely missed this at the time. Wonder if most fans would say that too? Decks definitely has reason to be pissed, but at the same time, this strikes me as a bit of anti-Odegaard, clickbaity, mountain-out-of-molehill, monday-morning-quarterbacking type of thing. But thanks for sharing nonetheless.
The irony is that the same shit Rice was annoyed with Odegaard about he did, them dudes were mimicking the spiderman meme in real time on that last play.
you gotta coach up players and the player has to be willing to improve or be a player who wants to improve