Why Ødegaard's goal rush is sustainable

The Norwegian has exploded and made himself the key to the title race

I don’t want to linger there, as it was a miserable time for Arsenal fans and for the entire world, but let’s briefly hop back to December 2020, around a year into Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal reign.

“We haven’t had any goals from midfield, it’s not something that has happened this year,” he said with the team 14th in the Premier League having scored 10 goals in as many games.

“It’s necessary. Big teams need big players in midfield who score goals. They need central defenders who score goals from set pieces to add to that. If you start to lose those margins, you start to lose points, you start to be away from the top teams.”

Needless to say, Arteta’s side were miles from the top teams back then. A few weeks later, Martin Ødegaard arrived on loan but he was hardly prolific, scoring once in 14 league games before the end of the 2020-21 season.

The Norwegian was made a permanent Arsenal player in the summer of 2021 and marked last season, his first full campaign with the club, with seven goals in 36 Premier League appearances. It still wasn’t enough for the boss.

“To be with the top teams this season you need to score 90 to 100 goals at least,” he said in March. “Somehow you need those goals in the team. Don’t ask me how, but you need them.”

Arteta is never satisfied and, a matter of weeks ago, was saying Arsenal have “looked at … how many times (Granit Xhaka) is arriving in the box, and the moment he is arriving in the box. The kind of delivery he gets when he is in those positions. He could have had much better service on many occasions when he was in those positions. But certainly to maintain our level we need goals from midfield and that is a big target for us."

A big target indeed. Xhaka has helped with three so far this season and could easily have had more if he was just a little quicker to sort his feet, as fans saw at Craven Cottage on Sunday. The Swiss has now had 83 touches in the opposition area this season having had 93 in the previous five Premier League campaigns combined. It’s clear that Arteta has prioritised getting Xhaka as well as Ødegaard into areas where they can have more of an influence on the side’s goal threat and it is paying off in the form of a title challenge that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Teams who win the league nowadays do need plenty of goals from midfield, and that means midfielders who chip in consistently. Arteta’s Arsenal are often talked about in terms of how they look and act like Guardiola’s Manchester City but something that isn’t talked about enough is how many goals City score from midfield. Here’s a look at regular midfield contributors from the last few title winners.

• Man City 2017-18: D. Silva (9), De Bruyne (8)

• Man City 2018-19: B. Silva (7), D. Silva (6)

• Liverpool 2019-20: Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wijnaldum, Henderson (4 each)

• Man City 2020-21: Gündogan (13 - top scorer), De Bruyne (6)

• Man City 2021-22: De Bruyne (15 - top scorer), B. Silva (8), Gündogan (8), Rodri (7)

Indeed, in each of the last two Premier League seasons, City’s top scorer has come from midfield. You can see why they bought Erling Haaland but you can also see how they won titles without him. Now Arsenal are following the same path.